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

Greetings!

Happy Fourth of July! We hope you are enjoying the holiday and, if you are in town and getting a box this week, are planning on celebrating with lots of great seasonal produce.

Unless it falls on a Sunday, Fourth of July is a working holiday for us at Terra Firma, falling as it does during the middle of one of our most intense harvest times of the year. This year is no exception, unless of course you count the exceptionally hot weather expected to peak today (we hope!). Today marks the sixth straight day over a hundred degrees. We had just a bit of luck in getting to take the day off on Sunday, when it was 110.

The week of the 4th is generally one of the hottest of the year in the Central Valley. That said, Mother Nature took pity on us this time around by sending up high clouds from a storm in Mexico and a nice Delta breeze that kept the mercury from soaring into the one hundred teens. Today will probably top out at 105. But just two days ago, the prediction was 117. That is hotter than we have ever seen at Terra Firma, and might have forced us to shut down completely and destroyed tens of thousands of dollars of produce.

We haven't had a heatwave like this since 2006, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that this July doesn't pan out to be as hot as that one, when we had 24 days straight of triple-digit temperatures. Stay tuned.

Thanks,

Pablito

In Your Boxes

Green Beans are in your boxes one last time this week before they take the rest of the summer off. Like Southern Californians, they like it warm and sunny but not too hot. They mature so quickly in extreme heat that it is basically impossible to get them harvested in a timely fashion. They will return to your boxes around Labor Day and continue until mid-October when it gets too cold and wet.

Painted Serpent Cucumbers are not as firm as regular supermarket cukes, even under the best circumstances. But warm temperatures will make the serpents rubbery. If your drop site is in area that gets warm (or hot) this week or any other week this summer, I recommend giving your cuke a cold soak when you get it home. And the serpents should always be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge to keep them fresh.

Recipe: How to Grill Sweet Corn
Following these instructions will avoid charred corn, BBQ fires, and other unfortunate July 4th bloopers.

Fill a 5 gallon plastic bucket 3/4s full with clean cold water. Make sure to rinse out whatever had been in the bucket before first.

Break off the bottoms of the corn cobs. Some of the husk will come off with them. You want at least 3 layers of husk to remain on the cobs, but not the darkest green outer leaves.

Grab the silk at the top of the cob and gently pull it out of the husk. Remove as much of the remaining silk threads as possible.

Drop the ears of corn into the water and let them soak for 10 minutes.

Light your grill. You want it hot, but not intensely so. If you are using charcoal, you can grill the corn while it's still too hot for anything else, but you want to wait 10 minutes or so after lighting. Put the ears of corn on it in a single layer. Covering the grill will increase the "smoky" flavor. Turn each cob 4 times, so that the husk gets nicely browned on all sides. Remove and allow to steam in the husks for 10 minutes before pulling them off and serving.