Crop List: Russian Banana Fingerling Potatoes, Purple Majesty Potatoes, Carrots, Onions, Leeks, Maybe Sugar Snap Peas, Summer Squash, Turnips, Tomatoes, Peppers and/or Cauliflower

Funny how when we start to lose things we become so much more appreciative of them. The nights are not summer nights anymore, so when the sun hits the farm in the morning it is so very welcome. I love pausing and letting the warmth wash over me as it rises over the hill. The power of it astounds me. It is exciting to witness the start of a new day, and feel the rush of gratitude in the moment. The aspens on the hill are turning yellow, I saw a flock of bluebirds in the yard the other morning getting ready to migrate. There was barely enough light to tell what they were. These birds bring me so much joy when they show up in the spring. I have never seen them "flocking up" (my invented term!) and it was nice to bid them farewell for the winter. The crops are warming as well. Getting out early and digging potatoes feels much better on the body right now then the delicate work of cutting greens. (We still hope to have one more crop of salad mix!) Digging and lifting heavy things warms us up quick.
Check out the Purple Majesty spuds this week! They are purple all the way through! Purple mashed potatoes are fun! ...just be careful about putting to much excitement into purple food. One year I thought I was making purple potato and leek soup... it came out a really depressing grey. Mashed are a safe bet though!!
We still have no frost in the forecast....amazing! What a lovely spell of weather we have had!
2019 Memberships are now available!
We are ready to start taking signups for 2019!! Your site host will have a signup sheet for you this week or you can follow the below link and print one out. If you sign up and pay at a pick up location by the end of this season,  you will get a free Cosmic Apple hat or T-shirt! Both made with organic cotton. Note: we don't have a lot of shirts left, sourcing purple organic cotton shirts has gotten tough, but we have lots of hats! Cash or checks accepted, you can pay online...but then you don't get the gear, and get charged a card fee.
Signing up now guarantees you the pick up location of your choice, gets you early season pricing and free gear!

The coolers at your site are stocked with a selection of the beef and pork listed below. If you know you want something, please email me or tell your site host 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, Sirloin Steak, Sirloin Tip Roast, Bottom Round Roast, Liver, Ground Beef, Patties and Heart
​Pork Available: Pork Chops, Shoulder Roast, Loin Roast, Shank, Spare Ribs, Breakfast Sausage, Chorizo, Grandpa Restuccia's Sausage, Neck Bones, Fat and Heads

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 9/19)
The Driggs Market: Fridays 9-1 (Last one 10/5)
Jackson Saturday Market: Saturdays 8-12 (Last one 9/22)
Questions? Comments? recipes to share? dale@cosmicapple.com
​

Crop List: Carrots, Parsley, New Red Fire Head Lettuce, Russian Banana Potatoes, Maybe Sugar Snap Peas, Summer Squash, Sugar Dumpling Squash and Tomatoes

I always do a little happy dance when we make it to September 1st without a killing frost. Today is the 11th and there is nothing in the forecast  below 40 for the next week! This is great news for the garden. The fall crops are continuing to put on the poundage and we are still seeing summer squash! Tank tops and bare feet are still my go to with all this warm weather. Our family made it into the high country this weekend. I was shocked by the yellows and golds. The warm weather really has me forgetting fall's approach. 
Jed is going to mow our potatoes today. Traditionally farmers waited for the green part of the plant to die in a frost. After this happens the potatoes "subarize". All of the spuds we have been giving out so far have been "new" potatoes. They have not subarized. Subarization is a fancy word for the process of the skin toughening. Naturally it will happen after the green part of the plant dies in a frost cold enough to kill the plants, but not so cold the roots are damaged. It is part of the curing which allows us to store potatoes long term. Thanks to our mower, we can kill the green parts of the plant and get the potatoes out before a damaging frost destroys the whole crop. Some years the first killing frost can be cold enough to damage the roots (we get concerned below 23 degrees). We like to get the potatoes out before we are challenged by really cold weather. Top killing or vine desiccation on chemical farms is done by using an herbicide. After they apply it, a skull and crossbone sign is displayed by the field to keep humans out of the area. We love having a mower to use instead of chemicals!!!
We have been getting lots of questions at the pick up sites about signing up for next year and how long the season will go.
Our goal every year is to distribute 16 shares. That is next week, wooohooo! We will keep sharing veggies until the garden is emptied out. It generally takes us until at least the first week of October to get all the crops in, depending on weather and how many hands are working. We will keep you posted through this newsletter, plan on coming to the pickups until you hear from us or your site host!!! It will also help if you bring additional veggie moving devices (bags, containers, boxes). The shares get BIG towards the end and we run out of bags.
Conversations at the pick ups have also included questions about signing up for next year! We LOVE your enthusiasm!  Your site host will soon have sign-up forms for next year to hand out. If you sign up at a pick up site before the end of the season, you will be able to choose a Cosmic Apple hat or t-shirt. We will also let you know when we are ready to start passing out Cosmic gear here! I'm hoping to start the last week of September. I have updated all the info on the web page, but to get the hat or shirt you must sign up at a pick up.

