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Archive for CSA Newsletter – Page 4

CSA WEEK #26: NOV 17-19 (Last Share of the 2015 season!!!)

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 November 17, 2015
This week’s share marks the end of our 2015 “Main Season” CSA.  You will notice that all bins are the same size this week. This is because we are ending the season with a double share for all members. If you have a half share, this week you get a full share (take 1 bin) and if you normally get a full share you take 2 bins.  This is our way of saying thank you for a wonderful season and stocking you up for the holiday. It gives us much pleasure to know that many of you will be sitting around your Thanksgiving tables enjoying the bounty from our farm. We wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving. Many of the vegetables in your share this week will also store well if you don’t get through them all during the holidays. 

In Your Share This Week

  • Beets, Rainbow Mix
  • Carrots
  • Celeriac
  • Kale
  • Onions
  • Parsnips
  • Pie Pumpkin
  • Potatoes
  • Radicchio
  • Winter Squash, Delicata 
The low temperature Sunday night registered 36 degrees and Monday’s harvest crew is working with cold fingers and toes.  We still haven’t experienced any frost this fall, unlike last year when around this time in November we already had a three day freeze with a low of 22 degrees.  In the nature department, we have been visited by massive noisy flocks of Canada geese and Sandhill cranes. The day after we removed the electric fence from around the chicory field, our resident deer herd ate every last unharvested chicory heart. Glad we had already harvested most of what was out there… like the radicchio in this week’s share.

Crop Notes

Beets: Our harvest manager Jen admittedly went crazy and indulged her creative tendency to beautify your CSA share once again.  The three or more different shades of beets of this mix, washed and co-mingling in our large harvest bins are just gorgeous.

Celeriac: Still with that odd alien beauty that is unlike any other vegetable we grow. Slicing into the celery root releases a bit of summertime as a well appreciated mid-winter dose of aromatherapy. I enjoy it grated raw and mixed with raw grated carrots as a winter salad. Nutritionally celeriac is especially a bargain and by keeping our soils supplied each spring with macro and micronutrients, those minerals get passed on to you to help keep you healthy this winter.

Kale: The kale patch is showing some signs of slowing down and wanting to hibernate.  The cold weather with out much day length makes it difficult for even the toughest varieties to put on much new growth quickly. Most of what you will find bunched together this week is a hardy mix of ‘rainbow lacinato’ and ‘wild garden kale.’

Onions: This summer of record heat helped produce a massive and record size yield of all of our onions. This variety of yellow onion has been selected to last, cured in storage for up to and beyond 9 months depending on how they are kept. Right now, as long as there isn’t a threat of a deep freeze they will stay where they have been waiting comfortably in the dark loft of the barn. The crew has fond memories of an entire morning hoisting and carrying 6 tons of fifty pound onion bags up to their storage space.

Parsnips: These beauties were seeded back around the fourth of July, and with a lot of work watering, tractor cultivating, weeding, harvesting, and washing they are ready for you some five months later.  This variety has proven to be a real keeper, huge and delicious.  So far we have harvested half of our patch, just under 1/8th of an acre.  More will remain in the field until needed for supplying the 2015-2016 Sauvie Island Organics Winter CSA.

Potatoes: These Yukon Gem’s are an improved selection from the well known variety Yukon Gold. They seem to produce super well from very vigorous disease free vines.  These potatoes have been in cold storage for a little over one month now, around 32 degrees, so most of their starches have converted to sugar making them very sweet to the taste. The only downside to this high sugar content is that if you attempt to deep fry them, those sugars tend to cook super fast, brown, get smokey, and potentially burn. So, if you intend to make fries, just set the potatoes in a dark place at room temperature for a few days first.  Otherwise, straight from cold storage or your fridge, roasted or mashed they are really tasty this way.

Pie Pumpkins: A little smaller than the ones distributed prior to Halloween, but maybe sweeter?  Anyhow, they make a fantastic simple pumpkin soup.

Radicchio: Every year improvements are made in production systems. The simple, but time consuming job of keeping weeds out of the chicory patch reward us tremendously with a greater quantity of larger radicchio heads. And this year with a combination of tractor cultivation and hoeing, we were able to keep weeding by hand to a real minimum. Another triumph in their production, is that no extra nitrogen fertilizer was applied to the field, these beautiful chicories grew with nitrogen provided them naturally from a cereal rye and common vetch cover crop that was worked into the soil about a month prior to transplanting.

Winter Squash, Delicata: We classified the size that you will be receiving this week as medium to large, but in reality they are huge compared to some previous seasons. Thank you record hot summer! We used to frantically race any forecasted frost or freeze event, normally in October to get all of our squash out of the fields. No such stress this year. We just leisurely waited for the morning dew to dry and then on those beautiful fall afternoons picked them up with the assistance of our tractor operators into large wooden bins.

Don’t Want the Deliciousness to End… 
Join our Winter CSA!

We still have Winter Shares available for the 2015/2016 season. 

Number of Deliveries: 8 (Two deliveries a month December-March)

Price: $640 (one share size)

The Bounty: beets, braising greens, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, chicories, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, parsnips, potatoes, pie pumpkins, radish, rutabaga, turnips, shallots & numerous varieties of winter squash (butternut, delicata, acorn & kabocha varieties)

Quantity: approximately 30 pounds per delivery, most of the crops can store for many weeks in your refrigerator or root cellar.

