CSA WEEK #17: SEPT 15-17 | Sauvie Island Organics

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

Jason (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.

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