Right now you can get an 8 lb. box of Peaches or 12 lb. box of Tomatoes delivered with your CSA box.

Order one week at a time, or subscribe for the season. Go to the Web Store section of your TFF account to sign up.

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

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

When we started packing CSA boxes -- just one size -- and delivering them in 1994, we were just the second farm with drop sites in San Francisco and one of a handful in the East Bay and Sacramento. For years our farm grew along with the number of subscribers. The recession of 2007 hit, and people kept right on subscribing.

Along the way, more farms started offering CSA boxes, trying to meet the demand. Others caught on too, distributors who tried to focus on the "farm fresh" part while conveniently forgetting about the idea of "leaving out the middleman". Now there are even companies that deliver ready-to-cook meals to your door, with every ingredient in the recipe peeled, chopped, sliced, and measured out. Over the last few years, Terra Firma has seen our subscriber numbers drop -- not drastically, but definitely enough for us to notice.

Many of our, er, competitors offer a level of service that we do not: delivery to your home or office. While we have considered the idea in the past, it simply doesn't make sense for us to send multiple vehicles from the farm each carrying just a few dozen boxes. Right now each of our two trucks is able to deliver several hundred boxes a day efficiently.

We understand very well that for many people, having to pick up their CSA box every week at the same time is an obstacle to subscribing. So for several years we have been mulling how to find someone in the Bay Area to deliver CSA boxes for us. And it appears we have succeeded.

We and several other CSA farms are working with FarmsReach, who are rolling out a home delivery program. The cost will be $5-$15 per week depending on where you live. We hope to start deliveries later in the summer. Payment will come out of your existing TFF account.

You should have already received an email inquiring as to your interest in home delivery and asking for your physical address (which we don't currently have). Even if you are not interested, I would ask you to mention our new service to friends or family members who have previously expressed interest in Terra Firma but are unable for whatever reason to pick their box up. As always, we will give a referral credit if they sign up.

Thanks,

Pablito

Ripening Tips

It just so happens that Tomatoes and Peaches ripen under the same conditions and in more or less the same way. Here is the drill:
1) Do not refrigerate
2) Store in a warm but well-ventilated place (not a closet)
3) Remove them from the bag. A wire basket or colander is the ideal place to keep them. If you put them in a bowl, don't stack too high.
4) Check them individually every day. They may not all ripen the same day.
5) In 1-3 days, they will be ready to eat. Press gently with one finger on the bottom of the fruit. If it gives slightly, it is ready to eat!
6) If you have a good sense of smell, you can use your nose instead of your finger to test ripeness.

This Week's Boxes

Exactly one week after the early June heatwave, our Tomato field has kicked up a notch and we have bumped up the amounts in your boxes accordingly.

You will still see mostly red tomatoes, but a handful of heirloom varieties may sneak in. Black Prince is a small brownish green tomato, Lemon Boy are small and yellow, and Pink Beauty are round pink ones. Cherokee Purple also started this week, a purplish red tomato. Earlier this spring I mentioned how bumblebees can cause overpollination in some tomatoes that cause them to be deformed: Cherokees are particularly susceptible and you may get one that is all lumps and bumps.

Beginning next week you can get 10 lb. boxes of tomatoes delivered to your drop site. Initially these will be "#2" tomatoes for cooking; in another week or two we will offer first quality as well. Just log into your account and sign up for one box at a time, or a weekly delivery through the season.

We are growing two new varieties of Summer Squash this year. One is a round green zucchini called "Eight Ball". The other is a white and green striped heirloom Italian variety. Aside from their visual appearance, they are quite similar to green zucchini.

We have...finally...completed harvesting the 2014 Garlic crop and are sending you the first heads. Like onions, garlic seems to have really liked the warm, dry winter. Both the cloves and heads are large and juicy. Enjoy. These can be stored at room temperature.

Tutorial: How to Grill Sweet Corn
Once you eat corn cooked this way, it's pretty hard to go back to boiling it. The ears steam inside their husks while picking up the smoky flavor of the charcoal.

Light a fire in the BBQ. Cook anything else that needs grilling first.

Fill a 5 gallon bucket or a large bowl with water.

Remove the toughest, greenest leaves of the corn husk from each ear, including the large stump at the base. Pull out as much of the silk from the tip as you can without opening the ears.

Soak the sweet corn for 15 minutes or longer in the bucket.

When the coals are glowing but not super hot, place the corn on the grill and arrange in a single layer. Cover the grill completely and allow the corn to cook for 10 minutes or longer. Turn the ears as the leaves on each side turn brown. Do not allow them to blacken.

Leave the corn in the husks until just before serving, as this will keep them hot.