Delivery Dates: 2 deliveries per month
  • December 3 & 17
  • January 7 & 21
  • February 4 & 18
  • March 3 & 17

Delivery locations:

  • SE: Grand Central Bakery @2230 SE Hawthorne
  • NP: New American Restaurant @2103 N Killingsworth
  • NW: Kobos Coffee @2355 NW Vaughn St
  • SW: Hillsdale Food Front @6344 SW Capitol Highway
  • The Farm: 13615 NW Howell Park Rd

Sign Up Today!

Checks can be mailed to: SIO, 20233 NW Sauvie Island Rd. Portland, OR 97231

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #25: NOV 10-12

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 November 10, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Beets, Golden
  • Cabbage, Red
  • Chicory, Pan di Zucchero
  • Field Greens (farmer’s choice of rainbow mixed cooking greens…so good!!!)
  • Kohlrabi
  • Onions, Red Storage
  • Winter Squash, Butternut

Its a festive, fun full-spectrum share this week! It seems like the 2015 CSA season flew by so fast for us on the farm, we hope you’ve all enjoyed the variety of produce in your shares throughout the seasons. 

If you want to keep the SIO goodness going, you can do it several ways:

  1. Join our Winter CSA for bi-weekly deliveries of storage crops and winter greens.
  2. Stock up via our bulk ordering and have lots of Organic local produce on-hand all winter long.
  3. Come see us at winter Farmers Market…details TBA but we have some exciting plans up our sleeves! 
Don’t forget, this is the last week for Salad Mix Shares, and next week is a special ‘double share’ to get you all ready for Thanksgiving and/or send you off with a nice variety of veggies that will store into the future. 

Crop Notes

Beets, golden: Probably my favorite beet…both because of its lovely color and great flavor. If you like juicing, Gold Beets are also great along with carrots, apple, ginger, or turmeric- they add a boost of nutrients without the overpowering flavor of red beet juice. 

Field Greens: We are really excited to include this specialty item in the share- its a rather large staple on the farm throughout the late winter months. ‘Field Greens’ are a product we created that is essentially a farmer’s choice mix of nearly all of the various greens that we grow. It has a festive visual appeal and tastes great chopped and used raw, or cooked. It’s a great test of your plant identification skills…look for pac choi, napa cabbage, chard, escarole, a rainbow of both mild and spicy mustards, and 3-4 types of kales! Because the leaves are somewhat large, the Field Green mix doesn’t do well in our washing equipment (the stems poke holes in other leaves, ribs crack, bruising happens…trust us, its not great)- so we don’t wash the Field Mix at all. When you’re ready to use your greens, fill your sink partway with water or get a large tub or bowl to submerge the leaves in, then pull the leaves out and place in a colander and then shake gently or roll in a towel to remove the excess water. Dont store the greens super wet because they have a tendency to get slimy if you do that. Enjoy! 

Kohlrabi: It’s the last kohlrabi installment of the 2015 season…and we’ve got both Kossak (the very large green kohlrabi that you’ve seen in the shares before) and also the aptly named ‘Gigante’. These both will store very well in your refrigerator (we’ve successfully kept some until Feb/March in storage trials on the farm), just wrap it in a plastic bag to help it retain its moisture and juicy crunch. You can also cut it in half or quarters as needed for cooking and put the rest into the bag in the fridge for next time.   

Winter Squash, Butternut: I know this time of year, the good ol’ refrigerator veggie drawers can get kinda full with the plethora of root veggies. I was taught a nifty trick about what to do with the rest of the squash if you don’t need or want to use the entire butternut all at once- cut off a part of the neck for cooking with, and after a few minutes you’ll notice some clear liquid ‘sap’ coming out of the pores where you made the cut. Just wipe this around the entire surface of the cut, and leave it out! Yup, that’s right…leave it out! Essentially what happens is the squash ‘scabs’ over the cut surface and prevents bacteria, fungus, or other microbes that incite decay from getting into the body of the fruit. Pretty cool!  

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #24: Nov 3-5

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 November 3, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Carrots
  • Celeriac 
  • Kale, Red Ursa
  • Leeks
  • Radicchio
  • Shallot, Eds Red
  • Winter Squash, Acorn 

A Few Reminders

  1. Next week (Nov. 9-13) is the last week for salad shares. 
  2. Two weeks from now (Nov. 16-20) is the very last week of the regular CSA season! This is a double share to help bulk you up for Thanksgiving and send you off with some nice storage veggies. More details will follow, but we would like to remind everyone that you may not receive a vacation makeup during that week, so make sure to use it beforehand.
  3. We are offering a Winter CSA again this year! Sign-ups are happening now and we have limited space available so contact us soon for more details, or to join us!

Stock up Your Pantry

Bulk sales are now available for carrots, beets and onions. Want to stock your pantry, juice or can we are offering 10 pound boxes of carrots, beets and onions. Email us at csa@sauvieislandorganics.com to place your order.

  • Beets, red- $20/box
  • Beets, golden & Chioggia- $24/box
  • Carrots, orange- $20/box
  • Onion, red & yellow- $14/box

Crop Notes

Carrots: We sure do love carrots! We’ve been featuring them in the share regularly because they’re so versatile both raw and cooked. Carrots grow really well for us here on the farm, and this Fall we’ve been pulling some whoppers out of the fields…plenty of carrots weighing in at a pound a piece!!! This time of year is also great for carrots because the cooler weather and cold nights stimulate the roots to sweeten up even more. Essentially the plant is creating its own natural ‘antifreeze’ by converting starches into sugar. Yum!

