Share Notes April 24, 2025
We’re so excited to bring you the first harvest of Spring! It was a rainy harvest morning, and thunder and lightening cut our harvest off a little short, so we missed out on harvesting one more item for your boxes. But now that crop will be bigger and more beautiful for you next week. And the much needed rain should make the garden boom. Things had gotten so dry out here!
We’re looking forward to what’s in store. This week’s harvest is quite a small beginning to the season, but as folks who’ve been members with us in the past already know, the abundant, over-stuffed boxes of mid-season make up for a smaller beginning and ending to the season. Every season has its’ ebb and its’ flow, and very soon your boxes will be full. We think turnips, carrots, head lettuce, 2 more types of cut greens, and lots more kale and chard will be ready next week, so hold tight and anticipate good things coming your way.
We’ve **nearly** got a full crew to help with all the work. If you have anyone in mind who would enjoy a part-time role harvesting/delivering crops about 20 hours a week, send them our way! We have a lot of fun. The work is fast and sometimes sweaty, but so enjoyable, surrounded by sunshine and mother nature.
Here’s your vegetable line-up:
- Garlic Scapes! – This is probably my favorite crop of spring and I am so glad we get to kick off the season with this one! This crop is the flowering top of the garlic plant. Growers remove this stalk before it has produced a flower in order to get the plant to focus its’ energy on growing the root bulb. And lucky us, this necessary production task results in the most delicious, tender edible. You can use them raw to top a taco or a stir fry, much like you might use green onions, but they’re amazing cooked too. You can swap them in place of garlic in any dish, but I’d say the flavor is about 1/4 as strong as garlic, so you can use a lot without overpowering a dish. They’re also fantastic in a spring pasta primavera, or turned into a pesto with nuts and parm, or also grilled or roasted, even bacon wrapped like you might do with asparagus bundles. Excellent in a quiche or egg casserole. The options are endless.
- Leaf Lettuce – For large and Regular shares. Tender, colorful baby lettuce, perfect for spring salads.
- Arugula – A bag for everyone! Peppery and delicious. My favorite cool season salad green. Pair with seasonal strawberries, toasted pecans, a little red onion, perhaps. Just keep it simple to enjoy the fantastic flavor here. If you find the flavor to be too much for you, mix it with leaf lettuce to “dilute”.
- Radishes – French Breakfast radishes, our favorite variety, crisp and so beautiful with their long pink roots.
- Kale – Bunched Red Russian kale for the large shares, bagged curly kale for the Regular shares, and Lacinato bunches for the mini shares. These plants are still rather small, but in another week or two they should be huge! So this week your bunches are rather petite, but they won’t stay that way.
- Chard – Bunches for the large shares.
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. 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 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
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Regular Share – top row left to right: bagged Winterbor kale, leaf lettuce, arugula, 2nd row: french breakfast radish, garlic scapes
Large Share
Large shares – top row left to right: Red Russian kale, leaf lettuce, arugula, Swiss chard 2nd row: french breakfast radish, garlic scapes
Mini Shares 
Mini shares – top row left to right: French Breakfast radish, arugula, garlic scapes, and Lacinato kale