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The egg is a symbol for spring and new life. It is also a healthy addition to your diet, especially if you are seeking low-carb sources of high-quality protein. A large chicken egg has only 75 calories but is packed with 14 essential nutrients and all 9 essential amino acids. They are rich in Vitamin B12 and choline, a nutrient that helps to prevent age-related memory loss.




Portland Farmers Market was awarded an Excellence in Marketing Award at the 16th Annual Agricultural Progress Awards Dinner on March 22. The annual event is a celebration of progress made in agriculture via partnerships between business, higher education and state government. The market was applauded for its efforts in bringing together local growers with urban customers at ‘one of the states most successful direct marketing venues.’ We are honored by the award!








  

Shed your winter coat and tuck away your umbrella (temporarily) and head down to Opening Day for the start of the 16th year of the Portland Farmers Market. Spring is in full bloom on the PSU campus, on the South Park Blocks, with vendors hawking their first blooms and early season harvests. Start perusing at 8:30 a.m. until the market closes at 2 p.m. Take in the sights and smells of spring – from tender asparagus spears to arrays of spring greens, bright yellow daffodil bouquets and fresh herbs. Reunite with your favorite vendors for items such as locally raised meats, wild seafood, artisan cheeses and baked goods. Bring your garden list and select vegetable starts, summer bulbs and bedding plants.


April showers will help your May flowers, but so will the market’s line up of gardening experts on hand during Garden Month. April is devoted to all things green-thumb related. Join us at the main stage every Saturday at 10 a.m. to learn how to grow edibles and natives; create striking garden focal points; or trade your lawn for an urban gardenscape.

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Heather Flores, author, Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden & Your Neighborhood into a Community. www.foodnotlawns.com

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Jan McNeilan, Pacific NW Gardening; Container Friendly Culinary Herbs.

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Celebrate Earth Day with fresh carrot cake from market vendor Baker and Spice served by Ms. Berry & Mr. Carrot Top at 11 a.m. Stop by the Kid’s Corner for Earth Day activities and live music.

Lucy Hardiman, Perennial Partners; Voluptuous Vignettes: Edible, Durable and Fashionable.

APRIL 28 Vern Nelson, A New Leaf Edible Landscaping and Oregonian columnist, Rare and Unusual Edibles: Kitchen Prep & Use.

MORE QUESTIONS? Get free gardening tips or plain-spoken advice at our community information booth. Hands-on help can be found at the market’s onsite potting station where volunteers from the local gardening community help shoppers transform flowers, herbs, and plant purchases into container gardens to go.




So says the sign that bedecks Barb and Gus Eberhardt’s booth – Raynblest Farm -- a fixture at the Portland Farmers Market where customers line up to buy up to 100 dozen free range eggs on a given Saturday.

Now entering their 10th year at the market, the Eberhardts are proud caretakers of 1,500-2,000 chickens who are, by all accounts, a contented lot. They should be as they have the run of a 20-acre prune orchard and another 5 acres of field on the Elkton, Oregon, farm. In turn for their free and unfettered lifestyle, the chickens earn their keep by gobbling up grasshoppers, earwigs and other pests, not to mention cleaning up leftover fruit that falls to the ground. Their work isn’t limited to tidying up, however. Pecking the ground in search of nutritious insects naturally aerates the soil surrounding the orchard, making for fertile growing conditions.