Crop List: Basil, Rose Finn Apple Fingerling Potatoes, Carrots, Kale, Maybe Sugar Snap Peas, Cosmic Mix, Cucumbers, Summer Squash, Cilantro, Tomatoes, Red Cabbage or Kohlrabi

We have sustained a few light frosts. The first one caught us by surprise. The low was 32 degrees, but the plants were holding so much moisture from the rain that they froze a bit. It was not a killing frost and the cucumbers were the only crop to show damage. The summer squash right next to it has no signs of frost! The cucumbers are slowly fading away...
The garden has gotten the message that fall is now iminent. The plants are scrambling to ripen the last bit of fruits. The yields from the tomatoes have slowed down. The wasps and bees are getting a bit more aggressive as they try to prepare for the colder weather. 
The current forecast (on Monday afternoon) looks like the fall weather everyone loves! 70's with no frosts predicted.The dust is down, the smoke is gone. We still have lots of things to come out of the garden! Leeks, onions, potatoes, turnips, carrots, broccoli, another crop of Cosmic Mix, head lettuce, fennel, kale, swiss chard and winter squash. The crop list has many "maybes" right now as we switch between summer and fall crops. Some things are on the way out and some are just starting to come in, which can make share distribution a bit tricky. When we only get a little bit of something we send it to one site, and then rotate it around as it becomes more abundant. This is one of the reasons we keep really accurate records of harvests and who gets what! The other reasons for our record keeping are for organic certification and seed ordering for next year!

Workshare Lunch this week: Curried Zucchini Soup. Although I barely had a summer squash to cook with, so I sauteed the onions, ginger, garlic, added the spices and water, then just filled the pot up with a mix of veggies (potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, kale and squash...actually anything in your share this week would taste great in this soup!) pureed half of it and added some tomatoes. I'm calling it curried veggie soup! But that is the name the recipe is under, and it is on the summer squash page!

The coolers at your site are stocked with a selection of the beef and pork listed below. If you know you want something, please email me or tell your site host 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, Sirloin Steak, Sirloin Tip Roast, Bottom Round Roast, Liver, Ground Beef, Patties and Heart
​Pork Available: Pork Chops, Shoulder Roast, Loin Roast, Shank, Spare Ribs, Breakfast Sausage, Chorizo, Grandpa Restuccia's Sausage, Neck Bones, Fat and Heads

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 9/19)
The Driggs Market: Fridays 9-1 (Last one 10/5)
Jackson Saturday Market: Saturdays 8-12 (Last one 9/22)
Questions? Comments? recipes to share? dale@cosmicapple.com
​

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Red Buttercrunch Lettuce, Tomatoes, Swiss Chard, Parsley, Carrots, Cabbage, Garlic, Maybe Cucumbers, Shell Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, Summer Squash and Sunflowers

Critter update! 
We got a flock of 78 laying hens in June. They have been growing quickly. They are finally big enough for our chicken fence to keep them safe. When they are too young they can walk right through the netting. We moved them out to pasture this past week and they are happily snacking on grasshoppers, grass and seeds. They will start laying in November. Watch for emails in December about how to get eggs!
The teenage pigs are about 5 months old. They will be butchered around 8-10 months. They have been digging up the old perennial section of the garden. They are next to some flowers I harvest and come to see if the bucket I am carrying is for them. They make lots of noise as I am clipping and we have great conversations.
The cows have been munching contentedly on the pastures. We have 3 steers to be butchered later this fall. We are hoping 2 of our mama cows (Bertha and Rosie) are pregnant. They will not calve until May. 
Cats, dog and children are all doing well and are thankfully not multiplying.
Our animals are integral to our Biodynamic farm. They create all the fertility we add to the soil thru their manure which is turned into compost. They help us maintain a closed loop system when it comes to regenerating our soil. Taking care of the soil is our number one priority at the farm. Keeping the soil healthy keeps the plants packed full of nutrients! We could not do this without our critters. 

