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

Friends, Subscribers, Countrymen and Countrywomen...the time has come.

In just a few weeks, the US Food and Drug Administration will close the comment period on the regulations governing the growing of fresh fruit and vegetables, also known by the unfortunate misnomer "the Food Safety Modernization Act."

This is your chance, as a eater of local and organic fresh produce, to tell the FDA what you think about their misguided efforts to keep you safe.

Do you support action by the government that cements the positions of Walmart and Costco as the primary source of fresh food for all Americans? Do you support regulations that make it difficult for any but the largest farms to grow this food? Because the regulations create numerous bureaucratic and economic barriers for small and medium sized growers. You could say that this would be the "unintended consequence" of the new rules, except that the FDA freely admits in the prequel to the regulations that they will likely push many growers out of the produce business.

As written, the regulations would also impose new restrictions on organic farmers.

It is a simple fact that the vast majority of all the reported fresh produce-related illnesses in the country have been associated with produce grown on large farms, shipped nationwide, and eaten a week or longer after harvest. This is the problem -- the naked emperor, the elephant in the room. The FDA rules should recognize that a viable local food production system is part of the solution. Instead they do the opposite.

In its regulations, the FDA does not focus in on the crops, practices and the producers that are most likely to cause illness -- otherwise known as a "risk-based approach". It lumps together crops like spinach and cantelopes that have caused large outbreaks of illness, with others that never have and are extremely unlikely to do so. In doing so, it decreases its effectiveness.

Lastly, it focuses on farming practices that have never been scientifically proven to cause illness. Irrigation water, for example. And since there is no science there, the solutions that are offered are equally unscientific. There is no guarantee that they will stop a single person from getting ill. What they will do is make it difficult for many farms to keep growing produce at all.

If you are interested in contributing comments to the FDA but aren't sure what to say, here are the suggestions from California Certified Organic Farmers, who are working with a coalition of other organizations to mount a unified response:

1) The draft rules should not make it more difficult and costly for organic growers to use farming practices that have never been connected to illness. This unfairly targets organic farmers and will result in higher costs for organic eaters without any guarantee of safer products.

2) The draft regulations include a number of rules that are not based on valid, peer-reviewed scientific research. More research is needed on what the primary causes of contamination of fresh produce to help guide and focus the regulations.

If you are interested in adding comments based on your support of locally grown produce, you could add the following:

3) The draft rules should not make it harder for small and medium sized growers who provide locally grown fresh produce to compete with large growers and large chain stores -- the responsible parties for the majority of documented outbreaks of food-borne illness.

4) The draft rules should acknowledge the growing preference by eaters (such as yourself) for locally grown food, which is a result at least partially of dissatisfaction with the freshness, quality and healthfulness of produce grown on a large scale and shipped great distances.

While the Comments site may seem like a great place to editorialize on the faults of our food system and the FDA's role in it, it is probably best to keep your comments short and to the point. It is in everyone's interest for the agency to take local and organic supporters' concerns seriously.

Commenting on the rules is easy. Just go to the website on the regulation, hit the "comment now" button and type in or cut and paste. The comment period ends November 15.

Thanks,

Pablito

In Your Boxes

After a pretty slow start, our fall crop of green vegetables has come on strong and heavy -- in part thanks to the week or so of very warm temperatures we've been having. With summer fruit and vegetable season mostly over, we're happy to have them and we hope you are too.

First on the list is Green Cabbage, one of the most versatile vegetables ever invented. It's a leafy green that keeps well in the fridge for weeks. You can eat it raw in salads or use it as a substitute for tortillas, but you can also add it to soups, stir fries and sautes. Or do both -- it cuts nicely into halves or quarters.

There's more Kale this week too, this time the dark green, crumpled Lacinato or "Dinosaur Kale" (Dino Kale). This is the chewiest kale we grow, which lends itself well to high-heat preparations like searing or long cooking in soup.

We also have two Asian vegetables in your boxes today: Baby Bok Choy and Tokyo Turnips. These are also versatile and tasty vegetables that can be used in a number of ways. Baby Bok is mild enough to eat in salad, but can also be lightly cooked. The leaves of Tokyo Turnips are slightly bitter but cook quickly. The roots can be eaten raw like radishes or cooked; they have just a mild mustardy flavor.

Speaking of the Far East, the Asian Pears in your boxes today are called "Yalis". While they have the standard European/American pear shape, they are meant to be eaten crisp just like other Asian Pears. They are just lightly sweet and very refreshing.

Recipe: Hot and Sour Salad

Tossing with a hot dressing allows the flavors to penetrate the vegetables and soften their crunch just a bit.

Cut a head of cabbage in half across it's "equator", then place the cut side of one half face down and slice it thinly crosswise as thinly as possible. Separate the petioles of 1 head of baby Bok Choy, wash and dry them, then thinly slice them lengthwise. Grate or julienne 3 carrots. Core and then thinly slice 1 sweet pepper. Remove the stems from 1 bunch of Tokyo turnip greens and roughly chop the leaves. Thinly slice 1-2 of the turnips.

Toss the vegetables together in a large bowl.

Combine 1/2 C. rice vinegar in a small saucepan with 1 T. peeled and minced fresh ginger and 1 small clove of garlic, minced. Add 1 T. soy sauce and 1/2 t. dried red pepper flakes. Simmer the liquid for 5 minutes, then pour over the vegetables and toss well with a tongs.

When the salad has cooled, sprinkle with 2 T. toasted sesame seeds and season with salt if necessary.