| What's Growing This Week: | |
Tomatoes (All)
Onions (All)
(All)
Sweet Peppers (All)
Melon (All)
Potatoes (All)
Sweet Corn (All)
Peaches (S,L)
Green Beans (M,L)
Shishito Peppers (M,L)
Seedless Grapes (M,L)
Zucchini or Cucumbers (M,L)
Tomatillos (L)
Carrots (L)
Items may be substituted without notice.
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Contact Us:
| terrafirmafarm.com
csa@terrafirmafarm.com
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| CSA Rates 2012 | 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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Bulk Items
Now available, 10 lb. boxes of ripe tomatoes ready for saucing, jarring or canning. $15 each delivered to your drop site. You can buy boxes one at a time, or subscribe and a get a box every week. Go to your account page to sign up.
We also have a limited amount of peaches available. These are not first quality, but may be slightly bruised -- perfect for cooking or canning. $15 for ten pounds when available. |
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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!
One of my favorite books of all time is the novel "A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. Set in the corn belt, it transposes the plot and characters of Shakespeare's King Lear onto a multi-generational farm family. After all, the themes of greed, jealousy, and familial rivalries don't just apply to the courts of kings.
In rural areas like the one we farm in, stories abound of otherwise successful farms whose failure was precipitated by common human behavior. Infidelity is a common one, as divorce oftens leads to bankruptcy when a couple's biggest asset is land. Conflicts between siblings and parents over who will inherit the land is another big one. Drug abuse and alcoholism have been the downfall of numerous farming families. But as often as not, it's just the apparent inability of humans to get along with each other.
Our farm has been touched by all these issues in the almost twenty years of its existence. Sometimes the people involved are our neighbors or our landlords, oftentimes they are our employees, and occasionally -- ourselves the owners. These aren't stories that can be detailed in a public forum such as this newsletter, despite the compelling reading that they might make. The telling will have to wait for some future in which I might have the time and memory to put it in the form of a novel.
One thing I can say though, is that any time our farm or any others experiences this type of drama, it is extremely disruptive to our normal day-to-day business. Especially in the middle of a hot summer, there is no time to sit down and hash out problems or explore solutions. The vegetables and fruit are in charge right now, we are just trying to keep up.
Not to worry, the drama that has been occupying us for the last month or so is not likely to end in tragedy -- human or financial. Instead, it's simply causing us lots of stress, missed sleep and extra work. All due to flaws in human behavior that haven't changed much since Shakespeare wrote his plays... and don't seem likely to change any time soon.
Thanks,
Pablito
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Farm Day Date
We've gone ahead and set the day for our annual Open Farm Day: Saturday, October 21. And because it often rains on the day we pick, we are also claiming the following Saturday as the Rain Date.
In the coming weeks we'll flesh out the details of the event, including how to get tickets.
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Recipe: Sweet Corn-Pepper Quesadillas
You can make a batch of this filling and then put the quesadillas together later.
For the filling:
Mince 1 red or yellow onion. Saute in a large pan in 2 T. olive oil until tender and beginning to brown.
Remove the stem and core of 2-3 sweet peppers and dice. Add to the pan and continue to cook on high heat.
Meanwhile, shuck 3 ears of corn. Place them one at a time in a large bowl and use a small sharp knife to cut the kernels off the cob.
Mince 1-2 cloves of garlic and dice 1 tomato. Add to the pan when the peppers are soft. Saute for a minute or two, then add the corn. Continue cooking until the corn starts to turn light brown.
Add a handful of basil or cilantro and stir to combine, then remove from heat. Season with salt, pepper and lime juice to taste.
To make the Quesadillas: Grate 1 lb. of cheddar or jack cheese or a combination of both. Heat large flour tortillas in a skillet one at a time. When they begin to puff up, flip them over and sprinkle the grated cheese over the whole tortilla. Fold the tortilla over and flip it again. After a few seconds, remove the quesadilla from the pan and open it up. Spoon 1/2 C. or so of the corn mixture over the cheese and then return the quesadilla to the pan to cook for another minute or two.
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