Celeriac: Maybe we should have put this in the Halloween share since it looks like an alien sea creature? An interesting fact for such a funky looking vegetable with pale coloring, is that its a total vitamin powerhouse with loads of vitamins B and K! 

Kale, Red Ursa: This late-season picking of kale is also really pretty since the leaves of this particular variety get lacier as the plants get older. I love the fine texture and frilly leaves…its almost like a different plant compared to what it started off as earlier this summer! 

Leeks: I’m going to admit that I couldn’t think of anything particularly interesting to say about leeks that hasn’t already been mentioned, so I thought I’d take a ramble through internet-land to get some inspiration. In addition to some growing and cooking information, it turns out that leeks were a part of humanity’s diet in Egypt and Mesopotamia since the second millennium BCE. Also, leeks have made some interesting cultural appearances over time- as a national emblem of Wales, on military helmets as identifiers, on certain vintages of British pound coins, on the coronation gown of Elizabeth II, mentioned in Shakespeare plays, featured in internet memes based on Japanese anime, and even in pokémon. Well played, leek. 

Radicchio: I think radicchio is one of the most beautiful leafy crops- the white veins are such a beautiful contrast to the rich maroon color of the leaves! Radicchio heads tend to have a thinner texture than some of the other heartier chicories, so I find that the cooking time is a little less than, say, an escarole. I can’t wait to see what delicious recipes Katherine features with radicchio, but a favorite of mine is to cut it into wedges or quarters, brush or drizzle it liberally with olive oil and salt, a squeeze of lemon, and sear it (like *seriously* hot) in a pan or on the grill. The grill is good because my insistence on using olive oil for such a high-heat application leads to a good deal of smoke…but it tastes so good! 

Shallot, Ed’s Red: We procured the seeds for this Open Pollinated (OP) shallot from Uprising Seeds out of Washington. Most shallots are hybrid varieties, so its somewhat less common to find OP varieties. This is a red dutch-style shallot that looks somewhat like a squatter, smaller red onion and has a nice mellow flavor. We like the festive color too! 

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #23: OCT 27-29

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 October 27, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Cabbage, Savoy
  • Carrots, Boleros
  • Beets, Chioggia
  • Kohlrabi, Azur Star
  • Lettuce
  • Onions, Yellow Storage 
  • Pie Pumpkin
Happy Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Samhain and any and all festivities this time of year brings you. We are certainly excited for the onset of Fall weather, celebrating the bounty of the season, and getting ready to settle in for the calmer, colder half of the year. 

Crop Notes

Beets, Chioggia: We had a wonderful bounty of our Italian heirloom Chioggia beets, so we’re excited to feature these festive beets in the share. You’ll see that they have a nice bright pink skin, and stunning pink and white rings on the interior. The vibrancy fades when cooked or canned (the canning lesson I learned the hard way- good flavor but rather visually unappealing). Use them the same way you would a red beet…but they wont stain everything in sight like a red beet will.

Cabbage, Savoy: We increased the spacing of our cabbages in the field, and have seen sMaShInG results! Many of our cabbages up to twice the size of what we were producing in the past, hence the half cabbages this season. These savoy were absolutely stunning in the field and a good deal were over 6# a piece! Savoy is a little more delicate than other cabbages, meaning it cooks up faster- so be careful not to overdo it. All of the crinkly textured leaves are great for holding lots and lots of yummy dressing as well…

Carrots: Well, these did great too! Some of the carrots are so big, they’re over a pound each! Still juicy, sweet, and crisp…just now in cartoonishly large size!

Kohlrabi: This purple variety is such a treat to look at, the color of the skins is just mesmerizing. This type is meant to be harvested on the smaller side and the tops looked nice so we included those too as a little bonus. You can peel these if you like, but I’ve often found that on these smaller varieties the skins are generally thin enough that you don’t have to.

Lettuce: We highly suspect this is the very last lettuce distribution of 2015. Cool nights and continual dampness on the island are making it difficult to grow heads of sufficient size and without too much yellowing/bug damage/molds/mildews and all the other fun rainy season maladies that Portlanders know all too well. These heads are on the smaller size, and do plan to peel off some of the outermost leaves.

Pie Pumpkin: We included some festive Pie Pumpkin just in time for Halloween! These little pumpkins look super cute on your table or doorstep, but they taste even better- so enjoy having them around for decoration but definitely dont miss out on the eating part. Pie pumpkins are less stringy than Jack-o-lantern pumpkins that are used for carving and they generally have thicker walls and a smaller cavity (in proportion to the size of the squash). I was just informed by my Mom that you can even ‘bake’ a pie pumpkin in a crock pot…its insanely easy. Pumpkin puree freezes really well so you can store it away for later pie-making adventures (tip: most pumpkin pie recipes call for 2c puree, so thats a good amount to pack into a tupperware or bag). I also enjoy pumpkin curry this time of year, as well as pumpkin muffins, cookies, and savory treats like gnocchi or pumpkin-filled ravioli. 

The last week of CSA pick up is the week of November 16. This will be a double share to stock you up for Thanksgiving. If you do not want the bounty to end in just a few weeks, join us for the Winter season!

