This Week’s Share

Share Notes:

With summer weather comes summer crops, and there is no better way to ease into the season with the cilantro, green beans and summer squash in your shares this week.

• Beets: Your beets this week come with their beautiful crisp greens attached, and you may use these as you would chard in salads and sautés.
• Carrots: Your carrots are tops off starting this week, and they will be that way through the summer and fall. You may also notice that some of your carrots are broken in half. We are still learning the ways and experimenting with our new undercutting root harvest implement, and had a whole bed get snapped for the first time. The carrots are still big, beautiful, and delicious and should be usable and enjoyable.
• Summer Squash: We grow two types of summer squash at SIO, Yellow Patty Pan and Green Zucchini, and you will see both in your shares through out the season. They can be used interchangeably in nearly any recipe, and will be in your share regularly for the summer stretch ahead.

Farm News

Save the Date: Your Invited to the SIO Annual Potato Harvest Party & French Fry Feast
Saturday August, 11th 10am-2pm

Mark your calendars to join us for our annual Potato Harvest Party & French Fry Feast. This is a very kid friendly event, and in addition to potato harvesting we’ll have fresh french fries at eat and sprinklers to cool you down. Please bring a potluck dish to share. Join us anytime during the event, even just for lunch!

Member Submitted Recipes

Have you found a great recipe or cooked something new with your share items recently and thought, “Wow! Other CSA members may really enjoy this?” We want to hear about your culinary successes  and share them with our members. Email your recipes to us at csa@sauvieislandorganics.com and we’ll post them to the blog the next time that crop shows up. For the Facebook savvy you can go ahead and post the links directly to our Facebook page.

To kick off our member submitted recipes we have one from Kathleen in SW Portland. It’s for a Moroccan influenced beet soup, and she say it, “is really simple and delicious.” Just click the link and you’ll find the recipe there. Thanks Kathleen!

Follow us on Facebook

Are you on Facebook? So is SIO. Come visit Sauvie Island Organics on Facebook, give us your “like,” and stay up to date with the most current happenings on the farm. This summer you will be the first to know what restaurants have fresh SIO produce on their menus, as well as links to even more recipe ideas for cooking up your CSA shares.

Family Share shown in photo above

This Week’s Share

Farm News

Sauvie Island Center’s Annual Summer Barn Dance & Picnic

Join us in supporting our friends at the Sauvie Island Center. Mark your calendars for July 28 for the 4th annual Sauvie Island Center Barn Dance and Barbecue. You will enjoy a summer barbecue with all the fixins’ courtesy of Bon Appetit. Award-winning steel guitar master Scott Law will provide the music and back by popular demand Montanna Jane will call the (square) dance. You can purchase tickets through the Sauvie Island Center website.

When: Saturday, July 28th 5:30 to 8 PM

Where: The Sauvie Island Center @ Howell Territorial Park on Sauvie Island

CSA Split Payment Reminder

This is a friendly reminder that those of you set-up for split payments, your second installation is due by July 15.

Please send checks to:

Sauvie Island Organics LLC.
20233 NW Sauvie Island Rd
Portland, OR 97231

Save the Date

Your Invited to the SIO Annual Potato Harvest Party & French Fry Feast
Saturday August, 11th 10am-2pm

Enjoy your New Potatoes this week and mark your calendars to join us for our annual Potato Harvest Party & French Fry Feast. This is a very kid friendly event, and in addition to potato harvesting we’ll have fresh french fries at eat and sprinklers to cool you down. Please bring a potluck dish to share. Join us anytime during the event, even just for lunch!

Family Share shown in photo above

This Week’s Share

Share Notes

• Mizuna: You may notice your Mizuna is larger than the last distribution, and at this size it’s still delicious and well suited for lightly cooking.

• New Potatoes: Your Yukon Gold’s this week are young with tender skins. You may notice the potatoes are unwashed, and that is because we didn’t want to further peel their delicate “new” skins. Also, make sure to keep them refrigerated as they have not yet developed a thick and protective skin.

Going on Vacation this Summer?

We offer one week of Vacation Rescheduling. If you know you will be away for a certain week of pick-up please let us know the date, and which week you would like to receive your double share (double shares exclude Thanksgiving Week and the last week of CSA). We need at least 24 hours notice to hold a share from delivery, and 1 week advance notice to schedule a double share.

