Share Notes April 18th, 2024
CSA Share Notes:
Welcome to your very first week of the 2024 Spring CSA! We hope you are as excited as we are about the crops coming your way this season. The weather has yo-yo’d through the winter and early spring, so the crops growth has been unpredictable, but we’re here, ready to start, right on track with our usual start time: 3rd week of April. There are about 5-8 items in your shares this week, and in weeks to come, ~ 20 additional crops will mature and rotate into your boxes. It’ll be leafy-greens-heavy at the beginning, with more roots and cruciferous crops maturing as we go along.
We harvested in the rain this week, and boy was it crazy. But we got it done! Whew! Notice that some of your items will be quite dirty from the rain splashing up dirt onto the leaves. You’ll have to take a little extra washing time this week. On dry weeks, the crops will be cleaner.
Look back at your emails this week to download our e-book I sent you: Tips For CSA Success: A beginner’s guide for CSA members. It’s loaded with all the helpful guidance you need to ensure you love the next 2 months of farm-focused eating, and help you get it all into your bellies and avoid waste. Check it out. It has been super helpful to our members.
Here’s this week’s vegetable line up
- Kale — For everyone! Red Russian kale for the Large shares, Curly kale for the regular shares, and Lacinato Kale for the Mini shares. These crops can be used interchangeably in any recipe that calls for kale. Red Russian is often the most tender, so I prefer it for use in a raw salad. The lacinato is also nice raw in a massaged salad. It’s definitely my favorite for soups like minestrone or Portuguese sausage, potato, kale soup. We suggest trying Massaged kale salad, to which you can add any number of delicious toppings like fresh blueberries, mango, avocado, maybe a bit of feta or crumbled goat cheese.
- Collard — A bunch of super tender fresh collards for the Large and Regular shares. If you’re not familiar with cooking collards, here’s our best tip: chop up a couple of strips of bacon and cook until no longer raw, but still soft. Slice up an onion and chop a few cloves of garlic and cook that in with the bacon fat. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes if you’re daring and sauté until translucent. Next toss in the shredded or sliced collard leaves and wilt. Cook until as tender as you like them (I prefer mine with a little chew left). You can also sub collards into any Kale recipe with near identical result.
- Chard — Large shares. This colorful crop is eye catching and tastes a whole lot like spinach. I enjoy it in a massaged-greens-salad, especially with a little arugula mixed in, or I’ll cook it like any of my greens, with an animal fat (butter, ghee, lard, bacon grease) and garlic and onion. The vitamins and minerals in the greens become more bio-available to your body when paired with a good amount of fat. (Isn’t nature genius? And it tastes good too!)
- Spinach — A bag of fresh, iron-rich spinach for everyone.
- Arugula — A bag for all! These leaves are super flavorful and are excellent paired with parmesan cheese, pine nuts, and fresh or dried fruit and a sweet dressing to cut through the peppery arugula bite.
- Radishes — French Breakfast radishes for almost everyone. Mini shares and a few regular shares received Easter Egg radishes. These are a wonderful, crunchy heirloom with a very mild spice. Sandwiches, salads, or dip into hummus, or slice thin and serve with sea salt and lemon juice, or dipped in melted butter! FYI, radish tops are edible! You can cook them like kale or turnip greens. They tiny hairs come right off when cooked.
- Carrots — For the large and regular shares. These over-wintered in our greenhouse and are crisp and so delicious! I am so glad you get to try them. The variety is called Mokum and it’s one of our favorites. Sweet and crunchy.
- Spring Onions — These are the baby onions, which we will soon be harvesting at full size sometime in mid to late May. These little guys you’re getting this week went to flower early, so this means they have stopped growing, won’t get any bigger, and won’t store very long, so we decided to go ahead and pull them for you for this week. Use the greens like green onions, and the whites can be sliced and cooked with any of your yummy greens.
Veggie Storage tips:
Make sure you consult the e-book we sent you this week for a comprehensive veggie storage guide! Most everything will keep longest stored in the fridge sealed up in produce bags. Root crops should be severed from their tops to keep the roots from getting rubbery, and the greens stored separately, sealed up to stay fresh. Everything will need a gentle washing before cooking, but leave the dirt on until you’re ready to use them to prevent spoilage.
We’d love to hear stories and recipes of your culinary adventures this week. Send us a note or post a comment of how you’ve used your CSA share.
Your farmers, Jess & Justin
