CSA Share Notes:

Week 5 of the harvest is ready!  A little bit smaller harvest after an insanely huge one, last week. But we’re trying to make up for it with larger portions of fewer items.

This week we are further transitioning out of some of the summer crops, (peppers and eggplant will die Sunday if we get the predicted frost) but we still await more of the winter crops to come ready (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, and carrots are all getting very close!).

Jess and the girls hold the fort down this week while everyone else on the farm travels for work, family, or pleasure, so send us a prayer as Jess tackles super windy and cold frost protection tasks with a 4 and 7 y.o. in tow. Should be an adventure, the girls all bundled up with hats and gloves while she manages row cover! Can’t wait for Justin to be home.

Your vegetable line-up:

• Kale/Collard — Large shares received our Collards, Mini shares received Red Russian kale, tender and perfect for a raw salad or a saute. And Regular shares got Winterbor kale, the crinkly type. All of these would be perfect in a sausage, potato, white bean soup this week.
• Bell Peppers — This will likely be the end of all peppers! Big freeze coming in this weekend.
• Italian Peppers — Same as above-Adios peppers!
• Hot Peppers — Just a Jalapeno or two per share. Large shares also received a handful of Shishito peppers, a wonderful mild snacking pepper that is great blistered in a hot cast iron and served as an horsdourve.
• Garlic — a bulb or two of our last yield of summer garlic. Yes, the bulbs are teeny- they’re the last ones of the season- but they’ll pack a lot of flavor for a meal or two!
• Arugula — For Large and regular shares.  Peppery and delicious.
• Spring Mix — a bag for everyone.
• Radish — Red Rover radishes for Large and Mini, French Breakfast for Regular. Slice atop a well-buttered piece of sourdough, or some avocado toast, and sprinkle with some fancy salt and you’re in for a treat.  Root crops stay the most crisp and nutritious if you remove the tops, otherwise the greens will draw moisture and nutrients away from the roots and you’ll soon have soft, rubbery roots. So chop those babies off and eat ’em up (both radish and turnip greens are edible!)
• Turnips — Hakurei salad turnips for the Large, and Purple Top turnips for the Regular. The purple top are the southern heirloom and here’s what to do (of course you’re welcome to seek out alternative options)  Cube up the roots, chop the greens, chop a yellow onion and a few cloves of garlic, and one jalapeno if you like. Also, chop up 2 slices of bacon, or a big of ham or other porky smoky somethin to make it utterly delectable. Once all ingredients are ready, cook the bacon until it’s cooked through but still tender- add in the onion and optional jalapeno, saute till soft. Add the garlic for 1 minute. Add the roots and saute until soft, and last add the chopped greens and wilt them.  You can add a dash of tobasco to it at the end for a bit of southern flair. And there you have it, folks, southern turnip greens. Oh, so good alongside a steak and baked sweet potato.   Now for the white Hakurei salad turnip, here’s the run down: This variety of turnip is actually a FRESH EATING Salad turnip. You don’t cook them! You snack on them like radishes. They are so delicious and nutty and a bit sweet. If you think you don’t like turnips, don’t be afraid to try these, they’re so good!
• Cabbages — For the large shares, a Tendersweet cabbage. More coming!!
• Acorn Squash — This just nearing the end of them. We hope you’ve enjoyed them!

Items from other neighboring farms:

• Tony Philips Sweet Potatoes — Our friend and neighbor Tony Philips grows the regions best sweet potatoes, just a couple of miles from Red Moon Farm. These are fantastic, sweet, with a long storage life. Enjoy them on the regular. You’ll get lots more throughout the fall!
  • A few notes about Tony’s Practices: He is not aiming to be organic, so some years the above-ground parts of the plants have non-organic products used on them, however, the roots never have anything applied to them.
  • Usual standard practice in commercial sweet potato production is to use sprout-inhibitors on the crop post-harvest, and these chemical compounds are known to be extremely harmful to the thyroid and other hormonal systems in the human body.** (It’s why, when we can’t get them from a local grower and have to rely on a grocery store, our family chooses to only buy organic potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic.) Well, Lucky us: Tony Philips never, ever uses sprout-inhibitors. His potatoes simply get a clean water bath to rinse the ETX sand off of them, so we eat them with confidence, and we believe you can, too.

Veggie Storage tips:

• Everything wants to be washed well before cooking, but keep the dirt on till then, to prevent faster spoilage.
• Acorn squash, garlic, and sweet potatoes like to be out at room temperature in a dry spot.
• All leafy greens, the radishes, peppers, turnips, etc all want to be in your fridge. Seal them up in a bag or container to retain moisture for longest storage life.

 

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 left to right: Winterbor (curly) kale, arugula, Mustard mix, and purple top turnips, (2nd row) acorn squash, garlic, Italian peppers, jalapenos, bell peppers, and French breakfast radishes, and sweet potatoes across the bottom.

Large Share

 

 

 

Large Share top left to right: Collards, Mustard mix, arugula, Tendersweet Cabbage, and Hakurei salad turnips, (2nd row) acorn squash and garlic, jalapenos above shishitos, Italian peppers, bell peppers, and Red rover radishes, and sweet potatoes across the bottom.

Mini Share

Farm chores needed to be done yesterday, and then the sun set on me before I could get a photo of the mini share! Sorry friends. Your share is quite similar to the others, just smaller!

Mini Share top left to right: