EMSWCD Board Updates, February 2020

Laura Masterson (left) presents Allison Hensey with a service award

Laura Masterson (left) presents Allison Hensey with a service award

At the February Board meeting, At-Large 2 Director Allison Hensey resigned from her position on the EMSWCD Board of Directors. We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to Allison for seven years of dedicated service to the East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District. Among her many valuable contributions, Allison has done terrific work helping advance diversity, equity and inclusion at EMSWCD, and serving as our Board Chair over the last year guiding the organization through a time of transition.

Carrie Sanneman, formerly our Associate Director, has been appointed to the At-Large 2 position. To learn more about our Board members, as well as view upcoming meetings and agendas, please visit our Board section.

Free Farm Succession Planning Workshop Series

Emily driving a tractor at Mainstem Farm

“The farm succession planning workshop series helped us create an important road map for the future of our family farm.”
-The Sturm family, 2019 Farm Succession Planning Workshop participants.

Update: the Farm Succession workshop set for January 15th has been postponed due to weather concerns. The first workshop in the series will now take place on January 29th and the series will extend to March 11th (see below for dates and full details).

EMSWCD is excited to once again offer a free farm succession planning workshop series for District farmers(the EMSWCD service area consists of all Multnomah County east of the Willamette River). Taught by a leading national expert, the workshop series will offer strategies to transition the farm and farm business, tax planning and so much more. One-on-one personalized counseling is also offered at no cost. The workshop will take place at the Multnomah Grange (30639 SE Bluff Road, Boring) on January 29th, February 12th and February 26th, and on March 11th from 1 – 4 pm, with a complimentary lunch at 12:30 PM.

Registration is required and space is limited – RSVP with Kathryn Nishimoto at (503) 594-0738 or kathykb@clackamas.edu.

Link

Upcoming EMSWCD Board and Committee Meetings

The East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District (EMSWCD), serving all of Multnomah County east of the Willamette River, has scheduled Board meetings, Budged Committee meetings and Land Legacy Committee meetings at the District Office (5211 N. Williams Ave, Portland, OR 97217) for the months of January through June 2020.

Visit this page to see a calendar of upcoming meetings.

Nature Notes 10: Leave the leaves

Welcome to EMSWCD’s Nature Notes series! Nature Notes shares small moments and interesting observations from our property, as well as related natural history tidbits, on a weekly to monthly basis.

December 2ndth, 2019

Leave the leaves!

As 2019 draws to a close, you can help birds and pollinators (and save yourself some yardwork!) with some simple actions.

  • In your yard:
    Leave the leaves — and everything else! Beneficial insects (those that eat garden pests, pollinate flowers and vegetables, and feed birds) need shelter through the winter just like people do. They hide in the soil under leaf litter, between layers of bark and wood, in rock piles. Many pollinators also spend the winter in hollow standing stalks of woody shrubs. Birds depend on these insects for food through the winter and into the spring. Help them survive by leaving your garden natural this winter!

  • On your balcony, porch, or window:
    Many people help winter birds with feeders, but did you know you can also ensure a good crop of wild fruit and seeds next season by raising mason bees? These efficient early spring pollinators are safe and easy to raise, and their shelters take up no more space than a bird house. This is the time of year to start — call your local nurseries and farm supply stores to see if they have mason bee cocoons and nest supplies in stock.

Gordon Creek Farm listed for sale

Aerial of Gordon Creek farm

EMSWCD has put a farm property currently in its ownership up for sale. The listing for the property can be found here. All interested parties should direct inquiries to EMSWCD’s broker, Chris Kelly of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices NW Real Estate at (503) 666-4616.

EMSWCD acquired the property in 2018, when it was listed for sale. At the time EMSWCD was concerned that a sale could result in the local farming community losing access to one of the more productive farms within our District. To help prevent this outcome, EMSWCD and the farmer/owner entered into a partnership whereby EMSWCD purchased the property to ensure it would remain forever available for agriculture. At the same time, the farmer also granted EMSWCD an option to permanently protect other property in their ownership. Read more →

From our farmers: Farm Punk Salads

Quinn and Theus of Farm Punk Salads pose at their booth

This is a farmer-contributed post in our “From our farmers” series, and was contributed by Quinn Richards of Farm Punk Salads, one of the farmers enrolled in our Farm Incubator Program.

Starting a farm these days is much different that perhaps it used to be. With a competitive marketplace in the Portland Metro area for small scale farming, we at Farm Punk Salads see a couple of things as key to developing a farm. We see identifying and cultivating a niche market, getting specific about the crops we grow, cultivating financial literacy, and building a personality within our brand to make our farm memorable as our main ways to building our business.

We wanted to make a farm that got people excited about eating salad, for it was our experience falling in love with salad that inspired us to focus on salad. Salad has all the things that we love so much. It’s raw and fresh, its quick and easy to make, it is what we are passionate about growing, and pretty much any diet supports eating lots of salad. It felt like the universal thing there was a need for in Portland and something that we could pair with a value-added product to give consumers a whole package. It was because of this that we chose to start a salad specific farm and produce a line of salad dressings.

Before we started our farm, we spent a lot of time thinking about what we might want to grow and how we think we might sell the vegetables. To grow crops is one thing and to sell them is often another. It was in the distance between these two points that we saw was a hang-up point for many small farms. After our time working on another Portland CSA-based farm, we took it as an opportunity to collect feedback from folks. What did they like about their CSA? What would they like to see improved? One of most common things we heard was “But what do I do with it?” or “I just don’t have enough time to cook all of these things.” We saw salad as an opportunity to create a product for people that would be quick and convenient but still support local food. “Let’s be a one-stop-salad-shop,” we thought. Let’s create a CSA that has all the needed ingredients to make a meal without a trip to the store. Read more →

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