Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Tomatoes, Marjoram, Turnips, Kale, Cucumbers, Fresh Garlic, maybe Summer Squash and/or Sunflowers

The cucurbit family is beginning to yield! Cucumbers, Zucchini, Patty Pan and Yellow Crooknecks are all beginning to show themselves. We have 4 rows dedicated to these beauties. We keep them covered until all threat of frost is gone (does that ever really happen around here?). They are usually beginning to flower when we uncover them. They have gorgeous big showy yellow flowers. The first  fruits off of each plant can be a bit funky. Generally one end of the squash is smaller and soft.  This is because of improper or poor flower fertilization. It is hard for the insects to do their job when the plants are covered.
Once the plants are free of the row cover the insects help grow our food. We depend on them and are grateful to hear them buzzing around the garden. It is always a joy to watch the bees crawling in and out of the flowers. A single cucurbit plant grows male and female flowers. The male flower pollen is needed to fertilize the female flower, the stem of the female flower becomes the fruit. The bit of dried brown papery residue on the end of your cucumber or summer squash is the dried flower.
Our cucumbers don't look like the ones in the store! We grow a variety of "pickling" cucumbers because they produce a lot, in a short amount of time...in other words, they work for a Teton summer! We also chose this variety for its flavor. The skin is nice and thin. My kids want nothing to do with traditional slicing cucumbers when they have the choice of eating the "pickling cukes". You can use them just like a regular cucumber after you wash the little spikes off of them. We eat them like apples. They are the best trail snack on a hot day! Cucumbers are 95% water and are one of the best foods to eat to hydrate yourself. We went camping last weekend with another family and our middle son was so excited about the cucumbers coming in that he picked 20 for the trip. All 6 kids with us were thrilled to be eating whole cucumbers on the banks of a high mountain lake and they finished them all!
Zucchinis are famous for getting huge when they are missed during harvesting. It can be easy to neglect a fruit when you are harvesting and when you come back it is the size of a small wiffle ball bat. We harvest every Monday and Thursday. What those plants do in the days between is incredible. Pounds are put on!
Our workers have to wear protective clothing to pick the squash plants. The stems and leaves are really spiky and hurt! Some people can have an allergic reaction to the plants but are fine eating the fruits. Without gloves and long sleeves you must move slow and look really hard to find the fruits. The protective layers allow you to move the leaves to get a better view...and we don't have time to go slow!
The summer squash (zuchinni, yellow crookneck and patty pan) and the cucumbers are just starting to come in. They will keep producing until we get a freeze. These veggies symbolize of August for me! They also mark the turning point of things becoming more heavy from the garden. It's not just leafy greens any more! 

Farm lunch this week: Veggie (Squash, turnips and Kale) Burritos with Idaho Salsa
Recipe Ideas: Lemon Marjoram Vinaigrette (you can sub Marjoram for oregano in any recipe! This is actually on the Oregano page...but use marjoram instead!), Garlicky Greens (using Kale), Zucchini with Garlic and Tomatoes (add some marjoram!)

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Napa Cabbage, Tomatoes, Winter Savory, Swiss Chard, Radish and Sugar Snap Peas

Jed and I both of fell into farming. Farming was more of a calling then a conscious choice. One of the reasons we both became enamored with it was the simplicity of it, that we were meeting a basic need of the community. We were drawn to the purity of the work. The song lyric by Bob Dylan always spoke to the virtue we found in farming, "His clothes are dirty but his, his hands are clean". We saw farming as something we loved to do, and as work that could make the world a better place. There are so many jobs that fit this description, but for Jed and I, farming was our path. For us farming was also always a social justice cause. Tied to environment, food rights and people's access to real food. 
This spring has felt incredibly exciting to me although I could have done without the layer of Covid on top! Racial Justice was pushed to the forefront. The uprising around the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice and countless others caused many white people to begin to reckon with racism in our county. As with many huge problems, I felt powerless. Time and money are not things I have in excess to put behind social change. I needed to stay present for my family and the farm, not be drawn off in another direction.
Gratefully, there is inner work to be done. While continuing to address my own biases and working to change them I finally remembered the farm is a vehicle for social change. 
The farm has a place in the food system in the Tetons and in world. As farmers, we must work to understand systemic racism and how it relates to the food system. As Cosmic Apple we must examine our business and eradicate any ways we are perpetuating systemic racism. After receiving a nudge from Slow Food in the Tetons, we are committing to 6 concrete things we can do.
#1. Commit to Knowledge
We acknowledge the food system in this country was built upon the backs of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). We refuse to accept the whitewashing of history. We will instead seek the voices of BIPOC to guide us towards the work that needs to be done to remove racism from the food system. We will apologize if we act from ignorance and be grateful to learn as we actively move towards a more just world. Each of our employees choose a book from this list to add to the farm library. (I would also recommend Billionaire Wilderness by Justin Farrell, while not about food it is about the income gap in Teton County, WY and racism is at play) We hope to begin a dialogue around the information gained and explore how it relates to the farm and what things we can do differently to create more equality.
#2. Donate $523 yearly (the equivalent of 1 Share) to help BIPOC farmers
Realizing the history of slavery and systemic racism has made it more difficult for BIPOC to purchase and hold onto land, we will donate money to organizations working to change that. (For more info on the history of black landownership listen here Episode 4+5) We may also use this money to help young BIPOC farmers with farm training, issues associated with farm worker rights or for issues associated with food justice. We will find the organizations through Civil Eats.
#3. Act to challenge racism in the food and farming communities and beyond
We vow to speak up when we witness any form of racism in action. We will challenge ourselves to continuously look at our business and ourselves to see how we can do better in relation to BIPOC. We stand with and believe Black Lives Matter.
These are the first 3 actions we are taking. We have 3 more we are working on and are eager to share them with you in future newsletters. It feels great to have a direction to go towards creating change, even though we realize these are just the beginning steps. I know 2020 for many has been hard, and it has not been all sunflowers here either, but the potential changes to grow out of this year may be tremendously positive. I choose to hold onto hope and keep moving forward, while growing vegetables for the People of the Tetons!

