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

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

The theme of this week's newsletter is Silver Linings, and we've a some pretty big ones today. Silver Lining #1: For all the damage that last week's hailstorm wrought on our farm, it very clearly missed one important spot: the TFF Strawberry field. (Actually, it missed several spots on the farm.)

The strawberry field also missed another, more minor disaster. Many, if not most, years, our first berry harvest of the spring is ruined by an untimely rain. Ripe strawberries are soft and quickly rot if they sit in water for more than a few hours. But green (not yet ripe) berries can tolerate rain just fine.

Silver Lining #2: Our strawberry field got rained on twice last week. The first time was during the storm that pounded our other fields with hail just a few miles away. The second was on Thursday night, when a storm forecast to produce light drizzle instead gave us over half an inch of steady rain. But there were hardly any ripe berries to rot in the rain last week.

And yet by Monday morning, we were out harvesting our first 30 boxes of ripe red berries. Today, Wednesday, we expect to get double that many.

Before everyone gets too excited, I need to mention right now that we did not have enough berries on Tuesday to give everyone a basket in the Wednesday boxes. Medium boxes instead got a second bunch of asparagus. (We will make it up to you next week.)

All Thursday and Friday subscribers will get one basket of berries.

Silver Lining #3: This will be the earliest date in the year that we have ever had enough strawberries for all our subscribers. Last year we were thrilled to have enough on April 11th and 18th for just the Large boxes. It wasn't until April 25th that we send a basket of berries in every box. That is pretty normal for us.

At this point, Terra Firma's lawyer Mr. Murphy has asked me to include the following disclaimer: There are still plenty of things that can go wrong with our 2013 strawberry season. It's still early in the spring, and the weather could suddenly turn cold and wet. Much more likely, though, is that a prolonged and intense heatwave could accelerate the ripening of the fruit and burn up the plants. If it cools back down again, they might push another round of fruit. But we have had strawberry seasons that have lasted just three weeks.

So it's probably prudent at this point for me not make any predictions for a great season. Let's just say the potential is there. The plants are healthy with lots of flowers and green fruit. We're just getting started so keep your fingers crossed that the weather cooperates from here on out.

Thanks,

Pablito

Coming Soon

You may be thinking: "if strawberries are ripe, where are the Peas? Don't they have the same season?" In fact they usually do, but the wet weather in November and December kept us from planting the first round. The pea field we planted in January grew quickly in the warm dry weather, but won't be ready until next week.

Advance warning: the first Snap and English peas you get won't be the prettiest you've ever seen. Like the spinach and other things, they got hailed on. It dented them up pretty badly, but we still expect them to be tender and sweet.

Recipe: Vegetarian Massaman Curry
This is a type of Thai curry with hints of Indian or Middle Eastern flavors. It works nicely with the box ingredients this week. Massaman curry paste is available where other Thai ingredients are sold, or you could try to make your own.

Clean and thinly slice 1 large or 2 medium leeks. Heat 2 T. canola oil and add 4 T. massaman curry paste and the leeks. Saute on low heat for 10 minutes, until the leeks are soft.

Cut 2-4 potatoes into 1 inch cubes (about 2 cups) and chop 4 carrots into chunks (2 Cups).

Add two 12 oz. cans of coconut milk, 1 C. water, 1 1/2 T. thai fish sauce, plus the carrots and potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, trim 1 bunch of asparagus and cut into 1 inch pieces. Pull the stems off 1 bunch of spinach and rinse 2-3 times.

Toast or roast 4 T. peanuts until browned, then chop roughly.

When the potatoes and carrots are tender, add the asparagus and spinach and cook for 5 minutes more. Stir in the juice of 1 tangelo, season with salt or additional fish sauce, and serve over rice topped with the peanuts.