Grow Organic’s Chick Daze is coming!
Last order of the season!
Our biggest selection of day-old chicks this Saturday!

We’ll have:
Dominiques, Buff Orpingtons, Americanas, Cuckoo Marans, Welsummers, Golden Laced Wyandottes, Black Sex Links, Australorps, Speckled Sussex, Golden Spangled Hamburgs and more!

Chicken advisers on hand to answer brooder questions, discounts on Starter Feeds, chicken supply specials.

Door Prizes too!

Stop by Saturday, March 25th — ALL DAY

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are having a Soil, Compost and Vermiculture Workshop this Saturday at the Rockford Grange- 4262 Barrett Drive- just about a mile west of Windmaster Market and right next to the Westside FIre Department.

The Grange is having it’s 100th Anniversary starting at 3:00PM. We’ll hold the workshop outside starting around 3:30. There will also be a petting zoo, plant sale, seed swap and other happens.

Please help spread the word!

Grow Organic, Mid-Columbia Master Gardeners and Gorge Grown Presents:

FoodCycle:

An Organic Food and Wine Event!

The “FoodCycle” refers to the relationships existing among the many living organisms found in soil, also know as the “soil food web”. Our soil food web is similar to the food chain, except that the typical food chain is linear, while the soil food web works from the premise that everything that can eat or be eaten is involved in a cyclical relationship. Why does this matter? Many gardeners and farmers are too reliant on advertising for their knowledge of plant nutrients. After this event, you will know how to return beneficial biology to your soil and why it’s necessary to do so.

Topic for Discussion for this event: Life on earth is sustained by a complex underground ecological system – the soil food web. Through ignorance, humans have damaged the food web, in particular with ill-advised farming and gardening methods. We can return the food web to a healthy state by restoring soil biology. This will not only contribute to heather plants, but more nutritious fruits and vegetables.

Event Highlights: Appetizers prepared by Leah, wine by Springhouse Cellars, fresh organic ingredients by Wildwood Farms.
For this event, there will be 4 presenters including:

• James Cassidy: Senior Instructor, Soil Physics & Organic Agriculture at Oregon State University
• Laurel and Paul: local food farmers from Wildwood Farms. Their principles are simple: “We believe that healthy soil creates healthy plants, and that healthy plants are able to grow produce in ways that modern agriculture has long forgotten. Because of this, our food is grown without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Our primary crop is our soil – the rest of the process is a natural progression. ”
• Karleen Swarztrauber, M.D. Dr. Swarztrauber is Board Certified in Neurology and Electrodiagnostic Medicine with specialty training in neuromuscular and spine disorders. Dr. Swarztrauber’s approach to patient care is to integrate her expertise in neurology, pain management, immunology and nutrition to heal the whole person. She will be sharing the concept that severe and substantial vitamin and mineral deficiencies are occurring in the United States right now in our modern day world without evidence of caloric deprivation and often in the presence of obesity.
• Leah Hall from Leah’s Lunch: Leah Hall is a Certified Health Coach, AADP and has dual bachelor degrees in Ecological Agriculture and Food Science. Her business, Leah’s Lunch, was born out of her enjoyment for fresh, off-the-farm produce.
• Dirt Hugger: Known locally for their certified organic compost, Dirt Hugger is a regional composting company that supports a sustainable, local economy by collecting, processing, and utilizing valuable organic nutrients.

Sponsored by: Gorge Grown and Central Gorge Master Gardener Association
Location: Springhouse Cellars
Date:  Saturday, June 8th
Time: 3:00PM – 6:00PM
Cost: $30 –  includes 4-5  appetizers, a drink voucher for beer or wine and the presenters.

$5 a bunch

Purple Passion

Organic ~ Heirloom ~ Rich Color ~ High Yields
Larger, sweeter and tastier spears than green types. Stalks turn green when cooked. The very mild, sweet tasting spear of Purple Passion is a delight to eat. Although it turns green when cooked, the sugar content of the spear is 20% higher than green asparagus.

