Boxes are charged on Monday for the week's deliveries at:

$16 Small
$27 Medium
$36 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.

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

Thanks to everyone who responded to last week's newsletter with helpful suggestions and great ideas. We now have quite a to-do list of things we need to get done over the next month or so.

Several subscribers pointed out that we don't have a real Facebook page. Now we do. If you want to help us get the word out, just type "Terra Firma Farm" in the search window on your Facebook page and "Like" us.

We will use the Facebook page as a way to post regular pictures and observations of what's happening around the farm as well bring other organic food and farming content that we think you may find interesting to your attention. We will also put up a link every week to the current newsletter in case you want to share it with other people every once in a while.

We also got some recommendations on improvements to our website that will make it more useful to subscribers. For example, you can now find a list of the contents of the box you will be receiving each week on the site on Monday or Tuesday so you can get an idea of what you'll be getting in your box. We will also post the link to that page on our Facebook page.

As we don't currently have a staff member dedicated to social media (shocking, I know), it was news to me when one subscriber informed us that we don't have many Yelp reviews. If you are a regular Yelp user and you feel so inclined, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to add to those reviews.

No doubt that we would be much better at promoting our farm on the internet if we didn't spend so much darn time, well, you know, FARMING! Unfortunately, that's not a problem we're going to solve anytime soon...

Thanks,

Pablito

Farm Day: October 25th

Among the emails we received last week were a few inquiring about the date for this year's Farm Day at Terra Firma. We have decided to hold the event on Saturday, October 25th, from 2-5 pm.

Tickets will go on sale on September 25th.

This year will feature the usual attractions: Strawberry picking, Pumpkins, and a farm tour. We will also have the usual distractions: live music, amusements for the kids, beer and wine for parents and other adults, and possibly a food vendor. Details when tickets go on sale.

Produce 101

After a long and fruitful season, our Tomatoes are wrapping up awfully early here. While they always start tailing off in mid-September, this year the drop off is much more dramatic and we are wondering if we will make it to the first of October.

There are two separate bags of tomatoes in the Medium and Large boxes this week. One has the regular mix of varieties you are accustomed to getting. The other bag is full of a single variety: Romas. Roma tomatoes are paste or cooking tomatoes: meaty and firm, with little or no juice. While they are bred for making thick sauces, they can also be eaten raw in salads.

We have been growing Romas now for several years at the request of some of our restaurant customers. We don't normally mix them in with other varieties in your weekly boxes because they have such a specific use. However, we figured we might send them along once. Let us know if you would like to see them a few more times each summer -- packed separately of course.

The first Asian Pears of the season are also in your boxes today. While they are "pear" shaped instead of round like most Asian Pears, the Yali variety is ready to eat when you get it. The texture is firm and crisp, like an apple, but a bit juicy and not quite as sweet. Asian Pears of all varieties should be refrigerated until eaten (unlike European pear varieties).

Recipe: Green Beans with Peppers and Pesto

This dish can be served warm or cold, and can serve either as a salad or a side dish.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Remove the leaves from 1 bunch of basil and toss in a food processor with 3 T. olive oil, 1 minced clove of garlic, and 3 T. toasted pinenuts or walnuts. Process until semi-smooth, then add salt to taste.

Core 2-3 sweet peppers and remove the seeds. Cut in very thin slices, then cut the slices in half.

Dice 2 Roma tomatoes and toss with the pesto.

Trim 1/2 lb. of green beans and cut them in halves to make 2-3 inch pieces. Parboil for 2 minutes or until they are tender but still quite crisp, then remove and rinse with cold water. Drain and toss with the pesto and peppers while they are still hot.

Allow to the beans to sit at least 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.