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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.
Come Join Us
Earth Day Celebration
On Saturday April 23rd Sauvie Island Organics (SIO) will be hosting a table at the City Repair Earth Day Celebration at the Washington High School Field located at SE 12th & Stark. The theme of this year’s event is, “Incorporated,” and with that in mind SIO will be sharing information about our CSA business model, as well as have ‘Seed Starting’ and ‘Guess that Veggie Start’ activities. Stop on by, say hello to the farm, and leave with a few starts for your garden. The event is from 10am-7pm, with live music, interactive art, kids parade, food and beverage vendors, and much more. Please visit http://earthday.cityrepair.org/
Save the Date
Join us Saturday May 21st for our season Kick-off Party. Bring your kids, bring your share partner, and bring a potluck dish to share. Join us from 11am-2pm, more details to follow soon.
SIO is Flaming Hot this Spring
Here at SIO we are always working to improve our systems and increase efficiencies. This season we decided to upgrade our flame weeder in order to reduce labor hours and total fuel use (propane). 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. Once a bed is prepared for direct seeding we wait a week for the first flush of weeds, and then flame the bed prior to seeding salad mix, radishes, and turnips, because these crops all germinate very quickly. While beets are also a quick germinating crop, we choose to flame after the beets germinate because the flaming also acts as a thinning mechanism, burning off the excess sprouts that would need to be hand thinned otherwise. We also flame our carrots after seeding because they germinate very slowly. This sets back the weeds and allows the carrots to germinate in a clean seed bed. We also use the flamer on our October planted garlic. In November we’ll flame the garlic killing all winter weeds. Even though the garlic is an inch tall at this time its growth is unaffected by being burned by the flamer, the weeds on the other hand do not fair as well.
While our older single-burner flamer served us well for the past decade, its’ wand style only allowed for flaming one line of weeds at a time and let the heat escape too quickly. Our new flamer (pictured below) has five burners contained under a sheet metal hood. The hood better contains the flames and associated heat, which significantly reduces our overall fuel use. Labor time savings are also significant with the new flamer, taking 1/3 of the time to flame a 180ft bed. Small upgrades like these make big impacts in our organic growing systems.
Field Manager Scott strives to keep our garlic beds weed free throughout winter to allow for the most ideal growing conditions for the crop.
Portland Picks-ups…New CSA Pick-up Sites
We know convenience is something that is important to our members, and this season we are adding more pick-up locations around the greater Portland area in hopes that one is just right for you. This season we’ve decided to partner more of our pick-up sites with Portland area businesses, and if you’d like to find out more about them just click on the name to go to their website. Family, Individual, and Salad Shares will be available at all of the new pick-up locations, so take the plunge, sign-up and start picking-up your share in your neighborhood or at your workplace this coming May. If your workplace is interested in becoming a pick-up site please contact us at csa@sauvieislandorganics.com.
Since March we’ve added these new pick-up sites:
City of Portland (1900 SW 4th Building) – Wednesday PM Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center (1015 NW 22nd Ave) Thursday PM Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Neil Kelly (804 N Alberta) – Monday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Since the end of last season we’ve added these new pick-up sites:
Artemis Cafe (1235 SE Division – Ladd’s Addition) Wednesday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Clean Water Services (Hillsboro) – staff only – Thursday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Fork Revolution (5823 NW Cornelius Pass Rd.- Rock Creek Neighborhood) Thursday PM Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Green Drop Garage (1417 SE 9th @ Madison) Wednesday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Lincoln Street Church (Mt Tabor – 52nd & Lincoln) Tuesday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
OHSU Marquam Plaza Building 1 (2525 SW 3rd)- staff only – Tuesday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
OHSU Market Square Building (Downtown)- staff only – Tuesday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
OHSU Bancroft Building (South Waterfront) – staff only – Tuesday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
OHSU West Campus (Beaverton/Hillsboro) – staff only – Thursday PM
Family Box / Individual Box / Salad Share
Shares Still Available for 2011! – Sign-up Now
Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, its not too late to share in the harvest for 2011! As we are busy planning and preparing we want to remind you that sign-up for the 2011 season is open and we still have space available at all of our pick-up sites. Signing up is quick and easy! Just complete the Community Farm Agreement and submit on-line, then send in your payment. We’re filling up fast, so if you know you want to join act quickly!
On a dry day Farmer Peter prepares broccoli starts for transplanting into the fields