BEE Aware.. Pollinators Need Our Help!

 This Saturday!

It’s that time again , the weekend in May when we highlight our important native Pollinators and how we can help them! The Master Gardeners will give a talk starting at 10am…for adults and kids…on ‘how to attract pollinators to your garden’, Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District are bringing their Native Plant Trailer so you can see a landscape using native and pollinator-friendly plants. We’ll have an observation hive (can you spot the queen?) and information on keeping honey bees. Our raw honey vendor T Bees is also a mine of information when it comes to honey bees, plus you buy local Honey, Royal Jelly and Bee Pollen from them.

Check out the observation hive and find                            the queen bee!

Swarm is coming from Portland with all kinds of pollinator products for your garden. The sale of their products help their advocacy and education work helping others to create pollinator habitat. Check out the very cute pollinator planters and their other cool stuff here:  https://swarmportland.org/                Petal Heads are bringing pollinator plants and Maggys Farm has ‘Insect Motels’….which supply pollinators and other insects with refuge in your garden.

 To help the Monarch Butterflies we will be giving away native (Showy) Milkweed seedlings. They will need to be watered and grown on for another few weeks then planted outside to help the migrating butterflies. These perennial plants have long tap roots and survive well once established. https://www.facebook.com/MonarchButterfliesInThePacificNorthwest/,   http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/06/monarchs_reappear_in_portland.html

     Utopia Woodworking is back for the                                    summer!

Utopia Woodcrafters are back for the season (every-other week) with their beautifully crafted Adirondack Chairs and Saturday they’ll have Mason Bee and Bat houses too. The POP Club kids (5yrs-12yrs) can make a Give Bees A Chance button, as well as collect their $2 to spend on fresh produce or plants to grow their own food.  And the group Oregon City Rocks will be hiding super-cute BEE and HIVE rocks for you to find! If you do discover one post a pic to their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/oregoncityrocks.

Watch as Chef Amy cooks (starting at 10am) or just stop by to get a taste and a                       recipe…till 1pm

In the Market Kitchen Chef Amy is making Spring Swiss Chard Wraps using Birkeland Farms pastured chicken breasts, get a taste and pick up a recipe! Did you know that under the Programs tab on our web site we now have a Market Kitchen recipe section? We will post the recipe the chef’s use each week here: https://orcityfarmersmarket.com/market-kitchen/

    Maggys Farm is bringing 50 different kinds of peppers, plus cukes, squash, tomatoes, herbs too! …and Insect Motels!

Music this week is by Booligh Jam…organic, free-range folk/rock/blues with just a smidge of Irish. Out this week is Sun Love Farm, back next Saturday…..along with Parsons Farms and possibly Albeke Farms….but it’s been a long cold wet winter so the farms are behind in produce…fingers crossed for field berries next market! 51 vendors this week…Bee there or Bee square and bring your shopping bags and get Buzzy!