Our late October CSA garden on SE Sherrett St.

Our Fall CSA finished up on December 2nd, and what a year it has been! This year ten families grew vegetables for our CSA. I say family rather than individuals, as the familial unit is more appropriate when describing how our growers work together in the garden with spouses, children, cousins, brothers, and sisters.

Bal and Mani sorting their freshly picked bell peppers

I grew vegetables in SE Portland with three of these families, recent refugees who came to Portland from Bhutan via Nepal. I thought that I might just meet a few men and women, but I soon met their siblings who came to help harvest. I met their children who ran free through the garden and insisted on helping me water kale seedlings. As word spread about the garden, I even met extended relatives and friends who came to our garden to walk around and admire the space.

Two of the women who came most regularly told me that the garden was like a piece of home to them. Living in a foreign place where the language and culture are still a bit alien, the garden provided a space to be outside, grow food for their families, and laugh with friends.

In addition to bringing their own families to the garden, the generous, caring nature of these women drew neighbors to the site as well. One day, a stranger stopped by the garden when I was the only grower there. She had brought a birthday present, a stuffed animal, for Pabi’s youngest daughter.  The woman told me that she often walked by our garden and would pass Pabi and Jamuna working with their children.

Pabi and Jamuna at Sherrett St. garden in 2010

Pabi and Jamuna had generously shared their vegetables with this woman and she, having heard about the approaching birthday, had wanted to give something back.

The caring nature of these women was evidenced each time we met. Every afternoon of working at the garden they would pull bags and tupperwares from their backpacks and invite me to eat lunch under the walnut trees. “Lo, [their shortened version of my name] come, eat!” They would say while bringing their fingers to their mouths to mime their intention. They shared their food with me every lunch: spicy peppers and pickled radish; aloo (potatoes), saag (greens), and chana (chick peas); and mountains of freshly cooked rice. One week, several families traveled to a farm to purchase a whole goat together. We ate meat from that goat all summer long.

Getting to know these families has been a rewarding experience, and connecting them with our CSA members this summer has been rewarding in another way. This has been the most successful year of selling vegetables that our growers have had thus far. To put this in perspective, many of our growers have a difficult time finding other employment in Portland. A struggling economy, paired with their broken English, makes finding a permanent position a difficult prospect. Two weeks ago, when Mani was asked if he currently had a job, he replied, “Garden is job.” For gardening to be a viable economic prospect is an exciting opportunity that these growers have not known before this year.

Bipana and Lauren at the garden in early Spring garden

All of our CSA members have helped to make this success possible. We’ve been lucky to supply your vegetables this past spring, summer, and fall, and I hope you’ll join us again next year. If you have any questions or comments about next year’s membership, I’m happy to answer them! Email them to Lauren at lmorse@growportland.org.

It’s officially summer here in the Pacific Northwest, though we’re not yet tripping over summer veggies such as zucchini, beans, and tomatoes. It’s been a difficult spring for farmers across the country–floods and unseasonably cool weather in the Pacific Northwest and droughts and heatwaves in the southern half of the country. Good news is, the July sun has gotten some of our summer crops out of the ground and into our CSA boxes (including the first of the zucchini!), even if a bit later than expected.

Great! How can I get some veggies?

Signing-up for the Fall Season is a great opportunity for those who were too late to join an early summer CSA this year. The Fall Season is a bountiful time, and harvests will include an abundance of late summer vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, greens, peppers, cucumbers, onions, beets, squash, carrots, etc.

Packing CSA boxes for our Thursday pick-up

We’re accepting Fall Season sign-ups now! Read below to learn a bit more about our CSA and feel free to contact Lauren with additional questions, lmorse@growportland.org or 503-858-0216. Sign-up for the Fall CSA today!

What sort of vegetables will I get in my box?

To check out the contents of this season’s CSA boxes, go to our Flickr account. Keep in mind that our Fall Season boxes will have very different staple veggies than the Summer Season. For an idea of Fall vegetables, take a look at our 2011 Growers Alliance harvest projections.

What pick-up site is best for me?

This year the Growers Alliance CSA has pick-up sites at Mercy Corps Northwest (in the Old Town neighborhood) and the Warehouse Cafe (in the Brooklyn neighborhood).

Choose a pick-up site that is convenient for you. If you reguarly work, live, or make weekly trips nearby one of our pick-up sites, it will be much easier to get your box each week.  If we don’t have a pick-up site that is conveinent for you, send an email to Lauren to let her know. We will be adding more pick-up sites next year, and would like to determine which areas in Portland have strong interest from potential shareholders.

