About the SGC
The Sellwood Garden Club is a unique and curious agricultural organization, growing and distributing ultra-local, organic-method produce to market patrons, land-landers (aka Club Members), CSA (short for “community supported agriculture”) subscribers and some of the finest restaurants in Southeast Portland, Oregon, Cascadia.
We take mostly useless lawns throughout SE Portland and turn them into individual farm fields that collectively nourish hundreds of people, including patrons of the Hawthorne Urban Farmers’ Market and some of our favourite restaurants in Southeast Portland.
Through a strictly barter arrangement with our Club Members, we pay “rent” on our land and water use by delivering a “rent basket” of produce (with the option to pick from our sibling farm CSA pickup sites on Tuesday, Thursday or Friday evenings) each week from 15 June until Thanksgiving for 2010. CSA members will enjoy a somewhat larger basket each week that they are free to assemble themselves from a centralized pick-up location.
The network, which now includes over 20 small SE farms and small acreage in the Far South, includes nearly 3/4 acre of former front, side and back yards.
For our restaurant clients in SE Portland, we don’t cut it until you order it and make deliveries (no matter how small your order may be) without a charge.
This revolutionary style of farming uses only strictly sustainable, organic-inspired methods, and our clients can most certainly taste and see the difference. Even USDA Organic produce in the grocery store can’t compare with something that was just picked to your specifications! Our methods have been called permaculture, but we steadfastly refuse to use any labels that will prevent us from doing what is right in any given situation.
Please see our list of nearly 200 crops for 2010, including fruit, herbs, veggies, flowers, medicinals and more, many of which are Asian and European specialty items that are difficult or impossible to find.
Our concern is growing as much nutritious food as possible, and finding crops suited to our unique climate in Cascadia is part of the mission. Introducing you to the crops that grow best here keeps the process going.
We’re picky eaters…the SGC refuses (on principle) to ever sell, trade or give produce that might have “issues” of nutritional concern. While not Certified Organic by the USDA, our standards make the current national programme look stupid. The Sellwood Garden Club and our farmy friends in the larger SE Urban Agricultural Collective are small for a reason — we want to stay “human-sized.”
So, have a look around the site, and please do contact your farmers if you have any questions or comments.
With clay-loam and love,
Friday and Kerry Purington
