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.

We are thrilled to be growing grain again, and excited that the 2011 wheat-growing season is well underway. Despite an unusually cool, wet spring, this year’s wheat crop was planted on time and is developing well.

Now, we invite you to join the Urban Grains CSA, and receive a delicious share of local, freshly-milled, whole grain wheat flour.

Here’s how it works: Urban Grains CSA members pay up front to receive four 5kg bags of whole grain flour, milled at Anita’s Organic Grain & Flour Mill in Chilliwack from grain grown at Cedar Isle Farm in Agassiz. This 100-mile whole grain flour is milled from the entire wheat kernel. Unlike other flours, it contains all of the nutritious germ and all of the bran of the whole grain. This year, CSA members can expect to receive flour from hard red spring wheat (suitable for bread and other baking) and soft white spring wheat (for pastry, cookies and other baking). Members are also invited to view their grain growing in the field during the popular, children-friendly farm visit … on a date in August, soon to be announced. After the harvest, members pick up their share of flour at a central Vancouver location(s) that will be announced well in advance.

We hope you will join Urban Grains CSA to support locally-grown grain and benefit from the fresh, healthy flour from the 2011 harvest. But please don’t delay. Shares normally sell out quickly.

On the registration form (download form here) you will see further details and instructions for payment. Urban Grains CSA shares are $95.00 per share. There are three options for payment - (1) cheque or money order, made out to ; or (2) direct deposit to our Vancity bank account (branch #31; account 151951; Independent Business Account) from any Vancity branch in your neighbourhood (see form for confirmation details) or (3) direct transfer from your Vancity account to ours.

Choose whichever is easiest for you. If you choose to make your payment via Vancity - online or in a branch - please be sure to note your name with the transaction and attach the details to your registration form. This helps us to match your registration payment to our deposit records.

Then simply forward your completed registration form (download form here) with payment or receipt/confirmation to “Urban Grains CSA, Cedar Isle Farm”, at the address noted on the form. Shares will be available until we fill all 250 of this season’s spots. We will send a confirmation email to alert you that your registration has reached us.

We hope you will become a member of Urban Grains CSA.

Here’s to another great Urban Grains CSA season! Stay tuned to our website as we share news of the season at the farm and upcoming events.

Happy Spring! The 2011 Urban Grains season has begun, and we are thrilled to be growing grain again and back in touch with our shareholders.

As you read this, the tiny wheat seedlings you see pictured below are storing up energy from the (much-awaited!) sun, packing it away and growing, growing, growing.

Sign-ups for this year’s membership have also begun. Here’s where we are at in the process of offering shares:

- If you were a shareholder last year… 2010 shareholders were first in line for this year’s shares, and completed applications have been flowing in. Thank you to all of you who have re-joined for 2011! If you haven’t sent your application yet, please do so right away, as shares are now being offered to people on last year’s waiting list, and will soon be opened to the general public. We wouldn’t want any disappointed existing members.

- If you are on the waiting list… Congratulations! Shares are now open for you, and we’d like to welcome you to Urban Grains. Please complete the application form that will be emailed to you and send it back to the farm as soon as possible.

- Are you considering joining Urban Grains for the first time? Thank you for your interest – we’d love to have you! After people on last year’s waiting list have had an opportunity to join, any remaining 2011 Urban Grains shares will be offered to you and other new prospective members. Please email to indicate your interest urbangrains@gmail.com and we’ll put you on the 2011 waiting list and get back to you soon.

Thanks to everyone who has registered for this coming season’s harvest - we are already looking forward to the fall, and the bounty we’ll share.

Here’s to another great season,
The Urban Grains Team

To all of our members: thank you for your support - each and every one of you!

We are pleased to announce that the second and final weekend of Urban Grains distribution is now complete. Hopefully, many of you have already dived right in to baking and cooking with your bounty! Thank you for joining us this year, thank you for following along during the season, and thank you for putting in your time to pick up shares.

And while we’re at it, a big thanks to NOWBC for hosting us. And, of course, we really cannot give enough thanks to our ‘grower family’, Jim and Diane and their children, for joining us on Saturday afternoon and bringing us full circle on the grain experience - from seeding, to growing, to milling and, finally, to distribution.

Over the coming weeks we will be updating the blog with stories, recipes and “From the Farm” photos and updates - so stay tuned.

**For those of you we missed seeing this weekend, please check your email for information regarding your share and pick-up opportunities.

Thanks again!

Your Urban Grains Team

This is the exciting part, folks! Over the past weekend more than half of our 2010 shares were picked up by members at our east Vancouver distribution spot. We hope that some of you have already enjoyed a batch of rolls or pumpkin pie made with this year’s Urban Grains bounty.

The fun continues this coming weekend, which will be the final chance for members to pick up shares.

Final distribution times: Friday Oct. 15, 4-8pm and Saturday Oct. 16, 10-4pm. (Check our previous email announcement for location details.)

As always, contact us if needed at urbangrains@ffcf.bc.ca

2009 CSA members at last year’s farm visit

A reminder to all our 2010 members - this Sunday, August 8th, is our visit to Cedar Isle Farm. So far we have over 75 members signed up, and we’d love to see more of you there!

Meet at the farm at 11:30am with a picnic lunch, blanket, and sturdy shoes. Remember water if it’s hot out! We’ll be touring the fields and checking in on our grain in its late summer state. Kids and pets are welcome! This year we’ll also be joined by John MacKenzie from Anita’s Mill, a frog habitat expert from the nearby slough, and a wireworm researcher, so you can depend on there being plenty of interesting people to chat with.

All members should have received an email containing driving directions. Remember to use our carpooling post to coordinate rides and reduce the number of cars we put onto the road.

Please RSVP to urbangrains@ffcf.bc.ca if you will be joining us!

Any questions can also be directed to urbangrains@ffcf.bc.ca

The second batch of share offers just went out to 150 lucky folks! Thanks to all of last year’s members who are returning for 2010.