Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Kale, Carrots, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Summer Squash, Basil, Maybe Sunflowers and/or Beans

It is Monday afternoon and it is raining. A steady downpour. The farm needs it. Our forests need it. I am grateful. 
For us, the question is what comes after the rain? The moisture is expected to move out tonight, taking the clouds with it. This means an opportunity for cold temps to settle in. Jed and I had a gently heated debate of "who read what temps where" this weekend. I was confident we would be fine, the forecast I read called for a low of 39. His sources said 33. We finally compared what weather apps we were looking at. It turns out we both have NOAA, but are getting different predictions for Victor! Neither of us can figure out why. Today on Monday, after checking several sites the temps predicted have narrowed in on 33-35 in Victor. If it hits 32 things will change quickly in the garden. Some plants may be damaged at 33-35, because there always seem to be little pockets that get colder. 
We will not recover the many of the sensitive plants with frost protection at this point in the season. It would take us half a day to get it done, and it does not guarantee anything. We will take a deep breath (several!) and release tensions surrounding things we can not control. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the garden stay frost free until mid September! Every time I think of the garden today I am envisioning a warm still blanket of air settling over the farm.
The above was written Monday afternoon....the Tuesday morning update is: We hit a low of 33. Frost was pretty widespread. We will see what bounces back. In the meantime. Savor the cucumbers, sunflowers, beans and squash we harvested on Monday. It may be the end of them. A cold snap means carrots will begin to get really sweet and are ready to start harvesting!!!

Important farm info, please read!:
--Our pick ups run from 5-7 pm. If you arrive before 5, please be prepared for your site host to not be ready for you. Be prepared to wait until 5. The shares are getting big and it takes more time to set up. Also, our pick ups end at 7:00. Our site hosts are all volunteers. Please respect their time. Arrive before 7:01.
--I will take egg cartons. ONLY one dozen size (no cartons for 6 or 18 eggs), ONLY paperboard (no plastic or Styrofoam).
--If you are splitting a full share, please remember you may not use our scales to split the share in half. It congests the line. You received a price break to split a full share and part of the deal was sending only one person to the pick ups and splitting the share away from our tables.
Thanks to all our awesome members for helping to keep the pick ups running smooth!!

Lunch this week: The curry I said I'd make last week (oops) and Burritos
Recipe Ideas: Sweet Carrot Raita, Holly Pratt's salad (carrot page), Carrots au Gratin

The coolers at your site are stocked with Lifeline cheese and a selection of the beef and pork listed below. If you know you want something, please email me and I will make sure it is in the cooler, reserved for you. I don't send every cut every week, they simply won't all fit!
Beef Available: Tenderloin, Ribeye, New York, Sirloin Steak, Eye of the Round Steak, Round Roast, Sirloin Tip Roast, Tri-Tip, Flat Iron Roast, Brisket, Flank Steak, Skirt, Hanging Tender, Baby Back Ribs, Short Ribs, Liver, Ground Beef, Patties, Stew, Kabobs, Hot Dogs and Bratwurst
​Pork Available: Neck Bones and Fat

WASH YOUR VEGGIES!!
​
Bring Bags to pick-ups!

If you can't make it to pick up your veggies, send a friend!
Missed shares are forfeited for the week. 
Members get 20% off at the Farmer's Markets!
The People's Market: Wednesdays 4-7 (last one on the 23rd)
The Driggs Market: Fridays 9-1 (last one on 10/2)
Jackson Hole Farmer's Market: Saturdays 8-1 (last one on the 26th)
Farm to Fork Festival: October 3rd 11-4  Center for the Arts
Questions? Comments? Recipes to share? dale@cosmicapple.com

Crop List: Romaine Lettuce, New Red Sails Lettuce, Tomatoes, Sage, Broccoli, Cabbage, ​Cucumbers, Fennel, Maybe Summer Squash, Beans and/or Sunflowers