We are excited to be offering a Winter Share again this season. As farmers we love all the roots, squashes, cabbages and hardy greens of the Winter. Please join us if you do too! We are selling a limited number of shares (about 50), so don’t miss the chance to continue to eat locally & deliciously from December 2015 to March 2016.

Number of Deliveries: 8 (Two deliveries a month December-March)

Price: $640 (one share size)

The Bounty: beets, braising greens, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, chicories, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, parsnips, potatoes, pie pumpkins, radish, rutabaga, turnips, shallots & numerous varieties of winter squash (butternut, delicata, acorn & kabocha varieties)

Quantity: approximately 30 pounds per delivery, most of the crops can store for many weeks in your refrigerator or root cellar.

Delivery Dates: 2 deliveries per month
  • December 3 & 17
  • January 7 & 21
  • February 4 & 18
  • March 3 & 17

Delivery locations:

  • SE: Grand Central Bakery @2230 SE Hawthorne
  • NP: New American Restaurant @2103 N Killingsworth
  • NW: Kobos Coffee @2355 NW Vaughn St
  • SW: Hillsdale Food Front @6344 SW Capitol Highway
  • The Farm: 13615 NW Howell Park Rd

Sign Up Today!

Checks can be mailed to: SIO, 20233 NW Sauvie Island Rd. Portland, OR 97231

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #22: OCT 20-22

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 October 19, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Carrots
  • Celeriac
  • Corn (please read below)
  • Kale
  • Leeks
  • Parsley
  • Winter Squash, Delicata

Crop Notes

Corn: The results of our late-season corn trial are in! We planted an assortment of varieties to see how they all performed, so you may see yellow, bi-color, or white corn in your share this week. The ears are a little smaller than summer corn, but its an exciting final taste of summer. The only downside we saw with this trial was the prevalence of worms…so what we would advise doing before shucking or anything else is to grab a sharp and/or large knife and hack about 1 inch off the tip of the ear. That should eliminate the portion that contains the worm and all the grossness around it. Now you’re ready to shuck and eat!

Kale: This week we are featuring Red Russian for everyone, which you all have seen in your shares throughout the season. Full Share members will also receive a bunch of White Russian, which has broader leaves and a more delicate texture.

Around the Farm

FullSizeRender (13)We are in the full swing of Fall, and spending most of our days harvesting crops like carrots, beets, celeriac, kohlrabi, and cabbage before the rains start in earnest and harvest becomes a sloppy mudfest. We are also excited to be doing a lot of field cleanup- removing drip tape, taking down cucumber trellises, and turning the summer fields over to our winter cover crops. Large portions of the farm are now emerald green carpets of cover crop that are turning sunlight and water into next season’s fertility, reducing soil compaction or erosion (from rain), increasing organic matter, preventing nutrients from washing away (also from rain), and keeping the weeds at bay. We select specific cover crops or mixes for each field depending on the time of year, what has been previously grown there, any prevalent pests or diseases, and what may be grown there in the future.

We also were very excited to provide some late-season Poblano peppers to Hot Winter Hot Sauce, a great local company thats making a zesty rainbow of hot sauces with a great mission. You can find them all over Portland at New Seasons, Green Zebra, Alberta Coop, Food Front, or Barbur World Foods. Go grab a few bottles and spice up your life! 

Meet Your Farmer

FullSizeRender-8Francisco L Guzman Cortes
Hometown: Oaxaca, Mexico
Joined SIO Crew: 2011 Mayo. Francisco cosecha y lava todo de nuestra verduras para la CSA, siembra la lechuga en papel, y lava las cajas. Antes de llegar en Sauvie Island Organics, el ya habia hecho trabajo de finca en la finca de su familia en Oaxaca, México–allí tienen maíz, frijol, cacahuate, y calabaza. Tambien trabajaba en una finca en Washington, y alla manejaba la machina de cosechar frambuesa, manejaba el tractor que recogía los cajones de durazno, y cosechaba tanto duraznos. (May 2011. Francisco harvests and washes all of our CSA veggies, seeds much of our lettuce mix into paper pots, and bin washes. Before coming to SIO, he had worked on his family farm in Oaxaca, Mexico where they cultivate corn, beans, peanuts, and squash. Also, Francisco has worked on a farm in Washington where he drove and operated the raspberry harvesting machine, drove the tractor to collect crates of peaches, and harvested tons of peaches.)
Favorite fruit/vegetable: Todas las vegetales le encantan y todas las frutas le encantan!! (He loves all vegetables and loves all of the fruits too!!)
Favorite part of working on the farm: Francisco le gusta mucho cosechar. Pues, le gusta todo– “en todo me gusta, porque siembro, cosecho, y como!!” (Francisco likes harvesting very much. He really likes everything–“I love everything because I get to plant, harvest, and then eat!!”)
What he does off the farm: Mira la tele, ayuda su esposo Carmelita con la cocina, picar cebolla, limpiar las tomates–todo en la cocina… En invierno cuando no hay mucho trabajo en la finca, el va por Alaska para procesar cangrejo.(Francisco watches television and helps his wife Carmelita in the kitchen, chopping onions, cleaning tomatoes–everything in the kitchen… In Winter when there is less farm work, he spends time in working in a cannery in Alaska processing crabs.)

 

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #21: OCT 13-15

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 October 13, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Beets
  • Cabbage, red
  • Carrots
  • Chicory, Pan di Zucchero
  • Fennel
  • Onion, Cabernet Red
  • Winter Squash, Acorn

As mentioned in the share projection email, this week is a thematically red share! We didn’t totally plan it that way, but a lot of red items all happened to be ripe and ready all at the same time, so hey…why not? 

