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!

When I was two years old, my parents bought their first house and planted a pine tree in the sideyard. There is a picture of my mom holding me next to the tree, which was about her size. By the time I was forty, the tree had grown to take up the entire yard.

Around the same time that pine tree was planted, a couple named Vive and Thule Schuhart were also planting trees -- thousands of them. They had purchased 77 acres of land in Winters and built a house on it, and decided to plant 15 acres of what was back then a brand new crop in California: pistachios. Thule was an airline pilot, and had seen pistachios growing in the deserts of the Middle East. He was convinced they would be a better nut crop for California than almonds or walnuts due to their lower water consumption.

There were only a few hundred acres of pistachios in the Golden State back then, compared to several hundred thousand now growing. There were no guidelines from UC Extension on how to grow them, no infrastructure for processing them, and no established buyers.   Vive and Thule basically figured it out as they went. They built small scale machines to hull the skins off the nuts, sort them, and crack the nuts that didn't open on their own. For years they did all this work on their own, until the infrastructure caught up with them and they were able to have it done on a larger, more professional scale.

Vive sold the nuts from the orchard for years at the Davis Farmers Market, where she had a stand twice a week. That was how she got to know Paul Holmes, who started selling vegetables there in the 1980s.   Vive was not happy when Thule decided in 2003 that he wanted to sell the property and move to Florida, but she was excited when we made an offer on the property. The pistachio orchard was her baby, and she made us promise to keep taking care of it for her.

It's been ten years since we took over caring for Vive's pistachio orchard. Like any crop, it has had its ups and downs. Despite their age, the trees are healthy and strong. But they are simply getting too big to harvest. It's time to cut down trees -- maybe just some, to make room for the harvesting equipment. But maybe all.

If the decision was based purely on economics, we would have already done it. But there are emotions involved as well. And one of those was concern about Vive's reaction if she came back to visit her orchard and saw that we had cut down her "babies".

Of course, trees don't live forever. My parents were very sad to have to cut "my" pine tree down six years ago when it became diseased. But sometimes, trees outlive their "parents". We learned this week that Vive and Thule passed away recently -- having lived in good health well into their 90s.

Strangely, knowing this does not make our difficult decision vis a vis the pistachios any easier. It makes it harder. And so we will likely decide, once again, to wait and see how next year's crop from Vive's orchard fairs.

Thanks,

Pablito

Open Farm Day: October 19th

Tickets for Farm Day go on sale Thursday, September 19th at the webstore. Availability is limited due to space for parking, so get your tickets early to avoid disappointment.

Activities will include pumpkins, berry picking, hayrides, a farm tour, and bouncy houses for the kids. You can bring a picnic but we will also have brick oven pizza for sale, made with TFF produce. There will be live music all day. As always, we will have a farmers market for anyone who wants to stock up on extra goodies from the farm.

The raindate will be the following Saturday, October 27th.

Tickets for the event are $5, and are exchangeable for pumpkins or produce. Kids under 12 get in free, but if you register them in advance they also get a free pumpkin.

The event is not open to the public, but subscribers can buy tickets for friends and extended family.

In Your Boxes

The first day of Autumn is Saturday, but we're starting a few days early in your boxes with the first salad greens of the season: loose Arugula. Arugula is a perishable green, so make sure to eat within a few days of getting your box. And always wash salad greens before eating raw!

Pepper fest continues this week, as our nicest sweet pepper field in years keeps pumping out tons (literally) of ripe fruit. Fry 'em, roast 'em, puree 'em, or toss 'em raw into salads. And if you still have any left over from last week, core 'em, slice 'em up, pack 'em tight into a ziplock bag and freeze 'em for the winter.

Our fall green bean field sure is pretty!

Recipe: First Week of Fall Potato Salad
Another composed salad of mostly cooked vegetables. I've never understood why, but arugula's peppery flavor is somehow balanced by the spicy tang of mustard -- despite them being from the same plant family.

Boil 1 1/2 lbs. of potatoes in salted water until fork tender. Drain and rinse, then allow to cool. The potatoes should be firm but not crunchy.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 425. Trim 1/2 lb. of green beans and cut in halves. Remove the cores and seeds from 3-4 sweet peppers and slice thinly lengthwise. Toss the beans and the peppers with 2 T. olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven on a cookie sheet until the beans begin to brown and the peppers are soft. Add 1 minced clove of garlic and cook another 2 minutes.

Cut the potatoes in large dice. Make a dressing with 1 T. each stoneground mustard and olive oil, then add red wine vinegar to taste.

Toss just enough dressing with the potatoes and roasted vegetables to coat them lightly, then add 3 C. arugula leaves and toss to combine.