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

This is our final week of deliveries for 2013. We will resume deliveries on January 11th, 2014.

2013 appears to be ending much the way it started. The first week of January our fields were frozen every morning; by the middle of the month, sunny and warm afternoons were breaking records. December looks set to do the same. Both months -- normally among the wettest of the year -- were close to rain-free.

Over the years that we have been doing our CSA, we have put together a mosaic of annual and perennial crops to enable us to pack a diverse box of produce all year round. There is no question that our winter season -- December through March -- is far and away the riskiest endeavor, due entirely to extreme weather. This year is no exception. Last week's freeze was the most prolonged that we have seen in twenty years -- though thankfully not the coldest.

The primary beneficiaries of our winter season are our employees, who would otherwise be unemployed for a quarter of the year. To many of them, the winter season means the difference between making a decent living and just getting by.

Of course, we also believe that our customers benefit from the continued supply of healthy and fresh seasonal organic produce through the winter. It certainly seems that way, since we actually deliver more weekly boxes in January than we do in July, and regularly have to put new subscribers on a wait list in mid-Winter.

All that said, we really hope you will stick with us through the winter of 2014. Many of our crops suffered severe damage, but most of them may recover completely or partially depending on how the weather treats them for the next month or so. We will give them a nice two week break and try to enjoy it ourselves.

We wish you all a happy holiday season and thank you for your support of our farm in 2013. See you in January.

Pablito

This week's Boxes

We normally don't begin harvesting our Navel Oranges until we are done with the Satsuma Mandarins -- there isn't usually much overlap in the seasons anyway. But the navels were ripe and ready when the freeze warning was issued, so we harvested a slug of them just in case...and we're glad we did.

This week (and for a week or two in January), we will be loading you up with citrus -- mandarins and navels. Both keep nicely in the fridge so no need to use them in a hurry. In a pinch, it's easy enough to pull out the juicer.

And as I mentioned last week, most of the rest of the contents of this week's box will comfortably sit around for a week or longer if you are too busy to cook or eat them.

2013 Freeze: Status Report

If you are wondering how we fared with the cold weather, so are we. Some of the freeze damage is to crops that will grow back (beet greens, for example).

At this point the only thing we are certain about is that we have lost a chunk of our late-winter ripening citrus. We will have plenty of fruit through January, but after that there may be little or nothing until our Red Grapefruits ripen in late March.

On the other hand, we are pretty hopeful that we will have a decent supply of greens (spinach and kale), but the return of extreme weather (cold, rain or wind) could change that.

Recipe: Butternut Walnut Muffins

I have been making these muffins for over ten years and have tweaked the recipe with the goal of making squash the primary ingredient -- unlike other similar recipes. It's not low-fat but it doesn't have tons of sugar. With all the fiber from the squash I don't worry about using whole wheat flour but feel free...

Cut a butternut squash in half and roast it at 450 degrees until it is soft and nicely browned. Allow to cool, then scoop out the seeds and remove the peel.

In a bowl, mix 1/2 C. organic cane juice with 1 C. softened lightly salted butter. Add 1 beaten egg and combine. Mix in 5 C. cooked squash.

In a separate bowl, sift together 1 C. cornmeal and 1 C. white flour (or a combination of white and whole wheat) with 1 t. baking soda, 1/2 t. baking powder, 1/2 t. ginger powder and 1/4 t. ground nutmeg.

Chop 1/2 C. or more of walnuts finely.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients and mix using a spatula. Mix in the walnuts.

Spoon the batter into the holes in a muffin tin (no need to butter or use paper cups). Bake at 400 until the tops are nicely browned.

Need More Ideas for Cooking Winter Vegetables?
The New York Times has created an amazing database of holiday recipes for vegetable lovers, vegetarians and vegans alike. You just type in the name of a vegetable.