​Looking ahead in the garden, we have great looking crops of potatoes and carrots to come. We planted a late crop of sugar snap peas which we are are starting to harvest and pass around. The 5th greenhouse that we just finished this spring, is still going strong with a late season crop of tomatoes and has yet to reach its peak harvest.

Workshare Lunch this week: Oven Baked Polenta with red sauce and sauteed veggies 

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Yukon Gold Potatoes, Parsley, Cabbage, Head Lettuce, Thai Basil, Tomatoes, Maybe Cucumbers, Sugar Snap Peas, Cauliflower, Summer Squash and/or Sunflowers

The weather shifted quickly on Friday evening as a cold front came thru. It was the first time this summer I put on a sweatshirt while it was still light! It was breezy and my son and I quickly became chilled playing in the yard with the dog. Saturday morning I was walking that same dog and all of a sudden I had to stand still. The smoke was gone! At least in Victor for a couple of hours in the morning. I could see the mountains clearly and remembered what color they are this time of year. What a treat! Saturday was also the first day I left the house open all day instead of closing it up to hide from the heat.  The first hints of fall have arrived. I love noticing these little seasonal changes.
Biodynamically speaking, after the summer solstice the earth starts turning inward. It is still late summer, so the hints are subtle. The shares are getting heavier. We are being grounded just by the weight of the produce. Enjoy this window of transition. We will keep harvesting the summer treats as long as we can, and start introducing more treasures of fall.

​Workshare Lunch this week: Dale's Curry with carrots, tomatoes, kale and potatoes
Farm family dinner: Spring rolls with yogurt dill dip.

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Radish, Garlic, Sugar Snap Peas, Lemon Basil, New Red Potatoes, Maybe Summer Squash, Cucumbers, and Sunflowers

Generally on Mondays I come home from the farm around 1 to work on the newsletter. It is 8:30 and I am finally getting my hands on the computer. We had our annual organic inspection today, so Jed was in the office for 6 hours with the inspector combing over all of our records. Whew. The inspection went well and it is always a satisfactory thing to check off the list for the year.
On Sunday we got 10 out of 14 rows of garlic dug out of the ground, knocked off the extra dirt and put into piles. We will dig the other 4 rows, collect it all and get it into the drying shed on Tuesday afternoon. Instead of moving some of it to the shed, Jed decided we should give a bit out in the shares this week! During the inspection as we were tracing seed to harvest we figured out we planted about 9600 garlic cloves last year! Which translated to 9600 garlic bulbs we are about to finish harvesting! ...minus what you got earlier!
I'm going to keep it short this week since it is so late and I am feeling like it is August!!! I included some garlic harvest photos to make up for it! I think August might be latin for "tired farmers".

Workshare Lunch this week: Zucchini cakes with Tomato Vinegar sauce
Farm family dinner (or breakfast, or lunch!): Grilled Steak with Chard, Tomato and Balsamic Vinegar Reduction

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Snap Pea, Shell Pea, Napa Cabbage, Baby Carrots, Red Sails Head Lettuce, Tomatoes, Spinach, Maybe Cucumbers, Summer Squash, Snow Pea, and Sunflowers

