Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Tomatoes, Bok Choy, Lacinato Kale, New Red Fire Head Lettuce, maybe Sugar Snap Peas, Shell Peas and/or Parsley

Guest Newsletter author this week! Emily has been working with us for 13 years and is now a fulltime mama. Gratefully our lives are still intertwined and she offered to write the newsletter this week....
I wanted to reach out to you all with some insights I have gained now that I am not a part of the day-to-day activities that go into growing our food. 
The word empowered has been on my mind and in my heart for a while now. For the last 13 years my sense of empowerment came from helping grow food for my community. More recently empowerment came from research and making my own choices about my personal health and welfare. Empowerment also came in the form of a healthy pregnancy on my terms and an unexpected free birth with my husband and now 6 month old. Now that I am a mother, I sometimes feel lost. Where did that gal go that was always doing things and going places and sleeping through the night? 

I have had to dig deep to find empowerment these days. (I know being a mother is empowering but it doesn’t always feel that way!) And of course, where is one of the places I rediscovered my sense of self? Where did I find some solid ground that I could control? My farm share!! The world out there is bonkers right now and there feels like so much that is out of our control. Yet I keep going back to food, water, shelter. It all pretty much starts with those things and it all starts with food! When my mind starts racing, when I am exhausted, when my mom guilt is taking over, I come back to my veggies.

I truly believe that we are what we eat. If we eat animals that have been tortured, we will feel tortured. If we eat veggies grown with poison, we will be poisoned. I am not saying you will see me eating all the right things all of the time. I wish it were possible. But I will find empowerment in trying to eat my entire share each week, in reaching for yet another salad when the bag of chips is so much easier. We are so distracted these days and separated from one another in so many ways but when we all eat veggies grown in soil where we all live, grown by people who live here, we become one. We become nourished, we support the nourishment of the earth and we become empowered. So grab that bok choi, butter up some radishes, check out the meat and cheese coolers and get to eatin’. 


Volunteer!
If you (or someone you know!) is curious about high altitude gardening becoming a garden helper may be just right. We are only asking folks to commit to 1 morning a week for one month, that's 20-25 hours a month! It feels really good to have volunteers back on the farm, we missed them!! Lunch and veggies are provided! Follow the link below to check it out!

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

It felt like just last week we were striving to round out the crop list with more variety. The garden has tipped. Now it is all about how fast we can get it harvested. The farm is growing great!  The plants are thriving in all this heat. 

On Monday we freed the squash! Our winter squash (pumpkins, delicata) and summer squash (zuchinni, yellow crookneck, cucumbers) were all planted on IRT mulch which helps to heat the soil for sensitive crops in the Tetons. We also cover them with the white row cover. The row cover is placed on top of hoops so the rows are like mini greenhouses. When the plants begin to flower we remove the row cover so the insects can get in there and pollinate. The plants are just starting to show signs of flowering and we had some time so the row cover has been removed! The squash is now free to grow as big as it wants! Last year we had squash by share #6 and then proceeded to have one of our biggest squash years ever.
The cucurbita family is so cool. It grows so fast. It feels as close to a jungle plant as we can get here. My best guess is the summer squash will start to make a small appearances in about 2 weeks. Generally we plant this section of the garden at the very beginning of June. Mama Nature had other plans this year, and we were asked to wait until late June. We listened, if we would have planted the seeds in the cool, wet early June the seeds would have just rotted on us. This family of veggies likes it warm and we are always kind of coaxing them in the Tetons.

As Emma called it..."The Great Pig Migration" is happening. Our sow had 10 piglets in April. They are more than ready to be separated from mama. We have a mobile pig shed that they will call home. The electric fencing is set up around wherever we choose to park it to keep the pigs in. The pigs till the soil for us with their noses as they root around for yummy plants, chomping weeds as they also fertilize the soil. We give them a lot of space. Usually our pig posse does not even till all the ground we'd like them too. Which is great because it means they have enough fresh forage and they are not desperate for more. 
Our pigs follow the garden in our rotation. After an area has been in garden for several years we put the pigs on it. They forage, till and fertilize. When they are done we plant the area to pasture. The pasture replenishes the soil. Nitrogen is fixed, long grass roots aerate, weeds are choked out by more competitive plants. It takes the fresh grass and lots of other plants about 4 months to get established. Our cows and chickens are then put on the pasture. They also continue to fertilize while dining. When we are ready to move the cows and chickens over, the land then becomes garden again. The whole rotation takes about 7 years and is really important to the longevity of the farm. If we didn't rotate the garden/pigs/pasture the soil becomes depleted. We need the animals to replenish what is coming out of the soil in the form of vegetable matter.
My favorite Rudolf Steiner (Founder of Biodynamic Agriculture) quote is:
"So long as one feeds on food from unhealthy soil, the spirit will lack the stamina to free itself from the prison of the body."
We know our most important job as farmers is to care for the soil. The soil is where our true nourishment comes from. If we are eating soil that lacks real nutrition we will not have enough energy to pursue the great endeavors of our lives. Moving pigs does not always seem like a big deal but The Great Pig Migration is just a little part of the big picture!


We need a few more volunteers for August! 
If you (or someone you know!) is curious about high altitude gardening becoming a garden helper may be just right. We are only asking folks to commit to 1 morning a week for one month, that's 20-25 hours a month! It feels really good to have volunteers back on the farm, we missed them!! Lunch and veggies are provided! Follow the link below to check it out!

