CSA Share Notes July 2, 2026

Jul 1

Summer season week, 4!

Whew, this drought is kicking our butts. We made a $150 investment in various electrolyte powders this week to help keep us and the crew safer in the intense conditions. Water alone can deplete your body’s salt balance to a dangerous degree, so we’re hydrating properly out here to keep up with the sweating. Tis the season for multiple changes of clothes, cooling off with the hose, and occassionally standing around in the walk-in-cooler to bring our core body temperature back down. Heat adapting strategies are key.

We wish the crops had the ability to seek out air conditioning. They’d be much happier! Shade cloth has been installed over the greenhouse where our Sweet Pepper crop lives this year. They’ll appreciate that and hopefully produce all the way to first frost, as they usually do.

Here’s this week’s vegetable line-up:

Fresh Basil — Important note! This crop will ruin in the fridge. It cannot tolerate temperatures below 50 degrees. Just trim the stems every few days and keep in a glass of cool water on the counter. If yours is wilty when you unbox, shock it in a sinkful of cold water for an hour or so to see if it perks back up. It’s usually very resilient, but sometimes it takes a very long time to recover. If it doesn’t revive, hang to dry for a few days, then crumble it up in a jar to use all summer in any Italian dishes you prepare.
Squash and Zucchini — Everyone received a zucchini and also a squash or two! We should have a good bit for the next 3 weeks or so. These would be fantastic in a veggie lasagna with your eggplant.
Eggplant — Lovely Italian heirlooms for the regular and Mini shares. The Large shares received our long slender Japanese eggplant as well as our cure speckled fairytale eggplant.
- Important note: The long Japanese eggplant have really suffered under the intense UV this past week. You’ll notice areas where the skin has turned brown- this is sun-scald or sunburn (yes! some crops get sunburn!) When this happens, we need to pick them off, as they won’t grow much bigger under the restriction of that hard scar tissue on the skin. But the inside of the crop, and also any areas with tender purple skin are still perfectly edible and delicious. Just grab your veggie peeler and peel off the sun-scald areas and enjoy the rest. This is a critical part of the CSA experience! Pretty much any season, the farm will have some crops sustain damage from various adverse conditions, but the crop is still edible, just not easy to sell. The CSA is the perfect place for ugly- but still tasty- veggies are able to find a kitchen and a stomach to enjoy them.
- We always cook our eggplant on very high heat: roasted in a 450 degree oven or on the grill, or on a blazing hot cast iron. It’s excellent with just a little bit of char on it to bring out the sweetness and reduce the “squeak” factor folks sometimes dislike. Also, this eggplant is super fresh, so you don’t have to “sweat” it if you eat it up soon.
Italian Sweet Peppers — Everyone received one or two. We have Carmen, the dark green triangular pepper that looks a lot like a poblano, but Carmen have no heat, they’re only sweet. We have Goddess, the very slender, pale greenish-yellow pepper. It looks like a large banana pepper, but just like the Carmen, these Goddess peppers are sweet, not hot. Use our images below to tell them apart, and to distinguish them from your hot peppers. It can be easy to confuse the goddess pepper with the cayenne, especially.
Bell Peppers — Large and regular shares received our Bell peppers this week.
Hot Peppers — Everyone received jalapenos and cayenne. Careful not to confuse the cayenne with your Italian pepper! If the heat is too much for you, this is a perfect item to gift. They do store really well in the fridge, as well, so if you want to collect many hot peppers over a few weeks, you’d have enough to make a batch of hot sauce, pepper vinegar, pickled peppers, or even pepper jelly!
Shishitos — a big handful of shishito peppers to the Regular shares. These lovely trendy peppers are so delicious! About 1 in 10 packs a powerful heat, but generally it’s considered a mild pepper. Just watch out for that 1 in 10!
Tomatoes — They’re here, they’re here! Enjoy these thoroughly. They’re so challenging to grow well in our hot humid climate. Any year that we get a good tomato yield, is such a treasure.
- Always store your tomatoes at room temperature, and place them “shoulders down" or some would say upside down. This will keep them in tip-top shape while you await for them to fully ripen. If a tomato ends up with a bad spot, it’s probably from the leaf-footed bugs piercing into the skin with their little mouth part. Jerks! Just cut that part out and enjoy the rest.
Potatoes — Beautiful white kennebec potatoes.
Onions — For everyone this week.
Okra — Enough for all the Large shares to receive this item this week. We recommend roasting or grilling. This heirloom okra is amazing!

Veggie Storage tips:

Counter storage: Tomatoes, Potatoes, Onions, and BASIL.Store your basil bouquet style, in a fresh glass of water. Trim the stem every couple of days and enjoy fresh basil leaves all week.
Fridge storage: Peppers, squash, zucchini, eggplant, okra. Seal them up in a bag or container to retain moisture for longest storage life
Everything wants to be washed well before cooking, but keep the dirt on till then, to prevent faster spoilage.

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

Large Share

Flower Share

Bouquet share:
Loads of zinnias, giant marigolds, and basil with a handful of lovely gomphrena and celosia! Some of you got bright bouquets, and some got vintage tones. I try to switch it up to make sure you experience a variety of colors throughout the season.

Mini Share

Jessica Bullock

CSA Share Notes July 2, 2026

CSA Share Notes June 25, 2026

RED MOON FARM