Carrots are coming! We have heard they are the best carrots. I don't know if that is true or not. I do know all the parents need a warning...If you give your children these carrots, they may refuse to eat other carrots. It has happened. I wish you the best.
We have been sending out some specialty tomatoes along with our favorite variety of reds. Have you noticed? There have been some green zebras along with some saladette. We ask that everyone be extra specially gentle when you weigh and pick through the tomato bin. We all love tomatoes...especially when they are bruise free!
Thursday is Lammas, the day halfway between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. The days are getting shorter, but the pace at the farm has not slowed down a bit. Summer is at its height!
We have big plans this weekend to harvest all of the garlic. Most of our crops stay in the field until we are ready to distribute them. Garlic is a bit different.  I have written about garlic and its lifecycle before. Since our minds are turning to garlic, I'm going to share all I know about it with you!
From a 2011 Newsletter...
​Garlic how we love you!
Cosmic’s garlic has received rave reviews from members over the years. We have been growing this same strain of Romanian Red garlic for 10 years now! Saving our own seed and watching the plant become more and more specialized to our climate. I fell in love with garlic at Killarney Farm in Northern Idaho where I apprenticed. These folks had been saving there own seed for so long the plant evolved into its own variety now known as Killarney Red. It was originally Romanian Red. Garlic was the most important crop at Killarney. Paul, our smiling farmer, would always laugh at that fact because it was the most labor intensive crop they grew. Garlic thrives in Teton Valley. We plant garlic in the fall, as soon as the CSA is done. It starts growing roots immediately. Garlic spends its winter in the soil while the garden is resting poised and ready for spring warmth. It loves cold winters. Think about the power of garlic. It has the ability to cure us of colds and infections. It is antiviral. It needs winters like ours to learn resistance to cold and disease. Energetically garlic gives us what we need to boost our immune system, because it gathers the ability and strength to survive in harsh elements. It makes me chuckle to see the “Garlic Capital of The World” is Gilroy, California. I have also grown garlic in California. It was awful. Little weak bulbs, no robust flavor, we had to baby it so it would not rot as it was drying. It never had a cold winter to learn the lessons it needed to be strong. We could not even save seed in CA. They had to order new seed every year! Here, in the spring,  garlic is the first sprout to pop out of the ground. Little green shoots surrounded by dark brown soil, blue skies and white mountains, it is always a welcome sight. By the end of June we can usually give out baby garlic. These treats are tender and look like little leeks. Mid-July yields garlic curls. We have to get these attempted seed heads off the plant so the energy goes to forming the bulb instead of the “seeds”. By August it is usually time to get the garlic out of the field and into the shed to dry. We stack it so air can circulate and the leaves die. As the leaves die, all the plant’s remaining energy is drawn down into the bulb. When the tops are completely dried, we can cut the top off without fear of disease or fungus crawling in thru the stem. The workshares also rub off any large chunks of soil before we deliver it. This is what makes storage garlic. When we are done with the CSA this fall we will sit in front of the shed, (or in the greenhouse if the weather is unpleasant) on buckets with coffee cups nearby chatting as the bulbs are broken into individual cloves. As we do this we grade the garlic. We look for the largest cloves to save, for the largest crop next year. We also look for any cloves with not enough paper, or bruises. These “imperfect” cloves are planted in the culled section. The smaller ones and culls are the ones dug as baby garlic. The best ones are saved for storage garlic and seed. About a third of our crop is saved every year to be replanted. We joyfully get to ride the transplanter to get the garlic in the ground. We used to plant it on our hands and knees in cold and wet fall soil, the transplanter has been a welcome improvement! In ten months it will be ready for harvest! Garlic takes a lot more handling than most crops we grow, but considering the results, I’d say it is well worth it. If you start feeling worn down this winter, try mincing some garlic and spreading it on toast with honey. Your body will thank you!

Now we just all need to wait until the garlic cures and is ready to be delivered later in the season. Until then let's enjoy the tasty treats of August!!

Workshare Lunch this week: Pad Bai with tomatoes, basil and summer squash
Farm family dinner (or breakfast, or lunch!): BLT's!

The coolers at your site are stocked with a selection of the beef and pork listed below. If you know you want something, please email me or tell your site host 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, New York Steak, Sirloin Steak, Sirloin Tip Roast, Bottom Round Roast, Liver, Ground Beef, Patties and Heart
​Pork Available: Bacon, Pork Chops, Shoulder Roast, Shank, Spare Ribs, Breakfast Sausage, Chorizo, Breakfast Sausage, Grandpa Restuccia's Sausage, Neck Bones, Fat and Heads

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
The Driggs Market: Fridays 9-1
Jackson Saturday Market: Saturdays 8-12
Questions? Comments? recipes to share? dale@cosmicapple.com