Lunch this Week: Butter (LOTS of butter) pasta with Bok choy, garlic curls, kale and basil. Chili Mint Stir Fry with Bok Choy, Radish, kale, garlic curls and Cosmic Beef over rice.
Recipe Ideas: Garlic Scape and Bok Choy. Bok Choy with Gingery Butter Sauce, Bok Choy. Italian Arugula Salad. Emily's Overnight Kale Salad.
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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!
Lifeline Beef Available: Ground Beef, Patties and Stew Meat
​Pork Available: Grandpa's Sausage, Breakfast Sausage, Pork Chops, Shoulder Roast, Neck Bones (make the real deal Ramen!), Fat, Spare Ribs, Country Ribs, and Hock

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Turnips, Bok Choy, Garlic Curls, Roxy Head Lettuce and Basil

​​Share #4! A month in and it feels like we have a routine going. The daily rhythm is becoming normal for our employees and us. Everyday on the farm is a bit different, but there is a flow. We meet at 7 am and talk about who will do what, first thing each morning. Max moves off to care for the cows, pigs, chickens and calves. He rejoins the crew when he is done, around 9. Jed heads out into the field with the crew (Jenevive, Charlotte, Jacy, Emma and 2 volunteers) to harvest Cosmic Mix (every Monday and Thursday). Tuesdays and Thursdays we get the other items for the shares out of the fields. Jacy eventually ventures off to move irrigation pipe, which takes about 45 minutes each morning. We harvest until the coveted coffee break around 9:30. 
Our wash station manager, Becky, has begun inventorying veggies that returned from a CSA pick up or market and divvying up "the extras" before she begins post harvest handling of items coming out of the fields.
Deb arrives to tend to the greenhouses. The tomatoes need trellising and harvested on Mondays and Thursdays.
After coffee break, there is more harvesting. When the harvest is done, we move onto getting the mud off of crops, weighing and dividing. The greens are dunked in tubs of water to cool them and get any big clumps of soil off. The root crops are sprayed down, to help keep most of the soil at the farm. Each item is either weighed or counted. The total number or weight is then divided by the number of CSA members picking up each day...this is how we determine a share.
We strive to have all the produce in the wash station before lunch, at 12:15 each day. By 1 we are back at moving forward with veggie distribution. Becky is doing serious math in the wash station to determine where the veggies will be going. There are 3 pickup points happening simultaneously on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we need the right number of bok choys at each location for the number of members expecting bok choy! The concentration in the wash station becomes palpable on some days.
The dry erase boards with your share weights are written. Our truck driver, Roberta, arrives at 3 to load the truck and hits the road at 3:30. After dropping a pallet and supplies in Wilson, she heads to downtown Jackson to get the veggies to the people!!
This is the flow of the CSA harvest. Outside of this, there is also prep for 3 markets happening, weeding, projects and all the other good things to keep the whole farm wheel turning!

We need a couple more volunteers for July! At this point...only a 3 week commitment!
If you (or someone you know!) is curious about high altitude gardening becoming a garden helper may be just right. We are only asking folks to commit to 1 morning a week for one month, that's 20-25 hours a month! It feels really good to have volunteers back on the farm, we missed them!! Lunch and veggies are provided! Follow the link below to check it out!

Crop List: Cosmic Mix, Radish, Baby Kale, Red Oak Head Lettuce, Oregano and maybe Pea Shoots

We are in between spring and early summer crops. The garden always takes a pause during week #3. It feels almost as if the garden is taking a big breath before releasing. With the release comes the abundance. We are on the precipice of the beginning of summer produce in the Tetons. This pause is also welcome, as it gives us some time to weed.
It is a fun time to walk in the garden and see how quickly things are growing. I get really excited about all the promise out there. Good things are coming. I think the kale and Swiss chard doubled in size last week. Some tomatoes are getting red. 
The radishes! WOW! This may be one of the nicest crops of radishes we have ever grown. They are solid the whole way through...no hollow core! The tops have yet to bolt, which can give them a tough center. They really thrived in our the spring weather. We will be harvesting the remainder of them this week before moving onto other goodies.

4th of July on the farm always feels "right". I get my kids off to the parade with friends and then I ride my bike to the farm. (The parade starts at 10:30 and I am in charge of lunch for the crew, so I need to be there cooking by 11.) I get to ride past the whole parade line-up before they start moving because they line up on the farm road! This has become my favorite way to see the parade. Our little town feels festive, loud and bit hectic for me. It is amazing how getting 1 mile out of the downtown feels so different.
I like to celebrate the feeling of "freedom". For me, I reminisce about my late teens and young 20s. I really felt it then. I could and did go wherever the wind blew me...with really loud awesome music playing through whatever stereo was available. "Freedom", free from anything or anyone oppressive is a beautiful thing to celebrate and I hope you were able to find that trueness on the 4th. I am not ignoring the fact that there is work to be done, I acknowledge not everyone around the world knows the feeling of freedom. I like to celebrate my vision for a "better" country and world on Independence Day and I hope you are able to also.
Nowadays I also think of our veggies. Freedom Veggies!!! I think of the things they are free of...pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, bleach washing and post harvest chorine sprays. I think of how we use the term "free of" to describe the way things are when they are in their natural state. Not being free is onerous, to say the least, for people and veggies! It feels good to be on the farm on the 4th. Growing the best food, with the pure power of the sun, soil and water, free of inputs that harm us and our world feels freeing! Jed, our crew and I have the ability to provide something that helps others. Nutritious food. Now in my late 40's, I know I will never be 100% free until all are free. Until then, seeing others doing well is something that lifts me enough to keep going. Seeing others doing well helps me feel free. We are confident this food will help you be well.
We are so grateful to be able to grow food for you, we hope this food helps you to find freedom in whatever way you need.

We are happy to report we have revamped our volunteer program.
If you (or someone you know!) is curious about high altitude gardening becoming a garden helper may be just right. We are only asking folks to commit to 1 morning a week for one month, that's 20-25 hours a month! It feels really good to have volunteers back on the farm, we missed them!! Lunch is provided! Follow the link below to check it out!