| What's Growing This Week: | |
Minneola Tangelos
Bunched Spinach
Garlic
Carrots
Asparagus -- #
Walnuts (M,L)
Chard (L) Sugar Snap Peas (L) Gold Beets (L) Items may be substituted without notice.
# -- Asparagus this week comes from Jim and Deborah Durst in Esparto and is certified organic by CCOF.
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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!
We got a nice soaking in Northern California over the last three weeks, desperately needed after one of the driest winters on the books. Around here, we prefer to get rain during the usually cold , dark months of December, January and February. The crops growing that time of year like the rain, and we don't have that much to do. In March and April, on the other hand, we need the ground to be dry for planting and the warm weather crops -- from tree fruit to tomatoes -- suffer in the cold and wet.
Apart from filling up the reservoirs, the biggest benefit we got from the rain was to our cover crops -- the soil-protecting, nutrient-building plants that we grow on most of our fields in the winter. They had struggled to stay alive through most the winter, hardly growing at all. But in the last three weeks, they exploded upwards and outwards, drinking up the moisture and reaching for the sky. Now three to four feet high, the cover has been turned over to the sheep who mow it off and convert the biomass into readily available nutrients for our summer crops.
In the best of all worlds, we would now get a couple of weeks of dry and warm weather to plant all the crops that need to go in the ground. Most of the stuff we planted in March made it through the storms: potatoes, squash, tomatoes, corn, peas, green beans and many others. But we have another round of all those things that need to get planted again now, and we're not out of the woods yet. We have another week or so before we can stop worrying about frost damage< so I am going to wait before giving you a report on the crop outlook for our apricots, cherries, peaches and grapes. And even if we avoid a late frost, a repeat of last year's cold, wet April and/or May could really put a damper on most of our crops.
To end on a positive note, I will mention that our strawberry field looks as good as we have ever seen for early April. The plants clearly enjoyed the dry weather in February combined with the rain in March: they are big and green and absolutely loaded with both flowers and green fruit. I won't make any promises about when you might see them in your boxes, but it's likely to be earlier than last year.
Thanks,
Pablito
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In Your Boxes
We were hoping to get enough Sugar Snap Peas out of the field this week for everyone, but with the cool weather and rain, it just didn't happen. We have a large early planting that is absolutely loaded with flowers and almost-ready-to-pick pods, but very few that are ripe enough to harvest.
It's actually a "teachable moment" for those who are curious about how their food grows. Yesterday, we harvested about 120 lbs. of ripe snap peas from a quarter-acre field. Tomorrow, we may harvest 200 lbs. If we were to divide these peas among all our subscribers (S,M,L), you would each get about an 8th of a pound. Instead, we only put them in the Large boxes.
By next week, the same plants that currently have just one or two ripe pea pods on them will have 8 or 10, and we will almost certainly get 1000 pounds of peas out of the field This will allow us to send you each at least a half pound.
The bunches of Spinach in your boxes today may be the largest spinach plants we've ever grown, but that doesn't make the leaves tough or less flavorful. In fact, they are sweet and mild. That spinach field was planted way back in October, and was harvested for baby leaves in December. It grew back kept growing through the winter and the plants are now big and lush and healthy.
We've sent you a lot of spinach this winter, as it fared much better than many of the other leafy greens we grow. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're not a spinach fan) this trend has run its course. Three weeks of constantly wet weather have brought mildew into our fields, and the baby spinach we would otherwise be harvesting now and for the next several weeks has turned yellow and shriveled up. The mature (bunching) spinach is less susceptible.
It will be a couple of weeks before there are any salad greens in your boxes, and the first will likely be Arugula planted back in February. We also have spinach just coming up that may escape the mildew (assuming we get some dry weather) and could be ready by the end of the month.
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Recipe -- Spinach&Asparagus Two Ways
These two vegetables are great together in any number of dishes. Cooked together as detailed below, they can then get tucked into an omelette or quesadilla. This recipe will make 3-4 of either, or if you prefer, some of each.
Trim the leaves from 1 bunch of spinach and soak them in water three times, draining the water each time.
Snap the bottoms off 1 bunch of asparagus, then cut the spears into 1 inch pieces. Slice the thickest pieces in half lengthwise.
Trim 1 stem of green garlic and chop it to make 4 T.
Trim and wash 2 portabello mushrooms and chop them.
Saute the garlic, mushrooms and the asparagus together in 3 T. olive oil on high heat until the asparagus is tender but still crisp. Add the spinach and saute for 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
For omelets: Beat 10-12 eggs with salt and pepper. Grate or slice 12 oz. of your favorite cheese. Grease a non-stick 12 inch skillet with butter or oil and use a ladle to pour a thin layer of the egg on it. When the egg begins to bubble, add a layer of cheese to one half the omelet and then spoon a layer of vegetables over it. When the egg is cooked enough, flip the other side over the vegetables and cheese. Cook for 2 minutes, then flip the entire omelet to cook on the other side for another minute.
For quesadillas: Grate 12 oz. of cheddar or jack cheese. Heat 12 inch flour or corn tortillas in a large pan. Sprinkle cheese over half the tortilla then spoon the vegetables on top of the cheese. Fold the other side of the tortilla over the mixture and cook for 2 minutes, then flip the entire quesadilla to finish cooking the other side.
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