Del Monte 361

Very High Yields
The highest yielding variety in an Asparagus Variety Performance Trial by OSU. Del Monte 361 has superior vigor and excellent flavor.

Jersey Giant

Organic ~ Highly Productive and Vigorous!
Huge green spears show off purple highlights that are the perfect culinary treat. All-male hybrid produces heavier yields than female or male and female types and is tolerant to fusarium root rot and crown rot. Resistant to rust.

Do you think you have a bee swarm in Hood River or sounding Gorge area? First off, don’t panic. The bees are usually not aggressive at this stage of their life cycle and are very unlikely to sting. Swarming is the natural means of reproduction of honey bee colonies.

What to do about it? Simple: Call Grow Organic at: 541-632-3478.

Please be ready to answer a few questions such as:

• Your name, address and a way to reach you. Also, will someone be there for a  while?
• What does the cluster look like? We want to make sure these are bees and not wasps. If you can, take a picture and send it to jeff@groworganics.org, that would be very helpful!
• Where exactly is the swarm? How large is it? How high off the ground?
• How long has it been there?
• If we have someone come out to get it, will it be OK to cut the branch off the tree?

Even though most swarms will leave after a day or two,  many swarms do not survive.  We’ll have someone catch the swarm and relocate them to a hive where they can live out their days pollinating gardens and making wonderful honey for our locals to enjoy. Thank you for helping save the bees!

With a top bar hive, you don’t have to lift heavy boxes, purchase an expensive honey extractor, use foundation or agitate the bees as much as a Langstroth hive when you go inside. If you’ve got a window, like ours do, it’s even easier!
Our top bar hives are constructed from Western Red Cedar in Portland, Oregon by Beethinking. Unlike a pine hive, you don’t have to paint the Western Red Cedar hive body to help it last.

Prices start at $250.00

Oh my, we just got our potatoes, onions and shallot order in and it’s overwhelming! Over 500 pounds of certified organic heirloom potato seed this year including Caribe, Warba, Yukon Gold, Red Pontiac, Russet Burbank, Carola, Yellow Finn, French Fingerling, Purple Peruvian, and Kennebec. All standard potatoes are $3.00/lb and the fingerlings are $5.00/lb

We also got our  organic onions and shallot sets in. These include White Ebenezer Onion, Red Wethersfield Onion and Yellow Rock Onion for $5.00/lb and, Holland Red Shallots and Dutch Yellow Shallots for $12.00/lb.

Lastly, we have some certified organic volcanic  hot horseradish roots for sale for $7.00/lb! Stop by soon to pick up your seeds, roots and sets!

Anconas, Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Cuckoo Marans, Rhode Island Reds, Partridge Plymouth Rocks, Welsummers and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes!

I’ve had a few questions about the difference between the potatoes we are going to carry for people to plant verse the potatoes that they can buy at the grocery store.

Basically, potatoes are generally grown from “seed potatoes” which are tubers specifically grown to be disease free and provide consistent and healthy plants.  This reduces the possibility that these tubers can become infected with viruses. It is important that you choose to grow certified, disease free potatoes to minimize the spread of potato problems. This is not the case for potatoes that you buy at the store as you should avoid using these to grow your next crop.

To be disease free, the areas where seed potatoes are grown are selected with care. In the US, this restricts production of seed potatoes to only certain areas in only 15 states out of the 50 states that grow potatoes. The latitudes and elevations of these 15 states provide ideal climates for producing seed potatoes. Cold, hard, long winters, with extremely low temperatures, are vital to seed potato growing. Low temperatures kill insects and diseases that reduce seed potato quality. Many of these remote growing regions are also isolated from other commercial production, thus ensuring a healthier seed piece. During the four-month growing season, long days, intense sunshine and cool nights lead to vigorous plants and high yields.