Cabbage, red: Did you know you can make kraut with red cabbage? As it ferments the color turns from a dark purple color to a rather electric fuchsia- which is really great on days when you’re feeling the grey winter doldrums. If you’re new to fermenting, or have never tried it in your life…fear not! Its sooooo easy, fun, and tastes great! Head down to Powells and pick up a copy of ‘Wild Fermentation’ by Sandor Katz, or visit his website for a basic kraut recipe and a fun dose of humor and whimsy. ‘Wild Fermentation’ is essentially ‘The Joy of Cooking’…but for all things fermented with a cool DIY empowerment combined with cultural history and well-written instructions- from kraut to sourdough, pickles, dairy, beer, vinegar, wine, and beyond!   

Chicory, Pan di Zucchero: So far you’ve been introduced to Escarole and Radicchio, which are also members of the chicory family. Pan di Zucchero means ‘Sugarloaf’ in Italian and is a very apt name as its one of the sweetest chicories out there. It was an excellent season for chicories and we grew some HUGE heads! But don’t worry- Pan di Zucchero will store for a long time in your fridge. How long? In storage trials last season we still had beautiful, delicious heads 3-4 months later. What you do is store it in a plastic bag and cut off however much you need at a time and stick the rest back in the bag, back in the fridge. I think the white parts closer to the base are the most delectable so I tend to cut it lengthwise so I can get some of that stuff too. It doesnt last as long when cut this way, but it sure is good! I like to serve Pan di Zucchero as a light side in tandem with an otherwise heavy or rich meal with lots of cream/fat/oils/sauce. Cut the chicory into thin ribbons and dress lightly with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic. Its a delicious little salad that brightens up a meal and aids in digesting heavy foods. The addition of acid helps cut down on the bitterness factor as well- but remember…bitters are good for ya!  

Fennel: We also have our very last planting of main season fennel in the share this week! This particular planing had some of the biggest, fattest bulbs we’ve seen all year.  The tips of the fronds were a little yellowed and kissed by cold nights, so we opted to put them in the share without the fronds this time so they’ll keep longer in your fridge. 

Winter Squash: The featured squash this week is Acorn Squash. I am most familiar with this squash (as are most people I’m sure) from my Mom cooking it by cutting it in half and baking it with brown sugar and butter. So good! 

Local Goodness all Winter Long

We are excited to be offering a Winter Share again this season. As farmers we love all the roots, squashes, cabbages and hardy greens of the Winter. Please join us if you do too! We are selling a limited number of shares (about 50), so don’t miss the chance to continue to eat locally & deliciously from December 2015 to March 2016.

Number of Deliveries: 8 (Two deliveries a month December-March)

Price: $640 (one share size)

The Bounty: beets, braising greens, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, chicories, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, parsnips, potatoes, pie pumpkins, radish, rutabaga, turnips, shallots & numerous varieties of winter squash (butternut, delicata, acorn & kabocha varieties)

Quantity: approximately 30 pounds per delivery, most of the crops can store for many weeks in your refrigerator or root cellar.

Delivery Dates: 2 deliveries per month

  • December 3 & 17
  • January 7 & 21
  • February 4 & 18
  • March 3 & 17

Delivery locations:

  • SE: Grand Central Bakery @ 2230 SE Hawthorne
  • NP: New American Restaurant @ 2103 N Killingsworth
  • NW: Kobos Coffee @2355 NW Vaughn St
  • The Farm: 13615 NW Howell Park Rd
  • Other possible locations to be announced

Please email us at csa@sauvieislandorganics.com and we will sign you up for this exciting new option.

Checks can be mailed to: SIO, 20233 NW Sauvie Island Rd. Portland, OR 97231

Meet Your Farmer

FullSizeRender (11)-1Carmelita F Guzman
Hometown: Oaxaca, Mexico
Joined SIO Crew: 2010 Mayo. Carmelita cosecha y lavada todo de nuestra verduras para la CSA y tambien sembra las semillas en las cajitas en la casa verde. Antes de llegar en Sauvie Island Organics, ella ya habia hecho trabajo de finca en el huerto de su mama en Oaxaca, México y trabajaba en una finca grande en Washington de frambuesa, arándano, fresa, durazno, y nueces por mano y por machina para cosechar, limpiar, y empacar. (May 2010. Carmelita harvests and washes all of our produce for CSA and also seeds trays in the greenhouse. Before coming to Sauvie Island Organics, she had already done some farm work in her mother’s garden in Oaxaca, Mexico and worked on a large fruit and nut farm in Washington harvesting, washing, and packaging raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, peaches and nuts both by hand and machine.)
Favorite fruit/vegetable: La fruta favorita de Carmelita es el durazno porque trabajaba tanto tiempo en la finca cosechando los duraznos y la verdura mas favorita aqui en SIO es la ensalada mezclada y tambien tomates, jalapeño y cilantro. Ella le gusta mucho las vegetales de nuestra finca porque son orgánicas y no tiene químico. (Carmelita’s favorite fruit is the peach because she spent so much time harvesting them when she worked in the peach orchards. Her favorite SIO veggie is our Salad Mix along with tomatoes, jalapeños and cilantro. She loves the vegetables on our farm because they are organic and have no chemicals.)
Favorite part of working on the farm: Le gusta trabajar aqui porque las personas son amables y porque gana su dinero! (Carmelita loves working here because the people are very nice and because she earns money!!)
What she does off the farm: Carmelita le gusta tocar su guitarra, platicar con sus hijas, y cocinar en los Domingos para la familia. (Carmelita loves to play her guitar, chat with her daughters, and cook on Sundays for her family.)


Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA Week #20: Oct 6-8

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 October 6, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Carrots, Shin Kuroda
  • Celeriac
  • Escarole/Radicchio
  • Kale, Rainbow & Red Russian
  • Leeks
  • Peppers, sweet mix
  • Potatoes, Yukon Gems
  • Winter Squash, Delicata

Crop Notes

Well folks, it is that time of year where we are firmly out of the summer season and settling into the Fall and Winter crops. This will be the last week of sweet peppers- the last remnants of summer…except for a very exciting late-season corn trial that looks to be pretty promising! Look forward to lots of earthy and savory flavors coming up, like shallots, leeks, potatoes, celery root, beets, carrots, and the like. We will also include head lettuce as the weather allows, as well as fresh greens like chicories, kale, chard, cabbage, mustards, and herbs like fennel and parsley. 

Also, after 20 weeks of CSA shares…we’ve said lots of what we have to say about the items in the share! Do remember to keep storing your roots and greens in plastic bags in your refrigerator so they retain their moisture. Also, a reminder that potatoes turn green when exposed to sunlight…so be sure to keep them in a cupboard, drawer, box, or basement. And watch out when you go to the grocery store!!! I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve perused the produce section (admittedly a geeky hobby of mine) all over town and seen green potatoes on the display. Aside from looking odd, the green coloration is a signal that the potato is preparing to grow (the green is chlorophyll), but there’s also solanine- a compound that is very bitter and poisonous. Not anything dire, but it can cause gastrointestinal irritation, and if one were able to eat a *copious* amount of bitter potatoes. Small portions of green can be trimmed off. But enough about that…these Yukon Gems are great- mash ’em, boil ’em, fry ’em, steam ’em, roast ’em, bake ’em…its all great!    

A Morning of Fun & Learning on the Farm

 School is out on Friday, October 9th. Won’t you join the Sauvie Island Center for Family Fun on the Farm Day? This event will take place at our farm, Sauvie Island Organics and the grounds of Howell Territorial Park. The Sauvie Island Center staff will guide you and your family through an exploration of their curriculum, designed for elementary school-aged children, including:
  • Soil Exploration. Dig in and learn about healthy soil.
  • Seed to Harvest. Plant, tend and harvest the Grow Lunch Garden.
  • Healthy Snacks. Taste farm-fresh veggies that you can use to create yummy snacks.
  • Plant Parts Investigation. Explore the farm and plants we can eat.
  • Wildlife & Food web. Who else has been foraging on the farm?
  • Pollination Station. Meet these hard-working farm friends.

The event is free, but pre-registration is requested.

Digging 3

WHAT:       Family Fun on the Farm

WHEN:        Friday, 10/09 from 10 AM – Noon

WHERE:   Sauvie Island Center
13901 NW Howell Park Road
Portland, OR 97231

Apples to Applesauce

Last week it was our pleasure to host a group of volunteers working with Apples to Applesauce , a non-profit who aims to reduce child hunger by turning excess produce that would otherwise be left in the fields into preserved goods that are then distributed to after-school programs and other non-profits. The volunteers waded through a field of beets that we were unable to weed at the right moment- bushwhacking through a rather tall stand of pigweed to glean the beets out from the under-story. Unfortunately, a commercial farm like ourselves cannot harvest such a crop in a financially viable manner, so we are ever grateful that volunteers were able to come extract several hundred pounds of usable food that will go to a good cause!

Meet Your Farmer

FullSizeRender-6Berenice Vasquez
Hometown: Oaxaca, Mexico
Joined SIO Crew: 2010 Mayo. Berenice puede hacer todo de nuestra cosecha y lavada de verduras para la CSA. Antes de llegar en Sauvie Island Organics, ella ya habia hecho poco trabajo de finca alla dande crescia en Oaxaca, México en la finca de su familia.  (May 2010. Berenice can harvest and wash all of our vegetables for CSA. Before coming to Sauvie Island Organics, she had already done some farm work at her family’s farm where she grew up in Oaxaca, Mexico.)
Favorite fruit/vegetable: La fruta favorita de Berenice es el durazno y la verdura es la lechuga de mantequilla verde. (Berenice’s favorite fruit is the peach and her favorite vegetable is Green Butterhead Lettuce.)
Favorite part of working on the farm: Le gusta trabajar aqui porque todo la gente trabaja unida y porque son respetuosos. (She loves to work at SIO because all of the people work together and are respectful of each other.)
What she does off the farm: Berenice esta con su familia en su tiempo libre–tiene esposo y una nina de ocho anos. La familia le gusta mucho ir al rio para pescar. (Berenice spends her free time off of the farm with her family–she has a husband and an eight year-old girl. Her family loves to go fishing on the river.)