It is Monday afternoon as I write this. I am peaking at the radar when I get mini-breaks today. There are some thunderstorms building and I am calling them in our direction. We could really use some rain. It has not rained in Victor in over 4 weeks. We got a bit of drizzle but not enough to actually wet anything. I have seen Jackson and Driggs get some rain but it has been missing us every time. The garden is in good shape thanks to our great irrigation system, but it would be nice to see the trees and the surrounding forests rejuvenated a bit! Knowing how dry it is makes wishing for thunderstorms tricky. I pray for rain, but could hold off on lightning. The heat has been great in the garden, but we do think the smoke slows the plants down. It is just more difficult to photosynthesize when there are so many particulates blocking the sun's rays!
Cosmic Mix is taking a break this week. Our head lettuce all ripened at once! We will have more Cosmic Mix in the future.
We have our annual organic/Biodynamic inspection on Wednesday afternoon this week. We will begin with giving the inspector a farm tour as he makes notes and asks us many questions about our operations. We will then shift to going over the paperwork. The inspector will not be coming to our office this year and it will be Jed's first ever Zoom meeting! Even with Coronavirus, our work is not possible to do virtually, except for the inspection! So this will be a new experience. We figured it would happen to us at some point! Good thing our oldest is a teenager so we have in house tech support.
The inspection usually takes several hours as we review all of our inputs (seeds, feed, bedding, soap, soil starting mix, animal medications, animal minerals...) to make sure everything we add is up to organic standards. We will then go over all of our outputs (butcher receipts, harvest records, share records...) to make sure we can trace everything we claim to grow back to the beginning. The Romaine lettuce you get today?...we can show the inspector where the seed came from, the day it was planted, what was in the soil we planted it in, the day it was transplanted, where it was in the garden, the day it was harvested, how much was harvested and how it was distributed (CSA or Market). These are not the romantic details folks think of when they envision living on an organic farm!
We have been at this long enough that keeping track of everything is just part of how the farm works. We also want to do it. We want to be certified organic and Biodynamic. We truly trust how the Organic program works for small growers. Yes, we believe big-ag can get away with some stuff, but on the small scale, we really trust the Organic label when applied to small farms that have been inspected. We trust less when small growers tell us they "grow organically but choose to not get certified." We have heard this over and over again, and when we start talking to them in depth about their growing practices....they are not up to Organic standards. It is exhausting, defeating and confusing for the consumers. So thank you for supporting farms who take the time to get certified. We work hard to make it happen because we believe in it, and it holds us accountable for our actions.
I better go get my paperwork organized!

Lunch this week: Summer Saute' over pasta and Farm Curry (both on the Summer Squash page)
Recipe Ideas: Broccoli with Asian Style Dressing, Shaved Fennel Salad, Fennel and Potato Gratin

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Tomatoes, Basil, Iceberg Lettuce, Garlic, Arugula, Maybe Cucumbers, Summer Squash and/or Sunflowers