Our certified organic seed potatoes are on their way from Irish Eyes in Ellensburg, Washington. Read here why the owners of Irish Eyes went Organic. Here’s a excerpt: “One minute, he was spraying pesticide – a neuro synapse inhibitor – on four rows of potatoes that another chemical he’d used to protect his crop hadn’t reached. The next minute, he was climbing into his truck and turning the key in the ignition. And then, “I was totally paralyzed.”

We hope to have our seed potatoes in the first week in March!

We just got a shipment of Scratch and Peck Feed from Washington.  They use only Naturally Grown and Non-GMO whole grains in their feeds. All of their animal feeds are Soy Free and we even have Corn Free products as well! They buy whole grains grown sustainably right here in  the Pacific North West direct from the farmers who grow them so we are able to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint and help build strong local economies!  Their feeds are packaged in paper bags made from sustainable tree farms and they are printed with plant-based, biodegradable ink so the entire bag is compostable!

Great Facebook Page as well!

Yay!  Fluffy day-old balls of cuteness are coming!
Grow Organic will be alive with tiny peeps the first week of March.

Our first arrivals include:  Anconas, Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Cuckoo Marans, Rhode Island Reds, Partridge Plymouth Rocks, Welsummers and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes!

These girls, selected for cold-hardiness and best egg production, will make great additions to your current flock or nice starters.  Call to reserve ([541] 632-3478) if you know what you want…they tend to go quickly at the start of the season.

Or Pre-order your chicks here!

“When we kill off natural enemies of insects, we inherit their work”. 
C.B. Huffaker

278Beneficial_insects_Guide (PDF) from SARE.org

Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds. Their mission is to conserve and promote America’s culturally diverse but endangered food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.
Look for a large selection of their seeds at Grow!

When blue orchard bees and wild bees are foraging in almonds with honey bees, the behavior of honey bees changes, resulting in more effective crop pollination, said lead author Claire Brittain, a former post-doctoral fellow from Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany and now associated with the Neal Williams lab at the University of California, Davis.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-honey-bees-effective-pollinating-almonds.html#jCp

for the Mason Bee season!

The mason bee is an ideal pollinator for a home gardener. Just two or three females can pollinate a mature apple tree! The males do not have a stinger  and the females will only sting if trapped or squeezed. This makes them an ideal neighbor for the home garden since they pose little to no threat of stinging. There are several different bee nesting systems that we sell or we can help you make your own. Mason bees are shipped in the winter when they are dormant in the pupa stage. We will have a limited quantity, so place your order early.

Tis the Season for gifts & treats and we’ve got them at Grow Organic!

Cheese making is very popular this season, and why not?!  Homemade cheese tastes delicious and some types can be made at a fraction of the pre-made price. You’ll get to sample chevre, one of the easiest cheeses to make at home. Making it during the holidays is especially fun because you can give it as a unique gift. We’ll show you have to dress it up for the season! We carry both the chevre kit and  other cultures to make a variety of cheeses at home.

Our sourdough starter is great for making bread, but we like experimenting with it. How about sourdough crackers? Spread with a bit of homemade chevre and you’ve got a tasty appetizer! Pick up a starter packet today and start enjoying the world of fermented, sourdough goodness.

Need something more active? Try a round on our fruit crusher and press…and get a quick reward of fresh apple cider!We’ll be demonstrating our crusher and press which can either be rented or purchased for that DIY cider lover on your gift list.

Begin the holiday season with a celebration of the Columbia Gorge region and the goodness that is made and grown here. This is your last chance to get tickets for our Terroir Tasting November 10th!

Grow Organic is pleased to announce our first “wine tasting” event that is a creative, delicious, and regionally-based evening of “Terroir Tasting.”

Our aim is to explore the importance of soil in its influence on our food & wine. The experiential aspect of the event will be tasting wines and food from multiple vineyards and farms from around our area and comparing it to the natural composition and elements found in the soil it was grown in. We think you are going to make some amazing discoveries and realize some fantastic connections!

What’s warm and furry and loves to snuggle? A Grow Organic bunny of course! Buy 2 and get a free 25# bag of organic rabbit food!