News from Terra Firma Farm

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

Bulk Items

From time to time we have bulk bagged carrots available, 10 lbs. for $12. If you are interested, let us know and we will put you on the list.

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

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

News From Terra Firma Farm

Community Supported Agriculture

Greetings!

Daylight "shaving" time took an hour away from us at the end of the day and added it back to the start of the day this week. At Terra Firma, this is not normally a welcome development this time of year. Late fall is generally a moist time of year, and the dew in the morning is heavy. So heavy, that soil that was perfectly dry this afternoon will be soaking wet tomorrow morning. In fact, in November and December, sometimes the dew never dries on the plants we are harvesting at all. Our broccoli harvesting crew wears raingear even when it's sunny, since the waist-high plants can hold enough water on the leaves to soak a pair of jeans through.

It is ideal weather for harvesting any kind of greens, since they stay nicely hydrated. On the other hand, we are finishing up our last green bean field this week, and they are the opposite. If harvested when wet, they will rot in the cooler. So every day for the last two weeks, we have had to wait until noon, one or even two o'clock to start harvesting them.

Other tasks on the farm are complicated by moist fall mornings as well. Planters do not work well when they are wet or when the soil is wet -- the dirt sticks to the moving parts and quickly clogs them up. So where morning is the favored time for planting much of the year around here -- before it gets too hot -- this time of year the schedule flips. We had to wait until after noon today to plant our first overwintering onions, for example.

Another complication for morning work at the farm in late fall can be frost. Sure, the sun comes up at 6:30 right now, but by Friday night we are expecting temperatures to dip into the 30s for the first time since March. Plants that are covered in frost cannot be harvested until they have thawed out. And humans don't get much done when it's that cold either. So there's not much point in starting work that early.

Meanwhile, sunset arrives much too quickly this time of year, and darkness quickly thereafter. There is very little work we can do in the field after dark. But since with a daily schedule compressed between cold mornings and early darkness, we do harvest right up until sunset. This invariably leaves us with several tasks to do after dark -- washing and packing. Relatively pleasant tasks when it is warm and sunny; not so much when it is frosty and dark.

Fall is a great time to cook, though, both because I have more time to cook, and because there are so many great things to cook with. I hope you are happy to see them in your boxes and plan on spending lots of time in your kitchen this winter.

P.S. --

With daylight in short supply, this newsletter gets written after dark this time of year. As I am writing this, it looks like the election has been called for the President to get a second term. Meanwhile, California voters have voted not to label Genetically Modified foods (Prop. 37). I would remind everyone that your best option for avoiding GMOs, as always, is to buy certified organic products. They are required to be free of GMOs.

Thanks,

Pablito

In your boxes
GreeN-ovember continues in your boxes this week, propelled once again by strangely warm temperatures that continue to kick our leafy crops into overdrive.

Cabbage is a pretty predictable crop for us in the fall, and we normally plan to send you a head once every three weeks or so (depending on the size box you get). We mix it up with regular (green), red (purple) and Savoy. Well this year, our first planting of Savoy Cabbage is not waiting its turn. We harvested the first heads last week, just a few days after the green cabbage, and we now have a cooler full of it. So we are sending you a head this week.

Luckily, cabbage is a versatile vegetable that can be used in many ways, some of which you can find below in the recipe section. It can also be stored for a while in the fridge without spoiling, which you probably already know if you still have half a head in there. But judging by the looks of our cabbage field, there is more coming soon, so keeping it in the fridge may not be your best bet.

Escarole is a close relative of Frisee Endive that we sent you a few weeks back, but it is almost always cooked -- but not for very long. In fact, the most time consuming part of cooking escarole is washing it: it grows like lettuce and thus must be soaked and drained a couple of times to remove the grit from the stems where they grew near the ground.

The Green Beans in your boxes today are likely the last of 2012.

Coming Soon: Satsuma Mandarins are starting to ripen and the cold nights coming should start to color them up. Look for some in your boxes by Thanksgiving if not sooner!

Thanksgiving Schedule
Turkey Day still a couple of weeks away, but we're getting questions about our delivery schedule so here it is:

Wednesday deliveries will happen as usual.

Thursday boxes (San Francisco) will be delivered on Tuesday, November 20th at the usual time and place.

Friday boxes (Sacramento) will be delivered on Tuesday, November 20th at the usual time and place.

For menu planning purposes, next week's newsletter will have a tentative box list for the Thanksgiving week.

Recipe: A Pot o'Beans and Days of Greens
Not so much a recipe as a multi-faceted meal plan -- the more greens you have in your box, the more beans you should cook. Once you have the beans cooked, each of these dishes takes less than half an hour to make.

Day One: If you get the newsletter before you get your box, you can get a jumpstart. Soak 1-4 C. cannellini, black, pinto or other large and creamy beans in water all day or overnight. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the beans until tender (I use a crockpot to cook them overnight).

Day Two: Separate the leaves of 1 head of Escarole. Soak in a large basin of cold water and drain. Repeat. Check the bases of the larger leaves for grit and rinse individually if necessary. Heat 2 T. olive oil in a pan with 2 minced cloves of garlic, 6 chopped kalamata olives, and 3 crushed anchovy filets (optional). Chop the escarole roughly, then add to the pan in batches when the garlic is soft. It will seem like a huge amount of greens, but will cook down dramatically. Once the escarole wilts, add 2 C. beans. Add the juice of 1 lemon and serve.

Day Three: Heat 2 T. olive oil in a pot and add 1 cleaned, minced leek and 1 minced sweet pepper, seeds and stem removed. Cook on low heat until the leeks are soft and beginning to brown. Add 1 t. cumin and a little chile powder and cook another 5 minutes. Add 2 C. of beans and simmer for 10 minutes.

Cut 1 head of cabbage in half and shred it. Chop 1/2 bunch cilantro, discarding the stems with no leaves. In a bowl, mash 1 avocado with the juice of one lime and a sprinkle of salt. Then toss with the cabbage and cilantro.

Serve the beans in a bowl a heaping serving of the cabbage mixture on top.