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #19: SEPT 29-Oct 1

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 September 29, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Carrots
  • Celery
  • Chard
  • Fennel, with fronds
  • Kohlrabi
  • Onions, red
  • Peppers, sweet mix
  • Romaine Hearts

Crop Notes

Carrots: This week you will be delighted by the Shin Kuroda, a Japanese variety of carrot.  We grow these because of their unsurpassed taste and ability to grow so well in some of our heavier clay soils.  You may still find some of that mineral rich clay soil clinging to the carrots even after they have been rinsed on the farm.  Thanks to Jane, who calibrated our mechanical seeders this year, most of our direct seeded root crops have matured into gigantic examples of our vegetable crops’ potential.  Many of these carrots are so huge that we needed to increase the amount in a family share to four pounds. These carrots were seeded exactly four full moon cycles ago.  Carrot seed takes a long time to germinate, so we used a biodynamic principle to help with the process. By seeding close to the full moon date, gravitational influences help the carrot to sprout, usually coinciding with the new moon which then aids in the growth of the carrot seedlings.

Celery:  This is the last celery distribution of the season.

Chard: We will be able to continue harvesting swiss chard until the first frost of the season, so just keep your fingers crossed. Most likely we will get get our first frost at the farm on a clear night close to the next full moon date…just a short 27 days from now.  Could be sooner?

Fennel: This is an Italian variety called Mantobano that holds well in the field as the cooler night temperatures of autumn approach. So now, at its perfect harvest stage we are able to give you a good portion of edible leaves still attached.  There are plenty of good salad possibilities to play with for your meals this week.

Head lettuce: Every animal on the farm loves to eat our head lettuce, so we are dropping the insect eaten outer leaves in our romaine lettuce patch in the field at harvest time, leaving you with gorgeous and crunchy hearts of romaine for your share.

Kohlrabi: The Kossak variety of kohlrabi was first introduced to farmers in The States as the “next big thing” that kids were supposed to fall in love with in school cafeterias across the country. Apparently this idea was a complete failure, I know I never ate any kohlrabi at school.  There is hope however, because the children of the Rainier and Clatskanie School Districts say that kohlrabi is indeed a favorite new salad bar item and that they ate hundreds of pounds, collectively, from our farm last winter.  Please don’t be too afraid of this vegetable’s size, just peel before eating raw or cooking like you would a potato.  Kohlrabi can store in your fridge for a long while, in case it is taking you time to devour all of it.

Onions, red: We will be shifting from giving you an early storage variety called Cabernet to a long term storage variety called Red Bull. So you may have either or both in your share this week.

Peppers, sweet mix: Sweet Pepper harvest season is nearing its end, please enjoy while you can!

 

Field Notes

IMG_1422We have been transitioning our fields from spent vegetable acreage to cover crops that will continue to grow through this fall and winter. The West Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District has been extremely generous in helping us cost share in this process of getting fields planted to winter cover crops.  Some benefits of having fields seeded, like you see in the photo of the very green Cayuse Oats include, building soil organic matter, sequestering atmospheric carbon, providing beneficial insect habitat, vegetable pest insect and disease suppression, erosion control, preventing possible excess nitrate from seeping into ground water, and so many othersIMG_1423.  An ideal seeding sequence step by step is usually as follows. Mow the leftover vegetable plant debris, apply irrigation water, wait a few days and then till the soil, wait a week or more until there is a thick cover of newly germinated weed seeds (like an huge Chia-Pet carpet), at that point broadcast the oats, then lightly disk to kill that first flush of weeds and simultaneously bury the desired oat seeds, finally to provide the best seed to soil contact, we pull a heavy set of ring rollers across the field.  Ideally within a week or so we get a rainfall, if not we irrigate to get a well established thick green stand of oats.
Categories : CSA Newsletter, Uncategorized

CSA WEEK #18: SEPT 22-24

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 September 22, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Cabbage, green
  • Carrots
  • Escarole/Radicchio
  • Kale, Lacinato
  • Leeks
  • Parsley
  • Peppers, sweet mix
  • Potatoes, Yukons

Crop Notes

Cabbage: We sure had an explosive cabbage season here on the farm. Historically we have grown a variety of cabbages with a variety of spacing in the field in order to produce ‘large’ and ‘small’ cabbages that go into the Full and Half shares, respectively. It turns out that intentionally trying to grow smaller vegetables is a lot harder than it sounds, so now we are experimenting with growing big, beautiful veggies all the time, and then cutting it in half as needed. If you have a half share, you will be getting a half of a head this week that we cut right at the time of pack-out with clean knives. Nonetheless, you can always give the cut face a quick trim when you use it to freshen it up. We also recommend storing your cut cabbage in a plastic bag in order to prevent moisture from escaping from the cut face.

Escarole and Radicchio: This week you are receiving the same variety of escarole that has been in the share before, full share members will also get a head of radicchio, which is in the same family as escarole.  

Kale, Lacinato: We get all of our Lacinato seed from Wild Garden Seed, who has selected this variety over time for hardiness and productivity. Lacinato is probably the most tender and mild of the kales, so it does well with a light cooking. Sometimes Lacinato is also known as ‘Dinosaur Kale’.
 

Leeks: Its leek season!!! These are our very first leeks, and are a nice medium and tender size. Leek tops are another great addition to the stock pot if you make your own stock at home with odds and ends. Trimming the tops off also can help save space in the fridge, just keep the white portion of the stalks wrapped in a plastic bag to retain moisture. And of course, leeks are always fantastic with potatoes. 

