Share Notes May 22, 2025

Did you make it through the lettuce?  We have to hurry and get it into YOUR fridges before we lose it all.  And this week, the problem turned up to 11.

1. Here’s last week’s problem, which will be ongoing until it’s all cut: If lettuce endures prolonged high temperatures, it goes bad in the field.
2.  The deer found it this week.  We do what we can to keep them out of it, but once they find it, they’re pretty determined little guys, so now the race is on. How much can we cut before they take a chunk out of the center and ruin it?  Better to have it stored in your refrigerators, or shared with your coworkers, than to supply our local deer with thousands of dollars worth of midnight snacking.

If you’re feeling a bit overloaded on lettuce, remember that from June through late Oct. we will have ZERO salad greens. They’re a cool season crop, only. There are about 20 contiguous weeks coming where you can’t get local salad greens. So I guess this is a funny invitation of sorts, for you use our CSA to try the somewhat spiritual practice of “enjoying what you’ve got while you’ve got it”.

So how do you enjoy your salads? Please share, tagging us on Insta or FB, and we’ll pass along your favorite salad ideas to the membership!  And check out our tips last week for 4 great dinner salad ideas.

Next opportunity to help out on the farm?  Onion and Garlic harvest! Super fun task, but requires a strong back and a positive attitude in the heat. If you’re excited to jump in and available on a Thursday or Friday, let us know by emailing us: Jessica@redmoonfarmtx.com. Big harvest happening the next two or three weeks on Th/Fr. Then it’s on to potato digging, for which we can ALWAYS use a helping hand!

Here’s your vegetable line-up:

• Lettuce – So much lettuce!  Plan on sharing some with friends and neighbors if you’re struggling to use it up. Beautiful, huge heads of lettuce for each share. Large shares received 4 heads, Regular 3, and Mini 2.  This week’s varieties we have ready are Milagro, Romaine, Ruby Sky, and Muir.
• Arugula – for regular shares. A simply delish salad green. If you find it too peppery, mix it into some lettuce at approx a 1/3 ratio to just add a hint of arugula flavor to your salad. This flavor is perfectly complemented by fruit, nuts, and parm.
• Sorrell – Just for the large shares. This gorgeous cut green is a salad green that’s very tart, lemony, and simply beautiful. Mix in with your salad if you find the flavor a bit strong. Pairs great with parmesan and toasted nuts.
• Turnips – Scarlet Queen for the large shares,  Purple Top for the Regular shares (a few got Hakurei) and White Hakurei for the mini shares.  Hakurei are a Japanese salad turnip, and you eat them raw. They’re so wonderful! If you think you dislike turnips, you gotta try them. Fantastic on a salad or sandwich, great dipped in hummus or guac. The other two, scarlet queen and purple top, are really perfect cooked southern style: cook a couple shopped strips of bacon cooked through, but not yet crisp. Sautee chopped onion, garlic, and turnip roots in the bacon fat. Once softened, toss in the chopped leaves and sautee until delicious. Finish with a dash of tobasco.
• Kale/Collard – Bunched Curly kale for the Large shares, Red Russian kale for the regular shares, and collard for the Mini shares. Try our Kale Pesto Potato salad this week!
• Chard – Bunches for the Large shares this week. As mentioned before, this was fantastic in a frittata.
• Potatoes – For the Large and Mini shares this week. We’re just getting started on this very labor intensive harvest. We’ll dig as many as we can for you, as fast as we can!  Wanna help dig? Email us!
• Onions – a few red and yellow onions for each share. Many more to come! Big onion harvest happens over the next 2 weeks on Thursday and Friday. If you want to come help, email us!
• Snow Peas – With the heat and humidity lately, these little cuties are nearly finished. Only enough for a small helping for the Large shares this week. Note: Enjoy our harvests while they last! Some crops are very fleeting!
• Broccoli – The first cutting! Just a teeny taste for the Large and Regular shares this week.  We don’t anticipate this being a banner broccoli year, if the weather turns particularly hot, it will turn, but we hope to give every share some broccoli a couple of times.

Veggie Storage tips:

• Everything wants to be washed well before cooking, but keep the dirt on till then, to prevent faster spoilage.
• Everything in this week’s harvest wants to be stored in your fridge except for onions. Seal all your leafy greens up in a bag or container to retain moisture for longest storage life.
• Roots will store best when severed from their tops, and stored separately (remember the tops of all these roots are edible, too!)

We’d love to hear stories and recipes of your culinary adventures this week. Tag us on Instagram or Facebook, showing us how you’ve used your CSA share.

Your farmers, Jess & Justin

Regular Share

Regular Share – top row left to right: 4 heads of lettuce, Muir, Milagro, Romaine, and Ruby Sky, Swiss Chard,  (2nd row) Red Russian kale, arugula, broccoli, onions, and turnips.

Large Share

Large shares – top row left to right: 4 heads of lettuce, Romaine, Muir, Milagro, and Ruby Sky,  (2nd row) curly kale, sorrell, broccoli, (bottom row) onions, peas, potatoes, and turnips.

Mini Share

Mini shares – top row left to right: 3 heads of lettuce, Muir, Milagro, and either 1 Romaine, or 1 Ruby Sky, Swiss Chard,  (2nd row) collards, onions, potatoes, and turnips.

Flower Shares!

I didn’t photograph the bouquets, themselves, but here’s a shot of about half of the harvest! The bouquets are just gorgeous this week! And I have lots more flowers coming.

This week everyone received bouquets that are loaded with Nigella pods, Sunflowers, Queen Annes Lace, Didiscus, yarrow, cosmos, foxglove, and zinnias. For greenery we’ve got the lovely wild baptisia.