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Fox Dog Farm Announces Their 2009 CSA

Last modified on 2009-03-08 21:10:24 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

When people asked Kingston archeologist-farmer Rikke Giles what on earth her two professions could possibly have in common she tells them  that’s exactly what they  have in common – love of dirt!

Dr. Rikke Giles and Friend

Giles and her husband Randy Wagner are again offering their popular Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares this year after a two-year hiatus while she completed her PhD in archeology. And they will be offering something unique – shares are available for the usual 20 week season between May 18 and the last week in September but they are also planning to follow that up with two more smaller CSA seasons.  One will start immediately following the summer one and run until the end of November and the next will run from March until mid-May.

Randy Wagner and more friends

“ We’re not sure what all we will have during those second two seasons but are definitely planning to keep tomatoes and peppers in our greenhouse,” says Giles.

Giles purchased her 12-acre property in Kingston and began farming in 1994-1995.  She built her own house on the property and it’s such a good replica of a Victorian farm house she says people who see it from a distance think it was homesteaded there many years ago.

But there are some pretty modern touches too such as the faux stone wall that gets hot enough to heat her house from the sun coming through the 12 x 30 foot greenhouse that she also built herself.

greenhouse and solar heat

Giles grew up in the Santa Cruz mountain area of California and obtained her first degree, a Bachelor of Science in engineering and sub-atomic particle physics from the University of Santa Clara.  After attending San Jose State for a couple of years and studying archeology and anthropology, she decided to obtain her Master’s Degree in archeology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Part of the program involved going to school abroad so she says her interest in farming was really planted when she went to England for three years and attended the University of New Castle-upon-Tyne.

“Seeing how they farm in Europe was really an eye-opening experience for me and I started getting very interested in it,” says Giles.

After graduation and a couple of years in Philadelphia, she moved to Washington where her parents had retired to Quilcene and began farming on her property in Kingston.  She met future husband Wagner on the Internet and they began many months of a commuting romance as he was living in Boise at the time but he eventually moved up here in 2000.

In addition to their vegetables, Wagner and Giles also have a herd of 16 Nigerian dwarf goats that help keep the farm tidy, and produce milk and cheese.

“I originally got these goats to keep the blackberry brambles down– they’d trim along the low part while I cut the top and dropped the branches down to them,” says Giles with a laugh. “And I tried tethering them but they were too vulnerable to predators so I ended up building the Taj of goat houses for them!”

In addition to the vegetables, the couple sells goats and plans to sell goat cheese once they have their Class A cheese-making certification.  And they will sell any surplus from their CSA  directly on the farm.

fox dog farm tomatoes

“If the gate is open and the sign is up, we’ll have stuff to sell,” says Giles

Fox Dog Farm is located at 26096 Miller Bay Road, Kingston.  The telephone number is (360) 2977135; web site is:  www.foxdogfarm.com and e-mail is: rgiles@centurytel.net