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, Turnips, Tomatoes,  Basil, Sage, maybe Summer Squash and Sunflowers
The garden turned the corner on summer this week! Summer squash, cucumbers and tomatoes are the pinnacle of summer eating for me. The cukes need a bit more time, but they are growing. We have some more weeding to accomplish, but we are entering the time of year when the garden likes to see how fast and how much we can harvest, eat and put-up. Yum.
My kids turned a bit of a corner on me too. Somehow they are all old enough that I can wake up early (after actually sleeping all night!) and get out of the house to do some farm work. I return when they are ready for breakfast. I've missed the early mornings at the farm and the quiet of showing up solo. I have also missed the canyon breezes. 
We get lots of wind at the farm. The wind tries my patience and stamina. It tests our ability to lay row cover. It once blew over a refrigerator full of about 550 #'s of carrots shattering the glass and making the carrots unusable. It is so consistent,  Jed put it in our wedding vows. He assured me his love would be as sure as the spring winds. The wind is also one of reasons the snow melts faster in Victor then in Wilson and Jackson. It is also the reason our soil is so deep, much of it has been wind deposited. Eastern Idaho may not have been the best place to land for a lover of gentle breezes. The prevailing winds come out of the Southwest, and sometimes the North...on those special days.
But the canyon breezes. These are magical. They happen as the mountains cool and heat. In the morning as the sun creeps across the valley, the warming air stirs the mountain air and we get a cool mountain breeze that comes across the farm from the Southeast. This gift keeps the farm from frosting on some early fall nights when elsewhere in the valley all is still. We live a mile from the farm. The air at the house will be still, but once I hit the farm road on my bike I remember the canyon breeze. 
In the evening after the sun sets the mountains drain of the warm air and we get these tropical breezes coming out of the canyon again. Right about the time you reach for an extra layer, the warm breezes pick up. Being close to the foothills for these breezes was one of the reasons the farmland we are on was so appealing. The microclimate of the farm is nothing short of miraculous. A large part of that is the air currents. 
I've been noticing air more, making myself pay attention to it. The element of it. I've noticed how when we are close to the summer solstice I feel light, airy, fast and energized. The veggies are light, and don't last long.  A million things are happening, I'm in my head, skipping from to-do item to to-do item, getting the farm going. I've rarely taken time to notice air before, because I've been too busy thinking, doing and moving through it. (The feeling of winter solstice, I get...I have time to think about it, feel it.)
​We've crossed the threshold of deep summer. A surprising number of people have been telling me they are tired. We are all trying to get the most summer we can. But it does not take much to re-energize this time of year. A cold swim, an afternoon nap, a hike or a big salad and we are back at it. Soaking summer up, feeling the warm breezes.
Biodynamics links the air element to the flowering part of the plant. At this time of year most of our crops have flowered (turned the corner) and we are harvesting the fruits or they are still growing for a fall harvest. The fruit/seed time of the year is the fall, which is linked to fire.
We are moving away from the lightest time of year, the veggies are getting heavier but don't taste anything like fall yet! I've said this before...this is the time of year I dream about in the middle of winter when I am looking at seed catalogs. It is a good time of year to be an eater! I like that we have passed the solstice. The eating is good and the canyon breezes are amazing.

Workshare Lunch this week: Burritos with zucchini and Kale, topped with Idaho salsa (Tomato, cilantro, garlic and cucumber)
Farm family dinner: Tomato, Garlic and Summer Squash (recipe on Tomato page) and Cosmic Burgers with a pile of Cosmic Mix on top.
Salad Dressing of the Week: Sage Tahini

The coolers at your site are stocked with a selection of the beef and pork listed below. If you know you want something, please email me or tell your site host 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, New York Steak, Rib Eye Steak, Sirloin Steak, Sirloin Tip Roast, Pastrami, Bottom Round Roast, Liver, Ground Beef, Patties and Heart
​Pork Available: Bacon, Pork Chops, Shoulder Roast, Shank, Spare Ribs, Chorizo, Breakfast Sausage, Grandpa Restuccia's Sausage, Neck Bones, Fat and Heads

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
The Driggs Market: Fridays 9-1
Jackson Saturday Market: Saturdays 8-12
Questions? Comments? recipes to share? dale@cosmicapple.com