Farm lunch this week: Simple stir fry with Napa, Sugar Snap Peas and Tomatoes over rice.
Recipe Ideas: ​Napa Cabbage Salad, Swiss Chard with Eggs on Sourdough, Chard Patties

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Kale, Sugar Snap Peas, Basil, Head Lettuce, maybe Tomatoes, Bok Choy and/or Turnips

I like week 5 of the shares, we are now in a routine and the garden is starting  to yield things that crunch when you bite them. We are on our full schedule now, 2 days of CSA pick ups and 3 markets. Things begin to shift to autopilot at this point in the season. We are in the flow of summer! We are all finding our niches and getting the job done. The plants seem to grow inches overnight and there is a constant curiosity about what will be ready next. The tomato harvests are getting a bit bigger each week! We are also rotating the turnips and radishes through the sites.
We applied the first round of Biodynamic Preparation 501 to the garden this morning. 501 is the horn silica prep. We stir it in water to activate it and then put it in backpack sprayers to apply it to the field in a fine mist, it is applied early in the day and the morning light shining thru the crystal mist is a special thing to experience. Some Biodynamic farmer's refer to it as "making rainbows". As you are walking and spraying the colors of the plants and soil really seem enhanced through the mist. It is a peaceful time in the morning as the farm is waking up and it is a nice way to move your body early in the day. The sprayers are a bit heavy as you start, but keep getting lighter as you spray. 
The 501 enhances light metabolism, stimulates photosynthesis, promotes nitrogen fixing and the formation of chlorophyll. 501 also optimizes fruiting. It is one of the required treatments for our farm to be certified Biodynamic. This prep also influences color, aroma, and the flavor of crops...we think for the better! 

Farm lunch this week: Sauteed Bok Choy, Kale, Turnips and Sugar Snap peas with coconut milk, soy sauce and ginger over rice noodles
Recipe Ideas: Sugar Snap Peas with Basil and Lemon, Kale Dip with Snap Peas, Snap Pea and Turnip Salad, Lemon Butter Basil Turnips,  

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Garlic Curls, Mirlo Head Lettuce, Bok Choy, Dill, Turnips, Maybe Swiss Chard, Collards, Tomatoes and/or Radish

Summ-ah-time!!! Oh it feels so good to look at a weather forecast that is only calling for warm dry weather.​ These are the days I dream of when I am perusing seed catalogs mid-winter. The warm dry weather has us anticipating vegetation mildly browning and drying by the end of the week. The Big Hole Mountains are still holding a little bit of snow visible from Victor. It will most likely be gone by the end of the week. I love watching the lingering snow disappear while thinking about our water. Cosmic Apple's irrigation water comes from Teton Pass. Some of the snow you may have skied on melts into Game Creek, which is where our "irrigation district" gets its water. Fresh pure snow melt. We think it is one of the reasons our veggies taste so good! Clean water is something we cherish. Think about how much water veggies retain. The crunch in that Bok Choy?...that is all snow melt!
Many things are getting close to ripe in the garden. Sugar Snap peas just need some time to plump up. The tomatoes are trickling in. We may not have enough red delicacies in the first couple of harvests to spread them CSA wide. Please rest assured we keep accurate records to make sure everyone gets the same amount as the season progresses. We will soon be removing row cover from the zucchinis, yellow squash and cucumbers so the flowers can be pollinated and the plants can start yielding!
The weeding continues. We will have some extra hands to help this week and hope to get a big chunk done. We also bought a really cool tractor implement this year to help weed. Two people ride on it and move the arms as these things that remind me of jellyfish spin and remove weeds. I have named it the Green Machine, although it's real name is the Eco-Weeder. Here is a link if you want to see it in action: http://www.hillsidecultivator.com/?page_id=39 (the video shows the single model, but we have a two seater!) Something that amazes me is this video was filmed at a place called Shenk's Berry farm. It is 10 minutes from where I grew up. I used to pick berries there as a kid. My mom still gets berries from them to make jam! We have purchased another implement from them in the past. It amazes me how little interest I had in farming as a kid (top secret info...I started going to college with an interest in fashion design. HA!). Now when I go home I am enamored by the small farms, the ingenuity to come out of the history of farming there, and the old barns. Gosh, I love old barns. I wonder what treasures are hidden in them. How many old barns are harboring half built weeding machines? I am so glad the Green Machine was fully developed, it is fun to have a tie to the homeland. And it is even more fun to have a weeded garden!
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Farm lunch this week: Roasted Garlic Curl hummus on sandwiches with radish, bok choy, Lifeline cheese and lettuce. 
Recipe Idea: Chard Patties, Super Simple Chard (this is a great hamburger topping!), Easy glazed Turnips, Beer Baked Turnips