| What's Growing This Week: | |
Navel Oranges
Minneola Tangelos
Sweet Potatoes -- %
Spinach
Leeks
Asparagus -- #
Carrots (M,L)
Treviso Radicchio (L)
Fennel (L)
Items may be substituted without notice.
# -- Asparagus this week comes from Jim and Deborah Durst in Esparto and is certified organic by CCOF.
% -- Sweet Potatoes in today's boxes come from Atwater Packing and are CCOF certified organic.
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Bulk Citrus
Get one or more 6 1/2 pound boxes of navel oranges, one time or every week for the duration of the season. You can get bulk citrus or make changes to your current bulk citrus subscription through your account management page. |
Contact Us:
| terrafirmafarm.com
csa@terrafirmafarm.com
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| CSA Rates 2011 | Boxes are charged on Monday for the week's deliveries at:
$14 Small
$24 Medium
$32 Large
For a payment of $300, get a 3% bonus. Your account balance will be $309.
For a payment of$850, get a 5% bonus. Your account will be posted as $892.00
For a payment of $1,400, get a 7% bonus. Your payment will be posted as $1,498.
Vacations are charged weekly when notice is given as a fee, no charges occur during the vacation week.
$4 Small
$8 Medium
$11 Large
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Pledge of Authenticity
Terra Firma is a real farm. We grow 99% of the produce that goes into our boxes on our 220 acres of certified organic land in Winters. If we do buy produce from other farms, it's almost always from a neighboring farm and we give them full credit in the box list.
The owners of Terra Firma are involved in every aspect of making your boxes a reality: walking the fields, planting the crops, selecting and checking what goes in the boxes and finally delivering them to you. We eat the crops from our fields every day, just like you do. Thanks for supporting our efforts and enjoying the food we grow.
Paul, Pablito, & Hector
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Payments, Billing, and Changes
| Schedule vacations, change box sizes, make payments or sign up for autopay by logging in to your subscriber account at terrafirmafarm.com
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News From Terra Firma Farm
Community Supported Agriculture |
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Greetings!
It's been an exciting week at Terra Firma, maybe a little more exciting than we would like. With this week's big storm forecast more than seven days out, we took advantage of the dry weather to plant our first tomatoes. Many years, including last year, we are fighting with wet soil and racing the rain. This time around, not only did the planting go smoothly, we were working in shirtsleeves and sunglasses most of the time.
But rain is not the only concern when planting tomatoes in March. After all, it is still technically winter, and tomatoes cannot survive temperatures below 33 degrees. For that reason, we set out irrigation pipe that can be turned on during the night if it gets too cold -- water coming out of the sprinklers is always warmer than the air and keeps the plants from freezing.
We started planting tomatoes on Wednesday of last week and finished on Saturday. Three of those nights our frost alarms woke us up sometime after midnight, sending us racing out in the cold to turn on the pumps and keep the plants from freezing. This was a bizarre contrast to the almost summer-like warmth during the day.
On Monday of this week, we were given the gift of one last warm and sunny day and it seemed a shame to waste it. In the greenhouse, our first summer squash plants were ready to go -- two weeks ahead of schedule thanks to the abundant sunshine we've been having. We decided to plant them as well. Decisions like these are a crap shoot: the storm now hitting might batter them to pieces, but if it wet weather had kept us from planting them for another two weeks, they would have become rootbound and unplantable anyway.
 | Freshly planted summer squash
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The field where we were planting the squash is just a stone's throw from the strawberry patch. The berries have been flowering now for almost two weeks and those flowers will turn into green and then finally red berries over the next several weeks -- depending on the weather. Driving past the field, I caught a flash of color in the corner of my eye. I was sure it was a hallucination, but I got out to check the field anyway. I was astonished to find a single ripe red berry hanging on a plant. It was the only one I could find, but it still counts as the first time we have ever had a ripe strawberry in March. You won't be seeing berries in your boxes next week or the week after, but they are coming soon.
Thanks,
Pablito
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In Your Boxes
The exciting news continues, as we are pleased to present you with...(drumroll please) the first Yolo County Asparagus of 2012!
All the warm weather we've been having for the last month has heated up the soil and woke the roots up from their winter slumber several weeks early.
Asparagus is one of the few items in our boxes that comes entirely from another farm. After several attempts at growing our own asparagus, we finally determined that our location in Winters is simply not a good spot for everyone's favorite spear vegetable.
Luckily for us -- and you -- our friends and neighbors Jim and Deborah Durst in nearby Esparto don't seem to have this problem. For about ten years, they have successfully been growing organic asparagus and providing us with all that we need.
Asparagus will be a regular feature of your spring CSA boxes for most of the next ten weeks or so. Having said that, the big winter storm forecast for this week may shut harvest down for a few days, which would mean no 'gras in next week's boxes. Asparagus is essentially impossible to harvest in heavy rain and mud. Keep your fingers crossed for warm and dry weather next Monday.
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Recipe -- Leek-Asparagus Stir Fry
You can add marinated, sauteed tofu, fresh or dried mushrooms, or chicken to this recipe to make it heartier.
Remove the zest from 1 tangelo and place in a bowl. Juice the tangelo and add to the bowl along with 2 T. soy sauce. Mince fresh ginger to make 1 T. and add to the sauce.
Heat the sauce in a small pan. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until it reduces by half. Remove from heat.
In another small bowl, mix together 3 T. water and 2 t. cornstarch.
Clean 2 leeks and remove the tops, then cut in half top to bottom and then thinly slice them lengthwise.
Trim or "snap" the bottoms off 1 bunch of asparagus. Cut them into 2 inch pieces and then slice the thicker pieces in half so they are roughly the same thickness as the tips.
Stir fry the leeks in 2 T. canola oil, adding a dash of hot pepper flakes if you like. Cook on high heat until the leeks are completely soft.
Add the asparagus and cook for 3-4 minutes. It should turn bright green.
Combine the sauce and the water with cornstarch. Add the wok and cook another 2 minutes. Don't cook too long or the sauce will become gluey.
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