The community is cordially invited to attend Food Roots’ Beginning Farmer Hoop House dedication ceremony on May 29th, located at the Port of Tillamook Bay, near the Officer’s Mess Hall.
Food Roots is proud to dedicate these hoop house growing spaces and this beginning farmer incubator project to our remarkable founder, Shelly Bowe. It is an immense pleasure to see to fruition both our FarmTable retail outlet and this hoop house incubator project this year, and please join us in a dedication ceremony on Wednesday, May 29th, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at the Officer’s Mess Hall at the Port of Tillamook Bay, 6825 Officers’ Row Road Tillamook, Oregon.
Shelly Bowe had big visions for a healthy and sustainable Tillamook County food system and worked tirelessly from Food Roots’ inception in 2006 to 2015 on this visioning. She built a wide-ranging network of people, projects, and resources to realize the thriving, growing, and vibrant community food system we have today. Shelly and Food Roots, along with partners at the Port of Tillamook Bay, Oregon Food Bank, local farmers, the Larson Family Foundation, Samuel Johnson Foundation, Nehalem Bay Garden Club, the USDA Specialty Crop Block grant, and local businesses and community members, all helped fund the development of the two high tunnel season extension hoop houses that are now located at the Port of Tillamook Bay, just south of the Officer’s Mess Hall.
We will meet at the hoop houses at 5:00 pm. Park at the Mess Hall and walk around the corner to tour the hoop houses and learn more about this project. Drinks and appetizers will follow at the Mess Hall at 5:30. We request that you please RSVP so we can prepare for food and drinks.
In the Spring of 2019—just a year after beginning their new farming venture, Circe’s Garden – Patrick and Courtney Mortensen took up space at the two 30 x 72 foot hoop houses to scale up their salad green and other vegetable production. Courtney and Patrick had one season under their belt, growing mostly salad mixes at their 1/10th of an acre plot located at their home. Without space to expand production at their home, they were looking for access to growing space that Food Roots was able to fill. These growing spaces, along with Food Roots’ new FarmTable retail storefront in downtown Tillamook, are enabling Circe’s Garden to grow exponentially over the next year, both selling to the public and contracting to supply produce to local restaurants like The Schooner, Antoinette’s Kitchen and Pacific Restaurant.
We are pleased to welcome you all to visit with Patrick and Courtney, Food Roots staff and board members, and celebrate Shelly and Food Roots’ vision for growing a robust food system on the north Oregon coast! Thank you for all your support of Food Roots over the years and we hope to see you on May 29th.
For more about Food Roots programs and to donate, go to www.foodrootsnw.org.