If you will be away for more than one week we encourage you to contact a friend/family/co-worker to come pick-up in your place. If finding a replacement is not possible please let us know and we will donate your share.

Sending a Friend/Spouse/Neighbor/Co-worker to Pick-up Your Share?

Great! We love when other people have the chance to pick-up your share. It’s also important to make sure your replacement has all the details for pick-up, including your Share Type, the location and time for pick-up, and what to do with the containers. Please email us at csa@sauvieislandorganics.com or call the office (503.621.6921) and we are happy to set up your replacement with all the information they need to successfully pick-up your share.

Save the Date

Your Invited to the SIO Annual Potato Harvest Party & French Fry Feast
Saturday August, 11th 10am-2pm

Enjoy your New Potatoes this week and mark your calendars to join us for our annual Potato Harvest Party & French Fry Feast. This is a very kid friendly event, and in addition to potato harvesting we’ll have fresh french fries at eat and sprinklers to cool you down. Please bring a potluck dish to share. Join us anytime during the event, even just for lunch!

Family Share shown in photo above

This Week’s Share

Share Notes

• Fresh Garlic: The garlic in your share this week is mature, but not cured (dried for storage). Store your uncured garlic in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator for best results.

• Fennel: You can make use of your whole fennel bulb, fronds and all. Try chopping up the feathery greens and add to salad or salad dressing, or just add them as you would any herb to your favorite dishes.

Thank You for Returning Your CSA Container

We want to thank all of you who diligently returned your CSA Containers to your pick-up site. We appreciate your effort and cooperation with this step of the process. If you happened to forget yours, that’s okay, but please make sure to bring it when you come to pick-up your next share.

Family Share shown in photo above

This Week’s Share

Remember to Return you CSA Share Container

Please remember to return your CSA container each week when you come to pick-up your next week’s share. We appreciate your effort on this step, as we are charged a fee for each container that is not returned.

Don’t want to take the container home with you? No problem. Just bring your own bags/box with you to pick-up, transfer your share, and leave your container behind (neatly collapsed and stacked*) at your site on the day you pick-up. *see video below for instructions on how to collapse and stack containers

Going on Vacation this Summer?

We offer one week of Vacation Rescheduling. If you know you will be away for a certain week of pick-up please let us know the date, and which week you would like to receive your double share (double shares exclude Thanksgiving Week and the last week of CSA). We need at least 24 hours notice to hold a share from delivery, and 1 week advance notice to schedule a double share.

If you will be away for more than one week we encourage you to contact a friend/family/co-worker to come pick-up in your place. If finding a replacement is not possible please let us know and we will donate your share.

Sharing the Harvest this Year?

Are you splitting your share with a friend/neighbor/co-worker/relative? That’s great, we love when eating local brings the community together. We want to make sure that all members who are eating our produce throughout the season have the option to receive farm emails ( including the Projected Share email, the weekly blog email, and other farm news). Please email us at csa@sauvieislandorganics.com with any email addresses you would like added to the weekly email list

Join Us at the Farm – Spring Farm Tour & Potluck at SIO

Join us Saturday, May 19^th to kick-off the season with a tour of the farm and a CSA Community Potluck. This event is from 11am to 2pm. Tours of the farm will happen at 11am & 1pm and we will share a potluck lunch at noon. Bring your family, friends, kids, neighbors, and anyone you think would enjoy a day on the farm, and don’t forget to bring a potluck dish to share. The farm fields are located at 13615 NW Howell Park Rd, just a mile past the Sauvie Island Bridge.

A New Field Pack House

We were finally able to secure two small business loans to build a new pack shed and purchase a new walk-in cooler. Thank you dad and thank you Wells Fargo. At the end of April Shoreline construction poured a 30×50 foot concrete slab (photo above) and a week later NW Metal Buildings delivered and constructed our new vertical A frame building (photos below). The cooler will arrive May 17th just in time for the first CSA harvests.

Oregon Spring

In between the raindrops we have been doing bed prep, planting and weeding. Come walk the fields and see your lettuce, broccoli, radishes, turnips, bok choi, fennel, chard and kale. The greenhouse calls when the raindrops fall. Peek inside and you will see tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and summer squash starts bulking up for the summer months. We are excited that the CSA season is only 4 weeks away. Soon we will all be eating the bounty of an Oregon Spring.