What size box is right for me?

Week 7 CSA box

-Our Regular Size shares provide enough weekly vegetables for 2-3 people who prepare food communally.* They contain about 2/3 the quantity of vegetables found in our Family Size share, and will typically have 2-3 fewer varieties of vegetables than the Family Size.

-Our Family size shares are great for families, or for any group of people who live and cook communally.* They include enough vegetables to provide for 3-4 people.

*Tips for splitting shares:

I recommend splitting a CSA share among multiple people. Not only does this make it easier to pay the cost up front, but it’s also fun to have people to share recipes and meals with. If this is your first time joining a CSA, splitting a share will allow you to get the swing of incorporating an abundance of veggies in your diet without being overwhelmed.

-If you’re splitting the Regular Size share among people who don’t cook together, consider alternating weeks of pick-up. The freshness of the veggies we put in your CSA boxes means that they will keep for two weeks if they’re stored correctly in your refrigerator or counter top.

-If you’re planning to split a Family Size share among 3-4 people who do not regularly cook together, I recommend having 2 people split the share each week (alternating each week between the pairs of two).

Whether you’re looking to gain basic gardening skills or to increase the productivity of an established market garden, Portland has a class for that. Use the list below as a starting point, and remember to check back often with the listed organizations as their course offerings change during the year.

Getting the gardening basics:

• Portland Nursery offers a very wide range of free classes at both their SE Stark and SE Division store locations. Classes range from specific (“Container Gardening with Water Plants”) to more general (“Year Round Vegetable Gardening”). The classes I’ve taken from them have been very full, so I recommend registering early!

• If you haven’t been out to see Oregon Tilth’s demonstration gardens at Luscher Farm, plan on making a trip out this summer. Taking a walk through the demonstration gardens–located in West Linn, OR–is a learning experience in and of itself. For more structured learning opportunities, Oregon Tilth offers an annual series of classes known as their Seasonal Sessions.  These classes cover a wide range of garden focused classes (including one entitled “Chickens in the Garden” in late July that I hope to attend).

• Hands-on gardening classes can also be found at Zenger Farm in SE Portland. Zenger is a six acre urban farm which operates as both a demonstration and working farm. Classes include gardening, food preparation, and management of small farm animals (chickens, worms, bees…).

• Growing Gardens is another wonderful resource for those looking for gardening knowledge from seed starting to seed saving. They offer gardening classes in Spring, Summer, and Fall. They also have a line-up of food preparation classes that includes appearances by top Portland chefs such as Kasey Mills from Toro Bravo. Yum!

• If you live close by to one of Portland Community College’s campus locations, you should know about their community education classes, non-credit courses taught to the public for a small fee. Classes this summer include several garden, soil, and food preservation topics.

• Though a little late for this season, it’s worth mentioning Portland’s Bureau for Planning and Sustainability (BPS) Urban Growth Bounty classes. BPS began offering these classes in 2010, and they have been quite popular (another instance in which I’d recommend signing up early).  Classes run from the beginning of the year through early summer and are already finished for 2011. They range from soil preparation to food preservation and are taught by local experts. If you missed them this year, be sure to check in early for the next round.

For incorporating trees and large perennials into your garden plan:

• For those looking to expand their gardening knowledge to perennials and tree species, the Portland Fruit Tree Project (PFTP) offers year round pruning and tree care classes.  PFTP is also a great resource for learning about fruit in general–with their summer harvest parties! Check out their website to learn more and join in.

Taking your gardening knowledge to the next level:

• Maybe you’ve been gardening for years and want to take your skills to the next level. Consider becoming a certified Master Gardener through Metro’s OSU Extension Service. Those who complete this 66 hour, formal training in all aspects of gardening are treated as community resources, volunteering in various capacities to share their knowledge. Many Master Gardeners also go on to complete OSU Extension’s Organic Gardening Certification Program.

Enjoying the fruits (and veggies) of your labor:

• Livingscape Nursery in N Portland is a great resource for food preservation classes. They have a full kitchen in the back of the store where classes are held. In addition to cooking, Livingscape also offers many classes for chicken and bee-keeping basics.

