Your Share This Week:
- Beets: Early Wonder Tall Top
- Broccoli
- Garlic
- Kale: Lacinato
- Lettuce: Green Butterhead/Rudy Sky
- Mustard Greens: Green Wave/Red Giant
- Radishes
Crop Notes
Beets: We are featuring a variety this week appropriately named ‘Early Wonder Tall Top’ which is a nice little red beet with large, voluptuous tops. We seeded these in the greenhouse at the end of March and I must say, they have the BIGGEST tops I have ever seen, even for this variety! When cooked, interior rings/veins become more evident and this beet turns slightly pink. The lovely pink stems can also be chopped up and cooked along with the tops, just keep them separate and start the stems slightly ahead of the greens. Beet greens look the best early in the season, especially with the added protection of growing in a greenhouse. I hope you like the beet tops as much as I do- my very favorite tip from a friend is to sautee them lightly and then top with a poached egg and some coarse salt. Look for beets later on in the season without the greens…
Broccoli: We grow several varieties on the farm that have proven themselves time and time again in our 
trials. You’ll notice that the varieties we grow have fairly stout stems, and sometimes a hollow cavity. All of that is perfectly normal and the stems are delicious! You might have to peel some of the skin near the end of the stem, but definitely make sure to enjoy using the stem along with the florets.
Mustard Greens: If you came out to the CSA Member Potluck in May, then you might remember sampling some fresh raw mustard greens out of the salad mix fields. This week we are bunching the fully grown version- full of green frills and beautiful red leaves. Mustard greens provide some spicy kick raw, and are very mild when cooked. Try them on sandwiches, I promise it will not be boring!
Radishes: We’re doing something a little unprecedented this week and putting radishes into the share 
without the leaves. With all the abundance of delicious greens in the share, we do not suspect anyone is too invested in eating the greens, the greens looked fairly destroyed from flea beetles, we can wash and pack them much faster without the greens, and in the end, you get more poundage of radish root rather than leaf. Its a win all around! We tore the tops off by hand, so you might find the occasional radish where the leaves took a little bit of skin off with them, but they sure look festive!
Field Notes
On the farm we are busy with a non-stop irrigation schedule, weeds that are growing as fast as the crops, and of course much harvesting. We are having large crews out to help us with all of the work, and have made good progress on tomato pruning, transplanting lots of squash, cucumbers, lettuce, fennel, and keeping up with greenhouse seeding and sowing crops directly into the fields.
The hot weather inspired me to thank Max and Seth, who today (Monday: 92 degrees) are graciously operating our flame weeders in order to prepare beds for direct seeding of salad mix, mizuna, arugula, and more. Since we don’t use herbicides at SIO to kill weeds, we have to come up with some other tricks to keep the amount of weeds down to a manageable level. With weeds, prevention is the best tactic- so we prepare the beds in advance of our desired seeding date and then we water them to encourage weeds to germinate. Once we see a good ‘weed flush’, we roll in with the flamer! The way it works is that it applies targeted flame heat to just the very top layer of the soil surface and heats up all of the little weeds so much that it ruptures the cell walls and they wither and die…all without disturbing the soil life below. Now the beds are ready for seeding, and our direct seeded crops will be able to germinate with far less competition from surrounding weeds.
Sauvie Island Center Pollination Celebration
Howell Territorial Park, Sunday, June 14 2015, 10 am to 1 pm
Come meet these hard working friends of the farm at Pollination Celebration, the Sauvie Island Center does this annual event in support of National Pollinator Week. Pollination Celebration, which will be held on the grounds of Howell Territorial Park and the Sauvie Island Organics on Sunday, June 14th from 10 am to 1 pm, will offer folks a sneak peek into the world of pollinators, the challenges they face and the important role pollinators play in our food supply.
In addition to Sauvie Island Center’s own staff, subject matter experts from event partner Metro will be on hand for the celebration. A donation of $10 per family is suggested to cover event costs and pre-registration, is requested.
The registration area will be positioned near the parking lot of Howell Territorial Park. Everyone will receive a pollinator passport and a map of the event. From there you will depart for a self-guided tour visiting variety of hosted stations around the farm and on the grounds of the park.