Global Greenie

Last night we attended a potluck dinner which consisted of dishes “made, picked, grown, foraged, caught, etc. by” guests. On Saturday we traveled out to Sherwood Orchards to pick filberts (aka hazelnuts) and plums. A farm cat greeted us, but not before finishing off everything but the tail of a mouse. Oddly, the cat itself had no tail.

I’ll post about the party itself soon.

So far this year, we’ve visited the King, Beaverton, and Hollywood Farmers’ Markets in the Portland, Oregon metro area.  Last weekend was our first trip to Hollywood in quite a long time.  Even though it’s fairly close to our house, we pretty much quit going because it’s like a dog park with veggies.  Last week they decided to make two hours (the two worst hours — 8 to 10) dog free.  It’s not enough to make me want to return.  Sorry, but dogs don’t belong at the farmers’ markets.  You’re barely paying attention to your kids and meanwhile your dog’s in a fight and/or crotch sniffing contest and elderly people are tripping over the leashes.  But before I leave the Hollywood forever — at least til they get with the dogless program — I’ll plug two vendors.

Buns on the Run serves up homemade sausages.  I’ve never eaten there, as I don’t consume chicken or pork.  My wife, Kathleen,  swears by the chicken ones and they only went up a modest twenty-five cents this year.  Meanwhile, TOK, a friend affectionatley known as The Other Kathleen, writes at Good Stuff Northwest about Blooming Goodies.  But TOK didn’t mention my big find last weekend: they have morning glory (the Asian variety).  I didn’t buy any from them, because I’d recently found it at a Thai grocery and cooked it up, but I did get pea shoots.  The morning glory is the slender plant in this photo I took at the Blooming Goodies booth last weekend.  I wonder what those colorful leaves to the left taste like?

To locate other Farmers’ Markets in the Portland area, visit the EcoMetro website.  They produce the Chinook Book, which is sort of an Entertainment Book for people with standards.  I picked up three this year: two I purchased and one that EcoMetro generously sent to me.

I was chatting with Andy from Rooftop Brew the other morning and told him my hop plant was covered with aphids this year. Turns out he had just released some ladybugs on his plant. Mine is swarming with larvae that arrived by themselves (well, probably with help from a mom who laid the eggs). If you’ve never known what ladybug babies look like, I got a few good shots. Andy describes them as alligator-like.

This morning I popped outside to check on their progress as they devour the aphids and noticed two unusual ones. I think they’re albino.  Here’s one of ‘em, along with a “larva of color” in the background.

Portland has a new Farmers’ Market and it’s practically down the street from me!  We rounded up our next-door neighbors to go on the opening day.  Two other sets of neighbors from across the street got there before us.  And it’s good they did because the market was such a success that most of the produce was gone by the time we arrived.

Still, the four of us managed to pick up rapini, chilies, clams, pears, and some homemade ice cream sandwiches.  Kingsley and I had our eyes on wild-caught salmon and talked to the Native American vendor for awhile.  But then our wives reminded us that we already had some salmon in our respective homes.  So next time I’m going to buy a whole fish from the fellow and grill it.

The King Market is nice, not just for the proximity (and the noticeable diversity compared to — say — the Hollywood Market), but also because many of the vendors are favorites from the other markets.  I got my clams at good old Linda Brand.  A full list of vendors is available at the official Portland Farmers’ Market site.

If you’re in Portland, check out the King Market some Sunday morning this season.  Here’s the map.

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I hope you got a chance to do something for Earth Day. My employer had a number of cool activities going on, but I opted for the tour of the vermiculture program. Eventually the worm bins will process about 50 pounds of scraps from the cafeteria per day!

This is just one of the bins. Josh and his team have already built several from recycled wood. He thinks they’ll switch to plastic, though. Our climate is not suited for wood bins (as I recently found with my own, which I’ll describe in a future post).

Another cool thing at my campus is that these bins are located within the Learning Garden and any group can apply for a plot or get involved in some way. I’m a librarian and trying to think of a library-themed spot or some way to get the library involved. Do you have any ideas?