Share Notes, May 9th, 2024
CSA Share Notes:
Get ready for some SALADS, friends! Many ideas shared below.
I mentioned in last week’s share notes that the warm, wet conditions were having an effect on the garden. Well, that continues. Another 3.5 inches fell Saturday, and more has come down, since.
When we have extra challenging conditions, the work load goes up, but the yield goes down. This is extra hard on a farm business. And that’s precisely why your commitment via the CSA model is so incredibly helpful. Even if our garden is not all we had hoped, we’ve still got you supporting our work to build a better local food system, protect our ecosystem, and nourish our community with the safest, cleanest food around. We’re so grateful for y’all!
Here are some crops that seem to be doing just fine in spite of the rain:
- Leafy greens like arugula, leaf lettuce, spinach
- Certain varieties of our kale, collard, and Chard are just about perfect (we’ve never grown such beautiful chard, y’all!)
- All the radishes and turnips (flea beetles have been munching heavily on the greens, but the roots are still excellent)
- To a lesser extent, the head lettuce is also doing fine
- The fennel is happy
- Specialty greens like dandelion, radicchio and escarole look like they’ll be great
- Beets: the tops of these look wonderful. They’ll be better if it dries out, but I think they’ll still be really good
- Onions, Garlic, Leeks. We’ll need it to dry out prior to our late May harvest to prevent spoilage while the crop is stored. Say a pray for this to happen.
Here are some crops that are incredibly angry about being wet. We’re trying to cheer them up but it doesn’t seem to be working:
- Broccoli & cabbage. About 1/3 of these plants simply died with their roots submerged in wet soil. Another 1/3 are very small and likely will not grow unless the soil dries well for a few weeks. The remaining 1/3 are nearing maturity.
- Snow peas: we harvested only 5% of our projected yield.
- kohlrabi and cauliflower are struggling
- Carrot root tips are pretty susceptible to rot. Keep your fingers crossed here, people!!
So we’re on a salvage mission out here at Red Moon Farm, doing the best we can with what nature has given us to work with this year. Keep us in your hearts and minds while we’re working our tails off for less than we expected! It can get a little discouraging sometimes, but y’all have been the best cheerleaders from the sidelines.
Now on to your vegetable line up
- Head Lettuce — Larges received 3 heads. Regular received 2, and Mini’s received one. Some of my favorite recent salads include:
- Thai Peanut dressing with lime, cilantro, ginger, green onions, radish or salad turnip, a bit of kohlrabi perhaps.
- Southwest chipotle dressing, w/ roasted roots, black beans, crushed corn chips,
- Bacon and blue cheese, roasted broccoli, and dried fruit with a honey & red wine vinegar dressing
- Tzaziki, lemon, garlic, fresh radishes and turnips, etc. and topped with lamb meatballs, or falafel (freezer section at Sprouts! Great time saver for our family this busy time of year!)
- Onions — Red onions for everyone, and also a yellow sweet onion for the Large shares. These are fresh, not cured, so store in the fridge. Use the tops as green onions, and the bottom like a regular cooking onion.
- Garlic Scapes — Such a rare, spring-time treat. A few ideas: chop them up and use them in a quiche or frittata, bacon wrap them in bundles and grill or roast them like asparagus, use in a loaf of home made bread or cheddar biscuits.
- Broccoli — just enough for the large shares to each get a taste. Remember above I listed this crop as struggling from the rain, so there isn’t that much to go around.
- Radishes — Mini shares received a unique red daikon radish, spicy and delicious. Large shares received French Breakfast, and Regular shares received Easter Egg. All great on sandwiches, salads, or dip into hummus, slice thin and serve with sea salt and lemon juice, shave and use in a Japanese ramen. Also wonderful dipped in melted butter!
- Turnips — Regular and Large shares received Purple Top turnips, in petite bunches. You can prep these the Southern way: cook up a couple of chopped up strips of bacon with onion and garlic. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes. Next toss in the chopped turnip roots and cook for a a few minutes till softening, and last toss in the shredded or sliced turnip greens to wilt the final 1-3 minutes. Add radish greens if you like, or Collards, Kale, or Chard. Use up all your greens this way!
- Turnip Greens — The mini shares received small bunches of turnip greens, some with good-sized roots, but mostly teeny-tiny rootlets. Out intention with these was for you to use these as cooking greens, but if your bunch contains a nice sized turnip, that’s just a bonus! Cook as listed above.
- Kale — Lacinato kale for the Large shares, and Curly kale for the Mini shares. These crops can be used interchangeably in any recipe that calls for kale. Give our Massaged Greens method a try. We love it!
- Collard — A bunch of super tender fresh collards for the Regular shares.
- Chard — Large shares. Closely related to spinach. This week we sauteed a ton of scapes, and then braised it with the chard in chicken stock till super tender and it was wonderful
- Arugula — A bag for the Regular shares. A little sweetness like apple, or dried fruit cuts through the peppery bite of the arugula. Excellent with some parmesan or goat cheese.
Veggie Storage tips:
Consult the e-book we sent you for a comprehensive veggie storage guide! All leafy greens 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 you can 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. Tag us in Stories, send us a note, or post comments of how you’ve used your CSA share!
Your farmers, Jess & Justin