In addition to cleaning tools regularly throughout the season, Spring and Fall are convenient times to do more intensive tool cleaning. Many gardeners–myself included –don’t give their garden tools the regular maintenance they deserve. Clean, well sharpened tools  not only last longer, they also perform much better in the garden. So why not take one of these rainy spring days and start making tool cleaning a habit?

Step One: Cleaning

Shovels in need of a gardener's lovin' care!

Shovels, hoes, rakes, and other tools that come into regular contact with soil:

Clean soil, fertilizers, and debris from both the head and handle of the tool. A rough cotton cloth or wire brush should do the trick.  Hosing tools down with a jet of water can quickly clean metal parts, but be sure that the tools are dry before storing them. If rust has formed on parts of the tool, use steel wool, a wire brush, or 80-grit sandpaper to remove this buildup. WD-40 can be used in combination with these to speed the process.

Pruning tools:

Remove saps or residues that have built up on these tools with a rough cotton cloth. Use a 50:50 solution of rubbing alcohol and water to both sanitize the tools and remove any remaining debris.

Step Two: Conditioning

Shovels, hoes, rakes, and other tools that come into regular contact with soil:

Wipe down the metal with a solvent such as WD-40. To maintain this coating, you can mix a quart of motor oil into a 5 gallon bucket of sand. Store tools head down in the sand to clean off grit and to condition the metal.

If the tool handle is wooden, check for cracks and splits. Sand smooth any splinters and use a rag to apply linseed oil to the wood. Continue applying until the wood no longer absorbs the oil. This conditioning prolongs the life of the wood, reducing the splintering and cracking that can occur when handles frequently get wet in the garden.

Pruning tools:

Keep joints working smoothly by applying WD-40 to the pivot points.

Step Three: Sharpening

If you’ve been working with dull tools, a sharpening session can do wonders to increase the efficiency of your garden work. Though it’s an important part of maintenance, sharpening should be done with care so as not to harm tools! Here are some tips to get you started:

Shovels, hoes, rakes, and other tools that come into regular contact with soil:

Most hoes and shovels are sold pre-sharpened, but could use some maintenance from year to year. Use an 8 inch mill file to sharpen. Keep your tool secure in a vise or clamp, and draw the mill file (tooth side down) in one direction over the area you are sharpening. Angle the mill file to follow the tool’s beveled edge.

Pruning tools:

One method of sharpening pruning tools is to use an oil stone. Draw the stone along the blade in one direction until the blade has regained the desired sharpness.

Step Four: Storing

All tools benefit from being stored in dry, protected conditions. No shed or outdoor box to keep your tools in? Don’t despair! Sounds like another perfect rainy day project to me…

Planting lettuce starts in our SE Sherrett St garden!

Portland’s erratic April weather has already proven how quickly sun can turn to rain (or even hail). Our average last frost isn’t until the end of the month, so it’s best to be cautious about what veggies you put out in the garden. Below are a few recommendations of which plants can be planted now and which should wait.

General notes for early spring plantings:

• Even the hardiest plants can be crippled by a cold night. If planting greens outside, be ready to protect them with row covers or cloches.
• If you’re sowing heavy-feeding plants like lettuces or brassicas, it may be necessary to work a high nitrogen fertilizer into the soil when planting.
• If you’re incorporating a winter cover crop into the soil, it’s best to give the green matter up to a few weeks to break down before planting in the area. Microbes are sluggish when the soil is cold and will be slow in breaking down plant debris until the weather warms up.
• The “Days to Maturity” listed on your seed packet refers to maturity under peak growing conditions. If you’re starting summer veggies with cool spring temperatures, they often take days to weeks longer to mature than those sown in summer.

Veggies to plant outside now:

Beets and Swiss Chard: These will germinate even with the cold weather.

Brassicas: Your broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and turnips can be seeded directly outside.

Carrots and Cilantro: These can be direct seeded outside now, but they benefit from some protective covering.

Lettuce, Spinach, and Arugula: These greens actually prefer cooler spring temperatures to the heat of summer, but you may need to protect small plants with row covers if extreme cold or hail strikes.

Onions: Direct seed now for fresh onions and scallions this spring and summer.

Peas: These need time to mature before the heat of summer, so get them in the ground soon!

Veggies to keep inside your home or greenhouse:

Solanums (Tomato, Pepper, Eggplant): These plants need consistently sunny days and warm soil, so they need a few more months before transplanting outside. If you haven’t sown seed indoors yet, do it soon!

Melons, Squashes, and Cucumbers: These are also heat loving plants and won’t fair well outside at this time. Now is a great time to plant them indoors for transplanting later!

Arugula--one of the first greens in the Spring!

The first hint of Spring is in the air, and I don’t just mean the scent of Daphne blooming. The air warms up much more quickly than our Pacific Northwest soils and, while sunny skies have us ready to plant, the soil below may still be in hibernation for the winter.

Here are three things to consider when gearing up for gardening this year:

1) What is your soil’s texture?

Soil is composed of three different classes of particles, defined by their size. Among other things, these particles determine the soil’s ability to retain water, provide drainage, and hold onto nutrients. Your soil will be a mix of:

• Sand: pieces of physically weathered rock (1/16 to 2 mm in size)
• Silt: smaller pieces of physically weathered rock (1/256 to 1/16 mm in size)
• Clay: pieces of chemically weathered rock (smaller than both sand and silt)

You can determine the ratio of these components with a simple test.

1. Collect about a pint of garden soil (avoid roots and rocks), and allow it dry.
2. Add the soil to a quart mason jar and mark the jar at the soil’s top.
3. Fill the remainder of the jar with water.
4. Shake! You want to suspend all the particles in the water.
5. At two minutes, mark the jar where the first layer of soil has settled (this is the sand).
6. At two hours, mark the jar where the second layer of soil has settled (this is the silt).
7. The third layer may take several days to settle (this is the clay).

Once you know the ratio of sand-silt-clay in your own soil, check out this soil characteristic triangle to determine its classification. If you’re like me, your garden soils contain a large dose of Willamette Valley clay, deposited thousands of years ago by the Missoula Floods.

2) What soil amendments do I need?

If you’re growing in a new area, a soil test is a good investment. These tests can tell you the pH of your soil, the presence of minerals and nutrients, and its organic matter content (important for for retaining water and nutrients). Be sure to check out Oregon State University’s list of laboratories that perform soil tests in the area.

3) Is my soil dry enough to work?

Working your soil (i.e. digging, turning, raking, or even walking on) before it has dried out from the winter rains can create a mess. If your soil has a lot of clay, working it while it’s too wet may create soil clods that remain rock-hard for the remainder of the season!

To test your garden’s wetness, make a golf-ball sized ball of garden soil in your hand. If the ball breaks apart when poked with a finger, it’s ready to be worked. If it stays together, give it a few more sunny days to dry out.

Additional soil and garden resources:

The realm of soils is so vast that I can’t hope to scratch the surface in this post! If you want to dive deeper, here are some additional resources to get down-and-dirty with:

• Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades by Steve Soloman
• Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
• Start with the Soil by Grace Gershuny
• The Nature and Properties of Soils by Nyle Brady
• Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery
• OSU’s “Soil Test Interpretation Guide“

Packing some De Cicco Broccoli. Yum!

Thanks to everyone who participated in Grow Portland’s Seed Club this year! We had 3 non-profit gardening organizations, 9 schools, and over 30 home gardener members in 2011. In all, we were able to distribute over 2,000 packets of organic vegetables seeds.

Grow Portland’s second annual Seed Club finished up this week with a seed packing session at Lucky Lab Brew Pub on SE Hawthorne. Seed packers ranged from first-time gardeners to seasoned PNW growers, all excited for the 2011 season and excited to meet other people growing in the area.

What’s all this about seed packing?

Through the Seed Club, Grow Portland purchases bulk organic, open-pollinated vegetable seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds, a small independent seed company. Volunteer Seed Club members then re-pack these 30+ varieties of bulk seeds into individual envelopes for distribution. While organic seeds are often expensive for home gardeners, school garden programs, and non-profits to purchase in small quantities, buying in bulk allows Grow Portland to purchase quality seeds at a great price.

Packing seed orders for our school and non-profit members.

Vegetable seeds, gardeners, and delicious beer aren’t things you frequently experience in the same setting, but they happen to fulfill the mission of our Seed Club: bringing gardeners together to socialize while connecting them with affordable seeds.

This year we partnered with the Oregon Food Bank and Adelante Mujeres to get each of them 500 packets of seeds. Schools and small non-profits (including Abernethy’s Garden of Wonders and Portland’s Raphael House) received 50 packets of seeds. Those who joined the Seed Club as home gardeners each received 15 packets of seeds.

Interested in participating next year? Our home gardener and school memberships fill quickly! Please send an email to lmorse@growportland.org to be the first to hear about our 2012 Seed Club.

