Welcome to week #13, and happy almost Labor Day!
In Your Share This Week
- Basil
- Carrots
- Fennel
- Lettuce
- Onions
- Red Slicers
- Sweet Peppers
Crop Highlights
Basil: We have more basil! The ideal storage temperature for basil is 50 degrees (have any dark, cool cabinets?) If you don’t want to turn it all into pesto or have a big caprese salad party, try putting it in smoothies or chopping it up for garnish on top of pasta or curry.
Onions: We have been harvesting our onions in bulk since the beginning of August. This is normally an afternoon activity, and at the end of the day we spread them out in the greenhouse to cure. These ‘storage’ onions will do just fine sitting on your countertop for weeks, but why wait?
Sweet Peppers: Peppers are here! We are distributing Jolene’s and Gatherer’s Gold, both Italian sweet peppers. These peppers are great for roasting; I peel the skin off of mine after baking them (ah, that smell!) to ensure an extra smooth texture. If it’s too hot for you to cook this week, you can store them dry in a plastic bag in your refrigerator for 4-5 days. They are ripening pretty slowly on the plants, but we hope to get you a larger distribution in the weeks to come.
Carrots: They’re the best. Here’s a picture from 2016 of some wacky SIO carrots:
Remember to check out Katherine’s recipe blog for new, delicious cooking tips:
http://www.cookwithwhatyouhave.com/sauvie-island-organics-recipes-tips/
Farmer of the Week
If you pick up at Lincoln Street Church on Tuesdays, you already know Miranda Trostle, but for those of you who don’t, here she is! Miranda joined us in the spring of 2016 and has been a huge asset. She is a great team member on whatever job she is on, but we utilize her excellent salad-land skills the most. In this picture she is sitting in our beautiful lettuce mix field, with spinach, chard, mini-heads and salanova in the beds to her left, and chicories to her right. When Miranda is at SIO, you can typically find her harvesting greens for our salad mix in the morning, and washing and packing those greens in our packhouse in the late morning/afternoon.
When she is not at SIO, Miranda stays busy working in her pottery studio in SE Portland, Sego Lily Pottery. As you can see from the pictures below, she creates beautiful, functional pieces, with the goal of enhancing the rituals of daily life for her customers. Her productions (tableware in particular) fit nicely with her passion for growing, cooking, and eating local food. As she says, “There is nothing quite as satisfying as eating a meal of organic veggies from the farm off of a hand-made plate!” Miranda looks forward to participating in various craft fairs this fall…keep an eye out for her! You can visit her at www.segolilypottery.com, or for you Instagramers out there, @segolilypottery.
