Thursday is the day Rogue Produce makes stops around the valley to pick up orders from your favorite local farms and vendors to deliver to you fresh on Fridays. Follow us in this article through our Thursday journey to learn about the growers and producers in our community that grow and create the products you love to enjoy!
The first stop of the day is the Grower’s Market at Hawthorne Park, in Medford, where we pick up freshly harvested fruits, veggies and herbs from Victory Garden, based out of Rogue River. Victory Garden is one of the first farms every year to provide fresh herbs like oregano, dill, cilantro, and others. They also grow unique crops such as Tokyo cabbage, Chinese celery, sorrel, and other items that you can’t typically get at your local grocery store.
We also stop by Whistling Duck Farm, a long-time grower in the Applegate Valley. The owner, Mary, provides a huge selection of fresh produce, including early spinach and lettuce mixes. Whistling Duck has recently developed new lines of spices, fermented products, and other value-added items created using many of the crops they grow on their farm.
We stop by Intergalactic Acres, also from the Applegate Valley. Matty is the owner, and he’s a relatively new grower at the Market, being coached by another Applegate Valley grower, Chris Jaggar of Blue Fox Farm. Matty’s produce is impressive, his crops are abundant, and his logo is awesome!
While we’re at the market we also grab bags of herbal teas from Mystic Valley Farm. Mystic valley has tea shop locations in both Rogue River and Grants Pass, which are both drop sites where we deliver to customers in those areas. The Rogue River drop site is active, and you can sign up now for the drop site coming soon in Grants Pass! Mystic Valley’s teas are predominantly sourced from their own farm.
Next, we say hello to Becca of Nymph and Woodsman. Becca and her husband, Seth, create small batch herbal tinctures, salves and other wellness products from plants they wildcraft and cultivate on their own community land in the Little Applegate Valley.
We need to get to our next vendor early to avoid long lines, because everyone is looking for a fresh baked loaf of bread from Rise Up! Bakery, also located in the Little Applegate Valley. Rise Up! has a fine selection of sourdough breads and utilizes organic and locally grown ancient grains in some of their recipes.
Other stops at the market include Louis of Mushrooms All Year, who provides us with a wide selection of fresh mushrooms; Kimbra of Kimbra’s K9 Crunchies sells us gluten free doggie treats; Mama Terra Micro Creamery, makes a wonderful selection of goat chevre; and Joey of Joey’s Hot Sauce creates his own award-winning hot sauces and hot honey.
Indeed, we visit a lot of farmers and producers at the Grower’s Market, but the first thing we do when we arrive is set out our large bins for Community Compost. The Medford Grower’s Market serves as a drop site for residents in the area to drop off household veggie scraps. At the conclusion of the Market, we stop by again to collect the scraps and take them to local farms to be turned into compost or fed to livestock. We provide the same service at the Tuesday Grower’s Market in Ashland.
The market offers us the opportunity every week to meet local growers and hear from them directly about what they’re growing, get our eyes on new crops, and make plans for our upcoming order and delivery cycle. It’s fun work!
After visiting the market in Medford, we head to Ashland to visit Maria and Sara (and crew) at Higher Power Raw Foods to pick up nuts, seeds, trail mixes, granolas, crackers, and other gluten free raw goodies. We then head to Little Shop of Bagels to pick up organic bagels and yummy varieties of cream cheese.
Ashland is also home to Wilderness Poets, where we get our delicious organic nut butters, goji berries (and other superfoods), trail mixes, hemp powder, cacao nibs, matcha, and other amazing products. And, if we need to replenish our stock of organic kraut, we stop by Pickled Planet.
Ashland is home to some amazing bakeries we visit on Thursday. Vida Bakery is the creator of two of my personal favorites, Brazilian Carrot Cake and Dark Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. All of Vida’s baked goods are gluten free, and they are famous for their Life Changing Bread, a flourless, hearty loaf with tons of flavor.
Another bakery we visit in Ashland is the Mix Bakeshop. Mix serves Portland’s finest Stumptown Coffee and makes their own ice cream. Mix also bakes two of the most delicious organic bread loaves, the Greek Olive Loaf and their standard Country Loaf.
