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!

Everyone knows that water is a precious resource in California, and that there's not enough to go around. Except that really, there is plenty of water in our state. Unfortunately, most of it is located many hundreds of miles away from the places where most of it is used.

Water law in California is almost too complex for anyone to understand, but the politics are simple: The dry parts of the state have more votes and money than the wet parts. This is true both of urban/suburban areas and agriculture.

Most years, the Sacramento Valley has more water than its residents and farmers can use. Flooding is a bigger threat than drought. Our farm is located at the southwestern corner of the Sacramento Valley, an area that gets three times the annual rainfall of Stockton, just 60 miles south, and 50% more than Sacramento, 30 miles east.

Unlike the majority of farms in California, whose water comes from hundreds or even thousands of miles away, Terra Firma's water is local. Lake Berryessa is just 10 miles away, and supplies about 80 percent of our irrigation water (The rest is groundwater). Since its creation in the 1960s, Berryessa has never dropped so low that water deliveries were restricted. That's because the huge watershed it drains is a magnet for precipitation.

But wasn't this year a drought? Sure, in terms of the total amount of rain, 2011/2012 was one of the driest on record. But Lake Berryessa didn't drop very far. That had a lot to do with 2010/2011 -- a very wet year that filled up the reservoir. And because the rains in 2011 continued through the entire spring, farmers in our area used very little of the copious amount of water the reservoir received that year.

This is the other difference between the area we farm and much of the Central Valley: the winter rains are almost always sufficient to keep the ground wet and the water table for high part of the year. These means we don't have to irrigate as much as places like Bakersfield that get just a few inches of rain annually..

The current round of storms we're having has mostly missed the southern part of the state -- as is often the case. Here at Terra Firma we got 6 inches of rain last weekend and we've already gotten more than half of our average precipitation for the year. According to the local irrigation district, it will just take one more big storm and Lake Berryessa will be completely full.

So since we've got such a nice headstart, we'd be really happy around here if we could get a few weeks of dry weather to get some things done in the short, busy days we've got left before our holiday break from December 23 until January 6th (more on that next week). It's plenty muddy already.

Thanks,

Pablito

Gift Subscriptions

Do you know someone who needs to eat more vegetables? Who keeps saying they are going to sign up for TFF but never seems to get around to it? Maybe you just have a friend that is hard to find a gift for?

Well, we've finally gotten around to making it easier for our existing subscribers to give the gift of a TFF CSA subscription. Just go to the Web Store and select from the "Gift Subscription" options we have available, provide us with a few key details about the recipient, and we'll do the rest! If they end up subscribing themselves, you will get a referral credit on your own subscription.

Holiday Gift Baskets

We will once again be offering TFF subscribers an opportunity to share some of our organic products with your friends and family this holiday season in a festive gift basket.

The baskets this year will have Satsuma Mandarins, Pistachios, and Walnuts (no apples). Baskets are $29 to locations in California and $39 shipped out of state (shipping included).

To order a gift basket, simply head over to your online TFF account and go to the Web Store, then select "Holiday Gift Basket". In the "comments" section, enter the name and address of the recipient, as well as any short message for them. If you are ordering multiple baskets, you must place a separate order for each.

In order to guarantee that everyone gets their basket on time, we need to ship them out on time -- remember, we a farm, not Amazon.com. All orders for gift baskets must be placed by midnight on December 12th. Late orders will not be accepted!

In your boxes

Winter vegetables have been loving the weather lately -- warm and wet -- and we've got lots of green stuff for your boxes right now. Spinach and Baby Bok Choy for everyone, and even more greens for Medium and Large boxes.

As always, our Spinach is NOT "ready to eat". It is washed to remove mud, but you should always wash it again by soaking in a basin of water and draining it -- twice. If you are concerned about pathogens, add a few drops of household bleach to the water.

Some subscribers will be excited to see our first Cauliflower of the winter season in your boxes today. We've been growing less of it this time of year, and this is a "flash in the pan planting". Our main season for cauliflower will start in late January and continue into March, when it seems generally to grow better. So it may be a while until you see it again in your boxes.

In case you were wondering if you might get any more onions in your boxes this year...we had a terrible crop this year and they have been gone for a month. That's why you've been getting mostly Leeks, which will be a staple of your boxes until Spring Onions size up in late winter.

Recipe: Beet-Cauliflower Soup with Smoked Paprika
An unusual combination of vegetables and spices makes a great winter soup, this is based on recipe from outoftheordinaryfood.com.

Steam or boil 3-4 beets until just tender enough to peel. Soak in water to cool, then peel and cut 2 of them into small pieces (reserve the others for future use)

Trim 1 leek and clean it well. Mince it finely until you have 1 C. Heat 2 T. olive oil in a soup pot and saute the leeks until soft.

Mince 1 clove of garlic and add to the pot with 1/2 t. crushed fennel seeds, 1 t. basil and 1 t. thyme (both dried). Cut 1 head of cauliflower into small pieces and add to the pot with 1/4 t. salt.

Saute until the cauliflower begins to brown, then add the beets along with 1/4 C. white wine and 1 t. smoked paprika. Cook until the wine evaporates, then add water to completely cover the vegetables (about 4 C.). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add 1 t. balsamic vinegar and 1 T. butter, then puree in small batches and return to the pot. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with garlicky sauteed greens (below).

Recipe: Garlicky Seared Greens
The pile of greens you start out with will end up as just a couple of cups, perfect for spooning over a bowl of soup. You can use other greens in this recipe, but note that the tougher greens (kale, collards) take long to cook than more tender ones (spinach, beet greens, bok choy, escarole).

Remove the central stems from 1 bunch of collard greens and 1 bunch of beet greens. Slice the leaves into thin ribbons.

Mince 2 cloves of garlic.

Fry the garlic briefly over low heat in 2 T. canola or safflower oil in a wok or cast iron skillet. Turn the heat off and use a fork or slotted spoon to remove the garlic from the oil. Set it aside.

Raise the heat until the oil begins to smoke, add the collard greens, and step back! Use a tongs to coat all the greens with the oil, then cook on high heat until they are soft. Add the beet greens and continue to cook until the collards begin to brown. Return the cooked garlic to the pan and stir fry for one minute more. Season with salt.