Potatoes, Yukon Gem: We are featuring Yukons that are from our newest acreage, which is still in the ‘transitional’ phase. In order to be certified as Organic, acreage must not have had any synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, or fertilizers applied for the last three years. We began leasing the land at the beginning of the 2014 season and have been managing it organically with lots of beautiful cover crops and flowers that attract beneficial insects as we transition it over to Organic. Next season we can finally certify the land as Organic, which we are very excited about. We also dry farm all of our potatoes, which has dramatically reduced the amount of disease we find on the potatoes. Yukon Gem also feature pinkish/red splotches on the skins, mostly where the new eyes will eventually pop out. Don’t be alarmed, the pink coloration is a totally normal (and beautiful) feature of this tasty variety. 

 

Categories : CSA Newsletter

CSA WEEK #17: SEPT 15-17

Posted by Your SIO Farmers on
 September 14, 2015

In Your Share This Week

  • Bok Choi
  • Cabbage, savoy
  • Carrots
  • Celery
  • Chard
  • Onions, Cabernet
  • Peppers, sweet mix
  • Winter Squash, Delicata
In this week’s blog I will mention some (there are many more), of our supporting businesses as a thanks for being part of our process to grow all the vegetables you eat each week.

Crop Notes

Cabbage, savoy: The Linnton Feed and Seed has always been a very local and helpful resource and recently provided us with lime that we use to increase the pH of our soils to grow healthy cabbages and their relatives like broccoli, joi choi, and arugula. This Miletta variety of savoy cabbage comes from seed bought from Osborne Seeds based in Mt. Vernon, WA. The entire crop was planned to be stored through the winter at the J & D Refrigerated Services warehouse in Clackamas, but the cabbages got way too big, so enjoy.  Full shares get an entire head and half shares, one half, or a smaller head.

Carrots: These Bolero carrots were seeded on May 11th from seed bought from Johnny’s Select Seeds based in Maine. These storage variety carrots were harvested today, Monday, just before the forecasted rains. We feared that with another good rainfall these already large carrots would split in the field making them a little bit less cosmetically appealing. But, thank you University of Portland’s Bon Appetite run kitchen, as they gladly buy most of our ‘b’ grade carrots to include in their cuisine.

Celery: This crop of celery headed up beautifully and surpasses our last distribution in yield weight, taste, and color.  It was grown in our heavier clay soil that has higher mineral content and better water holding capacity.  This variety, Tango, was sourced from High Mowing Seeds in Vermont.

Chard: Our swiss chard patches continue to be super productive this season. Some of our excess swiss chard was sold wholesale this season to the Organically Grown Company who then distributed to the various local super markets that feature organic vegetables.

 

Onion, Cabernet: The Fisher Bag Company with warehouses in Portland and and Kent WA supplies us with all the mesh bags that we keep our onions in all winter.  We are grateful for Metro for leasing us dry winter storage space in their barn for all of our storage onion varieties, of which we have recently bagged and stored around 11,000 pounds.

 
Peppers: Another success this year is the bumper crop of Italian roasting peppers. Our favorite varieties are from seed sourced again from Wild Garden Seeds, Philomath OR. And another huge thanks for the Nutrition Services Department of the Portland Public School District because they bought a bit more than one ton of our mix of gold and red sweet peppers and served them in most of Portland’s primary schools for lunch last Tuesday.  And thanks to technicians from Bridgetown Electric, based out of St. John’s and Polar Refrigeration, from Vancouver who quickly troubleshot and fixed a problem with our walk-in cooler that was to store that huge pepper harvest.
 
Winter Squash, Delicata: The first Winter Squash variety to appear in your share this season is a really sweet favorite. We sourced our seeds from Wild Garden Seed based in Philomath, OR. We store all of our winter squash varieties in bins that are built on the farm from wood delivered by Parr Lumber in NW Portland.  To help us move our heavy squash bins around we bought a new set of tractor mounted lift forks from Sauter Spray Equipment in Portland, and another pallet jack from F.E. Bennett Co. in Portland as well, all of our backs thank those two companies.
 
As our fields get harvested they are then seeded to a variety of cover crops, so thanks to Nash’s Organic Produce in Sequim, WA for providing us with a blend of 2,000 pounds of cereal rye and common vetch seed, and 500 pounds of hard red winter wheat seed.  All shipped to Portland via an  Organically Grown Company  truck, based in Gresham, OR.  And an amazing much appreciated same-day delivery service provided by our local Wilco Ag. supply who dropped off our cayuse oat seed and allowed us to get it in the ground quickly to take advantage of our last rainfall.

 

And finally a shout out to the folks at IFCO who make it super easy to order, pick-up, and return all of our re-usable plastic containers that the boxed CSA shares arrive to you in. IFCO rents those plastic bins to us, we return them to their facility in St. Johns were they get washed and sanitized.

Meet Your Farmer

FullSizeRender-4Jason (Jay) Patrick Watts
Hometown: Little Compton, Rhode Island
Joined SIO Crew: May 2015. Jay focuses most of his weekly energy on CSA harvest and is also one of our pro master root washers on the “Wilsi” root washing machine.
Favorite fruit/vegetable: Jay’s overwhelming love for all the fruits and vegetables makes it just a bit too hard to answer this question.
Favorite part of working on the farm: Working with the other members of the farm crew. Jay also enjoys having direct contact with the changing seasons through the cycles of the farm.
What he does off the farm: Jay enjoys going to the river beach by his house, snuggling with his cats, and makes a darn good pickle. He is also about to complete his Master Gardener certification with OSU.

Categories : CSA Newsletter
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