| What's Growing This Week: | |
Cilantro (All)
Green Beans (All)
Peaches (All)
Arugula (all)
Apricots (All)
Cherries (S,L)
Tomatoes (M,L)
Carrots (M,L)
Strawberries (M,L)
Garlic (M,L)
Red Russian Kale (L)
Items may be substituted without notice.
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Bulk Items
Ruby Red Grapefruit, Apricots and Peaches (seconds) are available in bulk.
To sign up, log in to your account and go to the Web Store.
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Contact Us:
| terrafirmafarm.com
csa@terrafirmafarm.com
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| CSA Rates 2013 | 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!
I spent some time this morning going back through several years of our CSA packing lists and newsletters for late May -- all the way back to 2006. But I couldn't find another year when we had tomatoes in your boxes by this early date. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no Terra Firma subscriber has ever seen a tomato in their box in May.
There are almost always a few ripe tomatoes in our fields this time of year, just about enough for a few sandwiches or a salad every few days. But to send them along to you, we need several hundred pounds, and I believe the earliest date that's ever happened before was June 10th, in 2008. That makes 2013 a full two weeks earlier than the previous "earliest tomato year" and a full three weeks sooner than last year.
This pleasant anomaly is not due to any new growing technique or technology we discovered. We still grow our tomatoes the same way we have for over a decade: grown in the greenhouse in January and February, transplanted outside in early March, and protected from freezing with sprinklers on cold nights. The difference this year is the weather: constant above average temperatures and sunshine almost every day since the plants went in the ground.
Unlike with strawberries, an early start to the season doesn't usually mean an early end. An early, rainy October could always end the season, but that would still give us a solid 17 weeks of tomato goodness. So enjoy your "bonus tomatoes" this week, they are just the start. Small boxes will get some next week.
Thanks,
Pablito
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In Your Boxes
Whatever size box you get from Terra Firma, there is a higher percentage of fruit in it than usual this week. We are at the tail end of Cherry and Strawberry season, but we've also got the Apricots as well as plenty of Peaches and Nectarines. We are harvesting several different varieties of Tomatoes this week, including Early Girls, Orange Blossom and Orange Pixie, and Black Prince -- red, orange, and purple, respectively. They all have one thing in common: they are ugly. Scarred from wind, dented by hail and misshapen. On the plus side, they taste great. As the season progresses and the volume of fruit from the field increases, we will get more picky about what we sent along to you. If you're looking for a nutritional boost, there aren't too many salad greens that pack more punch per ounce than Arugula, which has a much higher concentration of vitamins and minerals than spinach and blows lettuce away. Arugula's strong flavor is best balanced by a combination of salty, sweet and sour: mustard vinagrette and grated carrots or tomatoes and feta. We are in the middle of our annual harvest of Garlic for bulbs. The garlic in your boxes today is fulled headed up into cloves, but the skins have not fully dried yet. At this stage it takes a little more effort to skin the cloves. Leave it at room temperature and it will continue to dry and cure. We have several fruit items available in bulk at the Web Store, Apricots, Peaches, Nectarines and Grapefruit. Look for bulk tomatoes in a few weeks. |
Recipe: Roasted Green Bean Salad with Bulgar Wheat
Most green bean salad recipes call for blanching the beans; this recipe roasts them. Either way, cooked green beans absorb dressings and other flavors while raw ones don't. While this recipe uses bulgar wheat, it is not primarily a grain salad but a vegetable one. You can substitute quinoa for the bulgar.
Preheat the oven to 425.
Trim the stems from 1/2 lb. of green beans and cut them in halves or thirds. Toss with 1 T. olive oil, salt, and pepper. Arrange in a single layer on a large baking sheet and roast in the oven. Stir the beans once or twice so they cook evenly. When they begin to brown, add 2 minced cloves of garlic and cook another 2-3 minutes.
Meanwhile, pour boiling water to cover over 1 C. bulgar wheat, then cover it and let steam for 20 minutes. Drain any excess water.
Mix 2 T. red wine vinegar, 2 T. stoneground mustard, and 2 T. olive oil. Toss half of it with the green beans and reserve the rest.
Wash 4-6 C. arugula leaves, spin dry and toss with the green beans. Sprinkle the bulgar over the salad and toss it, a little at a time until you have a nice balance of the three ingredients. Add more dressing to taste.
Crumble 1/2 C. feta cheese over the salad.
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