Field Crew members (left to right) Noreen, Bernice, Kim and Carmelita transplant fennel on overcast day at the end of April.

SIO is Heating Up

Take a look at this video of Peter flame weeding a carrot bed after it has been seeded. Flame weeding is integral to our organic farming system here at SIO; we use this technique to kill weeds in their very early stages either before or soon after we direct seed a new crop. By reducing weed pressure, germinating seeds and infant plants have full access to the nutrients, water, and root development without having to compete with surrounding weeds.

Follow us on Facebook

Come visit Sauvie Island Organics on Facebook! Give us your “like,” and stay up to date with the most current happenings on the farm. This summer you will be the first to know what restaurants have fresh SIO produce on their menus, as well as links to even more recipe ideas for cooking up your CSA shares.

SIO Wins 2012 Local Hero Award, Thank You

Sauvie Island Organics is proud to announce that we were awarded the EdiblePortland’s 2012 Local Hero Award for the Farm category. Edible Portland’s Local Hero Award recognizes outstanding members of our regional food community who are setting high standards with their environmental and social practices, high quality, economic impact, and commitment to building a robust food system in the Pacific Northwest. Edible Portland solicits nominations from its readers, and through an open voting process, the community selects the winners. This year, more than 2,000 community members cast their votes! We are honored to receive this award and send out thanks to the Portland community for voting SIO as your Local Hero.

What’s Sprouting Up at SIO?

Young scallion seedlings inside the greenhouse.

The SIO greenhouse is bursting forth with spring seedlings. These will be some of the first vegetables you’ll be enjoying in your early CSA shares. Brian, longtime SIO employee and this season’ Greenhouse Manager has been busy seeding trays for starts since the first week of February. With the help of returning SIO farmer, Peter, they have seeded the seasons’ first parsley, fennel, onions, shallots, scallions, broccoli, head lettuce and kale. Throughout March they will be seeding celery, chard, cabbage, joi choi, peppers, eggplant, as well as more fennel, broccoli, and head lettuce. “Everything looks really happy and healthy, “ reports Brian. Weather permitting, we expect to begin transplanting out into the fields by the third week of March. Broccoli, fennel and head lettuce will be the first to go in, followed by kale in early April. We hope you are looking forward to your spring shares as much as we are enjoying growing them for you.

Peter preparing trays for seeding in the potting shed.

Brian on the tractor tilling in cover crop, the first step in bed preparation.

Kale seeds about to be seeded.

Save the Date: Come Join Us for the Spring Farm Tour & Potluck

Join us Saturday, May 19^st to kick-off the season with a tour of the farm and a CSA Community Potluck. This event is from 11am to 2pm. Tours of the farm will happen at 11am & 1pm and we will share a potluck lunch at noon. Bring your family, friends, kids, neighbors, and anyone you think would enjoy a day on the farm, and don’t forget to bring a potluck dish to share. The farm fields are located at 13615 NW Howell Park Rd, just a mile past the Sauvie Island Bridge.

This Just In: Double Rainbow at SIO

Spectacular double rainbow captured by Francesca on the afternoon of February 1. What a way to kick off a new month!

Weather Windows

With this splash of spectacular weather this week (see photo above) we thought it timely to share a bit about weather windows; what they are, and how we use them out at the farm in the winter. To a farm, a weather window is a limited period of time when weather conditions can be expected to be suitable for a particular project, such as cleaning up fall fields, turning in cover crop, or spreading fertility amendments. With a recorded 11.3 inches of rain on our property in the month of January we welcome this week’s weather window with open arms.

You know predicting the weather here in the winter is never easy, but when we see forecasts of two or more days of sunny clear skies we shift our energies from planning and maintenance to field clean up and tillage. We will remove irrigation line, trellis stakes, and floating row cover still left in the fields from last season. Once this is done cover crop will be planted. Fields that got cover cropped in the fall will begin to be tilled for spring planting. Planting begins mid-March but tilling happens about a month before to allow the cover crop to break down in the soil.

We will definitely be out working in and enjoying the sunny weather this week, and hope you too soak up some rays.

Join Now & tell a friend…

Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, its not too late to share in the harvest for 2012!  We still have Family, Half and Salad Shares available and signing-up is quick and easy! Just complete the Community Farm Agreement and submit on-line.

An added bonus to signing up now: everyone who sends in their deposit in February will receive a $5 gift card from Food Front Cooperate Grocery.