Urban Grains

The soft white spring wheat flourished during a wonderful summer and was harvested in late August. Hannah operates the combine beside a field of golden straw from newly-harvested oats.

 Two years ago, the Gentry family kindly donated a combine that had been parked for 20 years to Urban Grains CSA.  Agassiz-based  artist Mike Edwards (http://mikeedwardsart.com) spent many hours getting it back into working condition, and here it is – at long last – working  in a field of hard red spring wheat.  It’s an excellent machine, but some glitches persisted throughout the harvest, bringing new surprises each day.  (As a result, we regret that despite our initial plans, this harvest season wasn’t the proper (ahem) atmosphere for visitors…)  We’re confident that it’ll work like new next year (knock on wood)!

A warm greeting to all our Urban Grains CSA members and friends from Cedar Isle Farm! We hope you have enjoyed a winter and spring of great baking since we were last in touch.

After two uncertain growing seasons, we are pleased to report that this season is looking a lot more promising so far. We seeded both hard red spring wheat and soft white spring wheat in that lovely stretch of warm spring weather and the crops are growing well. So now we are able to offer CSA shares for sale to our existing and new members.

A good catch of hard red spring wheat

Wheat seedlings and Mt. Cheam

The share offer will be very similar to last year. If you would like to be part of our CSA, you register and pay for your share this spring and in the fall you will be able to pick up your share of the harvest from a central location in Vancouver.

Again, we will have two types of wheat available for members. The hard red spring wheat has a higher gluten content and can be used for making bread. We call this wheat “bread wheat” although it can be used in other baking as well. The soft white spring wheat has a lower gluten content and is less suitable for bread making, but has a lovely flavour and is great for pastry and pancakes, muffins, cookies — all your favourite baking recipes. This wheat is commonly called “pastry wheat”.

If you choose to purchase a 20kg share of wheat, it will be packaged in four 5kg bags. Again, you can select either bread wheat, pastry wheat or a combination of both. Also, you can have your wheat milled into whole grain flour or unmilled as kernels so that you can sprout it or mill it at home. Simply indicate on the registration form how you would like to receive your wheat and we’ll do our best to meet your request.

The cost of a share is $95 and to place your order, please download and print this registration form, fill it in and mail it, with your cheque, to:

Urban Grains CSA
Cedar Isle Farm
3270 Chaplin Road,
Agassiz, B.C.
V0M 1A2

Click here to download the registration form

We would like to invite all our 2013 shareholders to visit us at the farm this summer and see the crops in the ground. We’ll set a date for this farm visit as soon as the membership list is up and running but it will likely be in late July. We have so enjoyed seeing our members in the past and look forward to meeting you again this year.

With very best wishes from us all in Urban Grains,

Jim Grieshaber-Otto and Diane Exley at Cedar Isle Farm

A new season is underway and we send greetings from Cedar Isle Farm in Agassiz.

We thank each of you for your patience and continued interest in Urban Grains CSA. It was great to hear from those of you who emailed us. We are pleased to provide a short update on the season so far.

Once again this year, we planted the wheat fields in the sunny days of April. Since then, however, the weather has been cool and wet, creating some challenges for the growing crops.
While we remain confident that the weather will eventually turn more favourable, we’ve decided to delay the share offer until harvest. Once the grain is safely in the bin and we know how much is available, we’ll give you a chance to buy a share. In the meantime, we’ll keep working hard and try to keep you informed as the season progresses.

Thanks to everyone who has asked about shares for 2012. We really appreciate your interest in local, organic grain and are sorry it has taken us so long to decide how to handle this soggy season.

We look forward to contacting you all in early September … with news of a good harvest!
All the best for a happy summer,
Jim and Diane
Cedar Isle Farm

What a delight it was to welcome Urban Grain members to Cedar Isle Farm on August 21st. We’d like to thank everyone who journeyed out to Agassiz and shared their enthusiasm for local grain. Here are a few of Yoshi’s photos to remember the day. Stay tuned for news of the harvest soon!

After a cool, wet spring, the wheat is now maturing fast.

Members hand-threshed some heritage wheat, and viewed one of the cleaning machines separate the wheat from the chaff.

During the hay ride, members checked the different varieties of wheat.

Jeff was the lucky winner of a spectacular basket of specialty flours kindly donated by Anita’s Organic Mill, where Urban Grains CSA flour is milled.

A local bear and cub made a special guest appearance during the tour.

Thanks to Yoshi Sugiyama for all the photos!

Greetings Urban Grains CSA Members!

We have a new date for the Urban Grains CSA Farm Visit and Grain Tour… Sunday, August 21st. Again, we apologize for having to postpone this event, and really hope you can attend on the 21st.  Looking forward to seeing you!

We cordially invite you to join us for a visit to Cedar Isle Farm, hosted by Jim, Diane and their children. The main attractions are, of course, the grain plantings that are working hard this year to outgrow the weeds and mature as quickly as possible. You’ll have a chance to see the fields before the grain is harvested.

After a tour of the farm, we’ll sit down for a picnic lunch (please bring your own) and enjoy the scenery.

Driving out to Cedar Isle takes about an hour and a half if you’re coming from Vancouver centre, so please budget your morning accordingly.

When: Sunday August 21st – meet at the farm at 10:30am

Where: Cedar Isle Farm in Agassiz, B.C. (directions will be emailed to you when you RSVP)

What to bring: A picnic meal for you and your guests, water if it’s hot, a blanket for sitting on and reasonable shoes for field-walking, hat for sun etc.

How to get there: Group transportation will not be provided, but we strongly encourage car-pooling as much as possible to lessen the environmental impact of the trip, and to make sure everyone can find a space to park. We have set up a blog post for the purpose of matching up folks who need rides with drivers who have space in their car. In case you’re hesitant to provide personal information, the post is password protected, so it will only be visible to the Urban Grains community. Details are provided in an email sent to all members.

Please RSVP if you’ll be joining in and tell us how many people will be in your party. (Feel free to bring your families along, or the person who’s splitting your share, but please refrain from bringing too many guests. We will be a large enough group descending on the farm!)
We look forward to seeing you there!

– The Urban Grains Team

The Farm Visit and Grain Tour – originally scheduled for this Saturday, August 6^th – has been postponed due to a family health issue.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience the change causes and greatly appreciate your understanding.

We’re looking forward to seeing you and really hope that you can make it on a new date, which will be announced soon.

Thank you, and best wishes from

Jim, Diane and the family and the Urban Grains CSA team.

Green, green, green. This is what Cedar Isle looks like now.