- Radishes
- Green onions
- Shallots
- Braising mix
- Spinach or chard
- Herb (watercress, parsley or thyme)
- Leeks
This week the weather finally turned. The warmth shifted for the plants as well and finally we have vegetables growing not just hanging out in suspended animation. We have our first nice harvest in weeks and will give you enough veggies to fill your bellies. Radishes that we seeded in late December are ready for harvest. They are not the ones I thought I was planting but we still enjoy them nonetheless. Jo W. will be happy as they are the French breakfast type that I grow at her request. There are a few crops – like a whole bed of kale that we were never able to harvest for a myriad of reasons (bugs, poor growth, planted too late in the season to come into winter thriving etc.) that are going straight to bolting. We will get 1-2 harvests off of 100 feet of planted space. This is such a bummer, but the life of the farmer goes on. This year has been a real testament to the CSA motto. When the farmers suffer crop loss the entire CSA membership gets less. We appreciate you hanging in there with us.
The farmland issues continue to blaze ahead and are coming at us from all parts of government. The legislature, the governor and Washington County commissioners. It is enough to be a full time job and one that I do not relish. There are at least two very important action items this week that we need your help with.
- If you have not signed the petition to modify Senate Bill 4 please do so. Here is the link and a very good summary of what happened this week as the bill passed out of committee and took the form of SB 4A.
I spent part of my day yesterday at an infuriating “community listening session” sponsored by our State Senator Janeen Sollman who blithered on for 40 minutes before she took a total of 3 questions. There was no opportunity to be heard and she talked to us about her accomplishments while working to take rural land into the UGB.
- Washington County Commissioners need to hear from you. Ordinance 882 would send a road going across highly sensitive drainages to the Tualatin RIver and it would facilitate the creation of more roads across rural lands connected to this one in the future. Please take action today as they are counting the number of responses they get, urge the commissioners to REJECT ORD. 882 OUTRIGHT.
- Commissioner Treece expressed that having folks in Person to testify makes a huge difference. If you can, please consider testifying in person on March 21st at 6:30PM. The more folks that testify in person and ask the commission to vote NO on 882, the higher chance we have at getting them to fail it.
- Please forward the action alert as widely as possible. The county tracks how many people write in in support and opposition to ordinances. This Metric is important to Chair Harrington.
- Submit personalized testimony: you can send personalized emails as testimony about how this ordinance will impact you in particular. These have more impact than generic emails created through the link.
I will personally attend the Washington County Commissioners meeting on Tuesday. If any of you can make it to that meeting that live in Washington County that would be super. One of the few people that spoke at Senator Sollman’s “listening session” was a CSA member of our neighbor Aaron Nichols and she was very impactful. We appreciate you taking time from your busy schedules to weigh in on issues that impact our ability to grow food and preserve farmland for the future. This is not simply about our farm’s viability but about the future of food production in the Willamette Valley. Once farmland is paved over it is destroyed forever.
Here are some recipes to enjoy this week:
Easy Spinach Salad with Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette – Eating Bird Food
20 Green Onion Recipes to Use Up a Bunch – A Couple Cooks
From NYT:
| “A common complaint about buying fresh herbs is that they go bad quickly. So treat them like a cherished bouquet: Trim the stems and place them in a glass of water, and then use a plastic produce bag to loosely cover the herbs. Pop them in the fridge and change out the water or snip the ends whenever the tops look a little wilty. (Basil is the exception: Leave it out at room temperature.) If space is limited, simply roll your herbs in paper towels and +refrigerate them in an unsealed bag. |
| While I love an artful garnish, when I’m meal planning I prefer to reach for recipes in which tender herbs like dill and parsley (or other delicate produce like scallions) play a more substantial role. That way, I can all but guarantee I’ll use them up!” |