​Cosmic Apple By the Numbers 
What are some of the measurable things we know about Cosmic Apple? Here are some figures to make the farm a more tangible place! Facts, measurables and numbers!
 The farm is at an elevation of 6300' and is comprised of 50 acres total. 5 acres are fallow. We planted them for many years and now they are resting before becoming pasture again. The garden is 12 acres. 14 acres are also in pasture for the 6 cows. 1/2 acre for the breeding pigs, 2 1/2 acres in buildings, sheds and greenhouses, and 16 acres in non-production for the natural influence and as a buffer to protect from chemical drift from the neighbors. This buffer is required by Organic Ag regulations.
The 13 acre veggie garden is divided into 5 sections. Each section has beds which are 500 feet long. A football field is 360 feet long! It is no small task to weed one bed. We have about 90 beds this year. Each bed has 1-4 rows of plants in it. 8 rows of potatoes. 10 rows of garlic, which were harvested. 12 rows of sunflowers.  9 beds of summer and winter squash. 8 rows of onions. 18 rows of carrots. And many more rows of other things!
We irrigate the garden and pastures with a hand line of irrigation pipe. We move it two times a day. It takes about 45 minutes for each move. There are 30 lengths of pipe and they put down about 2” of water every 12 hours.
We have 2 breeding pigs...who are not breeding right now. Come on you two!
We have 75 new hens who will begin laying in early October. There are about 70 hens in the old flock, who are still giving us a small number of eggs...about a day.
For cows we have a total of 6. 1 Brown Swiss (Bertha), 2 Jerseys (Annie and Butternut), 1 Angus/Jersey (Ms. Moo Moo Face) 1 Angus (Solstice) and 1 Highlander (Red Rosie). Butternut is a bull and we are hoping all 5 female cows are pregnant. Annie will be the first to calve in mid-October.
2 cats, Dumbledore and Zedd, keep the non counted mice and chislers in check.
The farm is run by Jed and Dale. We have 3 children (Dagan, Axel and Roxanne) and 1 dog (Cosmo).The farm employs 13 people: 4 full time Field Crew, 3 part time Field Crew, 1 wash station manager, 1 truck driver, 1 market manager, 1 tomato greenhouse manager,  2 very part time folks who do chores (so Jed can have a few shifts off!). And 6 site hosts who are volunteers!
We do 2 CSA deliveries a week, supplying about 230 shares each week. If each full share feeds 4 people, then we are feeding 920 individuals each week. Based on current populations of Teton Counties (ID and WY) we feed about 2.73% of the people of the Tetons, just through the CSA! We also do 3 markets a week.
When we harvest something like bok choy or head lettuce, we need 248 heads to get enough for one CSA delivery. We need about 500 total to do all the deliveries in one week. 
We have 5 tractors; the newest one is from 1965! (Jed, why do we have so many tractors?) Our favorite tractor implement is the water-wheel trans-planter. It allows us to plant up to 1000 plants in 9 minutes with 5 people.
Our goal is to put out 16 weeks of shares every year. Most years average around 17-18. One year the fall was really tough and we only managed 15 weeks.
Last year we harvested 35,448.83 pounds of produce from the garden and greenhouses.
Some items we count instead of weigh. In 2019 we also harvested:
9425 heads of lettuce, cabbage and bok choy.
11,823 bulbs of garlic and 10,108 garlic curls
 1668 winter squash.
5029 ​sunflowers.
We know of 4 weddings that are a result of meeting at Cosmic Apple!
Cosmic Apple is started in 1996. This is our 24th season of growing for our community!
Whew. That was fun!

Lunch this week: Curried Zucchini Soup
Recipe Ideas: Summer Squash Boats, Greek Stewed Zucchini, Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto 

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Tomatoes, Summer Squash, Basil, Collards, Shelling Peas, Red Oak Lettuce, Garlic, Maybe Cucumbers +/or Sunflowers

August! The pace of the farm always picks up this month and goes strong until the first hard freeze. As I type this newsletter the crew is working really hard in hot weather to get the garlic in. The whole crop was dug with an undercutter bar on the tractor. It must then be picked up, soil knocked off the roots, stacked in piles, then loaded on a trailer. It is then transferred to the "old horse barn" where it will dry and cure. It is a dusty dry job, but the garlic needs to be harvested when it is dry. Moisture slows the curing and will tempt rot. Garlic is one of the more labor intensive crops we grow, but it grows so good here! We will save about a third of the crop to be our seed this fall for 2021's crop. (Over the years I have written more about the life cycle of garlic and added it to the recipe page.)
We are in the middle...of a lot right now! Our employees work May 1st- October 31st, so we just hit the half way point in the season with them. Our goal every year is to have at least 16 weeks of shares...most years we make it to 17 or 18 depending on how fast we can empty the garden out and how long nice fall weather lingers. Share #8 puts us in the middle of that goal! We also just passed Lammas a "cross quarter day" on August 2nd, the day half way between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. We now begin to really reap what we sowed. We know we can depend on our amazing employees who are now trained and committed to this growing season and the work of feeding their community. The garden is on a steep upward trend to its peak of fruition. The fire in the sky is burning strong and bright right now to keep us going. Fire season is upon us in the Tetons as we have reached the dry part of the year. It is the time of the year you can feel the burn of the season! Tempers flare as people can feel hot, tired and cranky. We all strive to savor the last month of summer and squeeze it all in. On the farm we start to make choices about which crops will make it and need our attention immediately, and which crops need to be tilled in because of poor germination or no time to weed. It is the time of year to buckle down and start choosing where our energy will go and what we want to reap for the long term.

Farm lunch this week: Polenta with collards, peas and tomatoes. Gazpacho Soup
Recipe Ideas: Chilled Cucumber Mint Soup. Slice Tomatoes thin, put on a plate sprinkle with chopped Basil and drizzle a bit of Balsamic Vinegar over the whole plate... add salt and pepper and the appetizer is ready! Simple Perfect Peas with Butter and Salt