CSA Share Notes Apr 23, 2026
Welcome to your CSA harvest! It’s a busy and hopeful time of year. We’re now harvesting 4 days per week for the CSA and farmers markets, but we’ve still got to get beds prepped for summer planting, do the actual planting, and keep all the things weeded, too. There’s no shortage of abundant, beautiful work around here! This is the time of year when we fall into bed completely exhausted, and sleep like a rock, grateful to be so blessed to do what we love. We hope you feel the effort and care that goes into your boxes and bouquets each week. We love feeding you!
Here’s this week’s vegetable line-up:
Kale/ Collards — Large shares received our Collard greens, Regular shares received Red Russian kale, tender and perfect for a raw salad or a saute, and Mini shares received Lacinato kale, often called Tuscan kale or Dinosaur kale. Collards can absolutely be subbed in to any recipe that calls for kale. All of these would be perfect in a sausage, potato, white bean soup this week, or in a quiche/frittata, or a massaged kale salad, which is especially amazing paired with fresh yellow mango. I promise it’s good.
Arugula — For everyone this week! This is a super flavorful salad green, and is excellent paired with a bit of dried fruit, toasted pecans, red onion, and parmesan. Of course you can find abundant alternative options on the web, but that’s our fave!
Asian Spring Mix — This crop is colorful and flavorful! It’s great as a salad, but I prefer it sauteed. It’ll work great combined in with your turnip greens, as it’s in the same family.
Radish — Red Rover radishes for the large and Regular shares, and French Breakfast for the mini. 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 — Young Purple Top turnips for the Large shares. Hakurei salad turnips for Regular and Mini shares.
The white Hakurei salad turnips are super special. 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.
The purple top turnips are a Southern heirloom variety and here’s what you do to serve them up Southern Style: saute a bit of bacon till cooked through but still tender. Toss in some chopped onion and garlic, cook till tender. Toss in the chopped turnip roots for a couple of minutes, and lastly, toss in the chopped greens. Saute it all ‘till it’s to your liking. Finish with a dash of tobasco.
Pac Choi — 2 for the Large shares, 1 for the Regular shares. This tender asian cabbage is perfect in a curry, a stir fry, fried rice, or even a ramen or pho bowl, so try on an Asian recipes this week with your pac choi (and yes, pac choi is the same thing as bok choy!)
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.
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.
Sweet potatoes like to be out at room temperature in a dry spot. If you want to grow sweet potatoes this summer, now is a great time to sprout these in a glass of water in a sunny window.
All leafy greens, the radishes, turnips, etc all want to be in your fridge. Seal them up in a bag or container to retain moisture for longest storage life. The onion can be cut to fit into a bag and get sealed up in your fridge.
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:
Arugula, Asian Spring Mix, Red Russian Kale, Sweet potatoes down the side, (bottom row) Hakurei turnips, pac choi, Red Rover radishes
Large Share
Large Share top left to right:
Arugula, Asian Spring Mix, Collards, Sweet potatoes down the side, (bottom row) Hakurei turnips, 2 pac choi, Red Rover radishes
Flower Share
Bouquet share:
The first bouquets of the year include the last of the beautiful foxgloves and larkspur, buplurum for greenery, statice, queen anne’s lace, veronica, yarrow, dianthus. The first Nigella and Cosmos are ready this week, too. The blooms will change a lot over the next few weeks as the first crops fade and new crops come ready. We hope you love each week!
Mini Share
Mini Share top left to right:
Arugula, Asian Spring Mix, Lacinato Kale, Sweet potatoes down the side, (bottom row) Hakurei turnips, French Breakfast radishes