BPS has initiated a project to update the city’s zoning codes, including codes which determine where and how food can be grown, processed, and distributed.  For instance, do you want to sell food that you’ve grown in your backyard? Pick up a weekly CSA box at your neighbor’s house? Or maybe you’re interested in starting a community garden down the street? All of these actions are affected by zoning codes, which determine land use in the city.

Together, BPS and the Portland Multnomah Food Policy Council have formed a Project Advisory Group (PAG) to discuss where zoning changes should be focused. This is where you come in: the PAG meetings are open to the public!

The PAG has met through the months of January and February to gain input on its main areas of focus (i.e. food production, urban animals, farmers markets, community gardens, etc).  The next meeting is scheduled for mid-March, where group members will report back on what they’ve learned so far.  Keep an eye on the PAG calendar for upcoming event details!

Growers Alliance farmers growing near Johnson Creek in 2010

The Growers Alliance Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program is back for 2011! For all the juicy details (and to sign up!), check out our CSA brochure.

CSA members (“shareholders”) pay in advance to receive a weekly box of fresh produce for the entire growing season.

Our produce is grown by the Growers Alliance farmers–several small, urban growers farming within or just outside the Portland city limits. These growers include the men and women involved with Mercy Corps NW’s New American Agriculture Project.

Tomatoes under row cover in Damascus in 2010

Veggies for this year include our previously popular Romano Beans, DeCicco broccoli, and Genovese Basil. New additions include baby Bok Choi, sugar pumpkins, and Kuri Squash. Check out our Projected Harvest for a more detailed crop list.

Based on our experience in 2010, here are a few additions we’ve made to give our 2011 shareholders even more options:

• The addition of half-size shares (good for couples or veggie loving individuals).
• The option to receive “vacation credit.” Shareholders can plan on missing a box or two and receive equal credit at our farmers market stand.
• An additional pick-up site in the Brooklyn neighborhood at The Warehouse, the community hub of Portland Green Parenting.

We’re particularly excited about this last point, as our pick-up at the Warehouse is the location of Portland Green Parenting’s buying club, Know Thy Food.  CSA members who join Know Thy Food will have the option of purchasing local meat, eggs, dairy, and grains along with their vegetable shares!

There’s certainly a lot of excitement as we gear up for the 2011 growing season. Our arugula, peas, scallions, and turnips are going into the ground soon. Make sure to sign up now to get a share!

You walk into the supermarket this summer in search of tomatoes and find nothing but empty shelves. A breakdown in transportation networks has prevented these fruits from completing their 500 mile journey to your door. It will be days before the supermarket shelves are re-stocked.

Luckily for you, Portland is unique among cities in that fertile and productive farm lands have been preserved just outside its borders. In fact, those tomatoes you’re searching for are growing so close to your Portland doorstep that you can almost smell them.  But what networks are in place to get them to you?

A distribution problem

The disappearance of “local food” may be a poor description of the situation we face. Local food production hasn’t disappeared, but the networks needed to distribute local food have. Consumer preference for industrially produced and distributed vegetables (perhaps due to their lower prices and year-round availability) has caused the industrial model to dominate over regional distribution systems such as farmer cooperatives and farm direct buying clubs.

But no matter what the supermarket shelves tell us, we can and we are growing food in and around Portland. How can we get this food to Portlanders?

Food hubs

Food hubs are one way to reinvigorate local food systems. The USDA defines food hub as “a centrally located facility with a business management system that facilitates the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution and/or marketing of locally or regionally produced food products.” Regional food hubs allow food to travel to consumers efficiently without sacrificing its locality.

One such hub is Portland’s own (aptly named) FoodHub, an Ecotrust program which connects food producers and buyers in the Pacific Northwest.  This program allows food buyers, sellers, and “associates” (academics, food policy activists, NGOs, farmers markets, etc) to connect through an online marketplace. Using the internet to rebuild connections between growers and eaters is an exciting possibility, and it is only one of many food hub models growing around the country.

This diversity will be highlighted on March 3rd at the national Food Hub Summit. This summit will take place in Portland and is co-hosted by Ecotrust and USDA Rural Development. Portland’s FoodHub will be highlighted, but this summit has the larger goals of educating attendees on the diversity of food hubs, case studies of NW hubs, and evolving mapping projects. To learn more about the summit or to rsvp, contact Deborah Kane at dkane@ecotrust.org.