Proper Pumpkin lifting class, Farm Day 03
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Community Supported Agriculture Newsletter January 12, 2004 1/12/04 |
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Proper Pumpkin lifting class, Farm Day 03 |
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Pablito....
As a small business, Terra Firma has clearly benefited from the low interest rates of the last several years. They have enabled us to grow and become more efficient, borrowing money to improve our facilities and upgrade our trucks and tractors. Low mortgage rates made it possible to buy a home in town, and then later sell that home at a significant profit, which made the purchase of a farm possible. During that same period, many people like us got a chance to buy their first home, or upgrade their old one.
I wonder, though, what will be the affect of a continued period of low interest rates on the area in which we farm, Yolo County. The duration of the low rates has caused an incredible spike in home prices in the outer Bay Area and around Sacramento, once again pushing homes beyond the reach of new buyers. This in turn has pushed sprawl far into the rural areas surrounding the Bay. Immense tracts of land in the Central Valley are being paved over into suburbs. And Small and Medium sized chunks of farmland are now affordable as building lots to urban refugees, so as a result prices have gone far beyond what active farmers can afford or what banks will loan them. In just five years, the rural landscape around Winters has been completely transformed by these “rural estates”. In other rural counties, land speculation has taken thousands of acres of land out of agriculture, as absentee landlords wait for county supervisors to approve subdivisions.
The rural roads around Sacramento are now filled to capacity during rush hour, as thousands of people commute to remote homes, or between towns where there has historically been little traffic. Very few counties and municipalities seem to be using their increased property tax revenue to make the needed improvements to their infrastructure.
So as small farmers, our future livelihood also seems threatened by low interest rates. Even just two more years or so of continued real estate inflation and conversion of farms to estates could turn Yolo County into a mixture of bedroom communities and unincorporated expanses of large-acreage suburbs, neither economically productive nor an efficient way to provide housing.
On the other hand, a sharp rise in interest rates triggered by… say a sharp rise in oil prices as millions of newly affluent Chinese buy their first cars… could also wreck havoc on our farm. We have grown accustomed to easily borrowing large amounts of cheap money each year, buying things like seed and fertilizer in bulk all at once to save money. Moreover, we are getting ready to begin the long and expensive process of building the infrastructure we need to start farming our new land — underground pipes, pumps, gravel roads, electricity and buildings. These are long-term investments that will pay off only over five or more years, and our ability to make them would be seriously crimped by high interest rates. Finally, higher mortgage interest rates would be disastrous when it came time to renew our mortgage, fifteen years from now. Like many recent buyers of property, our monthly budget would quickly be broken if our mortgage payments doubled.
One thing I do have plenty of confidence in, though, is the future success of organic farming and niche markets for fruits and vegetables. Our customers are people who have clearly made a commitment to using their purchasing power to influence how and where their food is grown. And even during the recent (current?) recession, the trend towards organic consumers’ involvement in their food supply seems to have continued to gain strength. People like you have been able to make a difference, creating a market-based alternative to Walmart and McDonalds while benefiting your own health and the environment. I feel tremendously lucky to have been able to pull Terra Firma onto the crest of this wave just as it was gaining momentum. I only hope that our geographic choices don’t eventually make it impossible for us to remain part of the revolution in food and farming. Maybe we should have bought a farm in Colusa or Tehama counties. You say you don’t know where those places are? Exactly my point.
WEEKS WITHOUT WEEDING: 8
And that’s not a good thing.
With the exception of a few dry days over Thanksgiving (when we were closed),
the ground has been constantly wet ever since Nov. 7th. That means
that garlic, onions, and several plantings of broccoli never got weeded.
You can’t even see the garlic for all the grass. The last time we
went this long without drying out was 1998, the famous El Nino year.
We’re sure not hoping for a repeat performance.
IN YOUR BOXES
January is a soup month,
and Celery is a great soup ingredient. Combined with onions, carrots,
and cooked until soft — either before adding broth or in the broth, it
adds depth to a vegetable soup or minestrone that is almost impossible
to otherwise duplicate. It goes well with other aromatic flavors
such as rosemary and marjoram.
Chard is the easiest and most accessible of all the cooking greens, with its sweetness and relatively tender leaves. It comes in a rainbow of colors —- white, red, gold and everything in between. The stems — separated from the greens, diced, and cooked for longer to tenderize them — add a crunchy texture. I generally sauté the chard with garlic, olive oil and a little wine and serve it as a side dish. But you can also use it to top pizza, fill a frittata or quiche, or accompany tortellini in a broth.
Picking Salad Mix in January becomes something of a scavenger hunt in the fields. There’s plenty of lettuce and spinach, but the arugula has succumbed to heavy frost and the radicchio and frisee are rotting in the ceaseless rain. As an experiment, I planted some Mache — a European salad green that is supposed to thrive in cold weather — but it is still tiny. And anyway, wasn’t that the idea with “Field Greens” or Mesclun in the first place? Wasn’t it supposed to be a facsimile of what you would get if you wandered out into your own garden to harvest a few salad greens for dinner?
And see, Medium and Large boxes, we didn’t forget about you when it came to Pistachios
Pablito
Recipes..............
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Chard-Stuffed Pasta Shells — Turns
your chard into a filling, nutritious main course. From “366 Healthful
Ways to Cook Leafy Greens”, by Linda Romanelli Leahy.
Cook 24 jumbo pasta shells according to directions.
Make a sauce by sautéing 3 T. chopped onion
in 1 T. olive oil until soft, then adding 28 oz. canned tomatoes, 1/2 t.
salt, and 3 T. chopped fresh parsley or other herbs. Cook for 10
minutes or so.
Meanwhile, remove the stems from 1 bunch of chard,
then mince the leaves in a food processor with 1/2 an onion.
Heat 1 T. olive oil in a skillet and cook the
chard/onion mixture for 2-3 minutes, until soft. Allow to cool, then
put back in the food processor with 1/2 C. ricotta cheese, 1/4 C. grated
Romano cheese, 1 large egg, 1 can garbanzo beans, and 1/4 t. ground black
pepper. Process until smooth.
Preheat the oven to 350. Pour 1 C. of the
sauce into a 12 X 8 baking dish. Spoon a tablespoon of the filling
into each shell and arrange in the dish in a single layer. Spoon
the rest of the sauce over the shells and top with grated or sliced mozzarella.
Bake, covered, for 20 minutes, then uncovered for 10 minutes.
| Monthly | Quarterly | Yearly | |
| Small box | 52 | 150 | 580 |
| Medium Box | 78 | 222 | 870 |
| Large Box | 104 | 295 | 1160 |
**being offered only to existing everyother week subscribers, as the small box has better variety andis more tuned to the smaller household appetite. The weekly schedule is also much easier to remember, and saves us all a lot of problems at the pick up sites. |
43 | 124 | 480 |
| Vacation Credits: | Small | Medium | Large |
| Vacation credits are lower to discourage overuse, and to reflect actual cost to the farm | $8 | $12 | $16 |
Vacations & Billing Inquiries
We need seven days notice before a vacation hold
or other change of service.
Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800,
or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com
Account Balance Inquiries The account sheet is hiding under the sign off sheet each week with your account balance on it. Mid month I've been e-mailing statments, so if you're not getting it send me an e-mail requesting to be added to the list.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farm
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com
New? Sign up! 
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