After finishing pick-ups in Ashland we may stop by Joyluck Farm, in Talent, for a cubic foot bag of compost if we receive any orders for these in a particular week. Joyluck is one of the farms we donate veggie scraps to through our Community Compost program. Aluna, the owner, has worked over the last several years to produce large amounts of rich compost mixing veggie scraps with other materials like horse manure from nearby stables, leaves, and others. And yes, finished compost is another item from local farms that you can purchase at the Rogue Produce Online Farmer’s Market.
The journey continues to Phoenix, where we make a weekly visit to The Oregon Cheese Cave. There is usually a bit of lively conversation with the owner, Melodie, as we pick up our orders of her fine selection of cheeses. The latest additions from Melodie are two of her bestsellers, the Cotswold Double Gloucester and the El Tablao Manchego.
Phoenix is where we visit another fine gluten free bakery, Organicos. One of our best sellers is their gluten free pizza crust, and we also list a variety of their gluten free loaves, hot dog and sandwich buns.
The next stop in the journey takes us a bit further north to Rusted Gate Farm, in Central Point. Here we pick up cuts of grass-fed angus and wagyu beef, including ground, steaks, roasts, briskets, and more.
We conclude the produce foraging journey with a final stop at our storage and bundling location at Fry Family Farm in Medford. We rent space in their walk-in refrigerator, and warehouse space for freezer storage and a bundling area. We unload our orders and confirm the arrival of produce from other vendors that deliver to Fry Farm directly.
Among these vendors that deliver to Fry Farm are Terra Sol Organics, a producer of many varieties of scrumptious microgreens. Cindy Yi, a producer in Grants Pass, delivers Korean Kimchi. Victoria of Yes! Bakery delivers gluten free sourdough breads.
While one of us is picking up from the local vendors mentioned so far, another makes pick-ups on her way to town from Rogue River. She stops by Pennington Farms in the Applegate Valley for their famous 1 lb. bags of frozen berries grown on their farm. We also stock up on a wide variety of jams that Pennington makes out of their berries.
The next stop is a local company that has gained notoriety across the globe for their high-quality organic cow cheese, the Rogue Creamery. Rogue Produce sells the creamery’s most popular cheddars and blue cheeses, including their award winning, Rogue River Blue.
The final delivery to Fry Farm on Thursday comes from Organically Grown Company, or “OGC.” Based in Eugune, OGC is an organic distributor that supplies us with fresh organic produce that is not available locally, including items such as avocados, citrus, and other produce that isn’t in season in our area (or isn’t grown locally at all).
The produce we receive from OGC is all certified organic, and OGC emphasizes purchasing from small family farms (and as much as possible from the northwest) like the ones we are committed to supporting locally.
Most everything is stocked at Fry Farm on Thursday for our Friday bundling and delivery adventure (gameday), except for what arrives on Friday morning, most notably the fresh baked bread and pastries from Coquette Bakery, located just down the road from Fry Farm in Central Point. In tow with our bread order from Coquette is fresh roasted organic coffee from Hilltop Coffee, a roaster also located in Central Point.
The other farm I can’t forget to mention is the one my wife, Jennifer, started last year – True Love Farm and Bakery! Jennifer harvests produce, bakes healthy goodies, and prepares her delicious chai blends on Thursdays and we bring them to Fry Farm early on Friday morning for bundling and delivery. However, there’s another stop or two on the way to Fry Farm!
Farm & Flour is a small-batch bake stand in Jacksonville. We’ve spoken with the owner, Melanie, and she’s excited to provide us with her organic Classic Sourdough Loaf. We love to find vendors such as Melanie so that we can offer you the hidden artisan treasures of our region – products you won’t be able to find in stores or even at the grower’s markets. Melanie’s bake stand is on the way from our home to Fry Farm, so we figured we’d put her popular bread on the site!
So that’s one day in the life for Rogue Produce – Thursday, to be exact. Now you can see how we’re able to deliver such a wide variety of local produce to your door on Fridays. It’s a lot of hustle and bustle and coordinating between a lot of busy people, but that’s what it takes to make all these products easily accessible at one convenient location, our Online Farmer’s Market.
You can check out the full list of our products by visiting our Shop Page and read this informative article on the different options you have when shopping at our site. We hope you join us in the fun of supporting local and enjoying the best of what’s around.
