Meyer Lemons

What’s Growing This WeekCarrots Pistachios Cabbage Leeks Potatoes Cauliflower Navel Oranges Beet Roots (M, L) Chard (M, L) Meyer Lemons (L) Green Garlic (L) Broccoli (L) Red Mustard (L) Apples (L)

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  “Let’s plant a few tomatoes in February next year”.  After all, 99 out of 100 scientists now agree that global warming is a reality.  For years now, we’ve been planting our earliest tomatoes the first or second week of March and harvesting them earlier than anyone else in Northern California.  And last year (2007), that early planting of tomatoes turned out to be the best field out of all five plantings we did.  The weather in March was warm and sunny, and only one night got cold enough that we had to turn on the sprinklers that we use to protect the plants from freezing.

A quick look at the Weather Underground historical temperature averages for our area bolstered our enthusiasm:  the average nighttime temperature graph for Winters is almost the same in February as in March.  In an average year, we would only have to protect the plants from freezing on a few nights.  Factor in global warming and things looked even better.  Much more common than cold, clear nights in February were long periods of clouds and rain.  So the real risk in this proposition was not the plants dying from cold, but rather, the possibility that we would be unable to plant the tomatoes at all due to wet weather.  But hey, at the time everyone seemed to think we were entering a ten-year drought...We agreed that the risk of investing in an acre’s worth of tomato plants was probably worth the chance of having vine-ripened tomatoes as early as mid-May.

In the past, we have always grown our own tomato transplants, but given the small quantity we needed and the extra early planting date, we would outsource the job to the nursery we use for a few other hard-to-grow crops (leeks and peppers).  We selected varieties that we knew from experience to be especially cold-tolerant  and early ripening, as well as a few new ones whose names referenced cold, far-north regions (such as Siberia and Alaska).  The seeds were planted in early December, fully a month before we planted seeds for our normal first planting in March.

As I mentioned, one of our potentially biggest obstacles to success with our mid-February tomatoes was wet weather.  But this is just as true in March.  So years ago we began covering the soil for our earliest tomato field with plastic mulch.  While the soil under the mulch does not stay completely dry, it is never as wet as bare soil.  If necessary we can — and have — gone into the field and planted our tomatoes by hand between rain storms when it would have been impossible to do so without the plastic mulch.

We always grow a fall cover crop for our early tomato field.  We plow down the field in late fall, and then cover the beds with plastic whenever the weather gives us a chance — in ten years have never gone from Christmas to the first of March without a dry spell.  Nonetheless, to ensure that we would be able to plant our February tomatoes, we covered the beds in plastic in mid-December (at the time, many people thought we were in a drought).  Then it began to rain, and rain, and rain.  After a while, it began to seem like it would never stop.  All the while, I was thinking “better now than later”.

And so two weeks ago, when the nursery called to tell me the tomato plants would be ready right on time — February 15th, as ordered — I was amazed.  It had stopped raining a few days earlier, and the long-term forecast was clear.  As the planting date approached, it just seemed to get warmer and warmer.  We put the plants in the ground last Friday, on a warm sunny day that felt more like April than February.  And the weather forecast predicted a warm weekend followed by the approach of a new round of rainstorms.  Perfect.  The plants would have a few days of sun to acclimate, then a week or two of rainy weather to settle them in.  Remember that California storms, while chilly and wet, almost never bring freezing temperatures.

Alas, by the end of the day, the forecasters had tweaked things a bit.  It seems that humidity had dropped more on Friday than predicted, and now it seemed that frost was likely.  So my frost alarm was set for the night at 34 degrees and sprinkler pipe set up in the field.  At 2 am, the beeper went off as the temperature dropped below 36 degrees and I woke to spend an hour turning on the pump and checking sprinklers.  While the plants were spared, the field — still moist from all the rain — was pretty well flooded after 8 hours of sprinkling.  The next night, the alarm went off again, but then the temperature began to rise as morning approached.

IN YOUR BOXES

Cabbage doesn’t have much of glamorous image compared to some other fruits and vegetables, but it is one of real workhorses of the produce world.  It is incredibly versatile, holding up nicely to cooking but also offering a crisp and mild option for salads.  It has many of the nutritional characteristics of the leafy greens that it is related to — kale, collards, etc. — but in a pinch it can substitute for iceberg lettuce.  And let’s not forget, whether you like sauerkraut or not, you have to appreciate cabbage’s talent for self-preservation.  Almost unique among greens, it can be stored for long periods (given the right conditions) in the same way as root vegetables and nuts — providing critical nutrients at a time of year when they were otherwise scarce.  It also contains the chemical components necessary to ferment itself — kimchi and sauerkraut being the best known results — offering pre-industrial folks a second way of storing it for long periods.

At Terra Firma, we primarily store our cabbage in the field, where the cold, wet winters make it sweet and crunchy.  Every few weeks, we pick it and send it along to some or all of our subscribers.  This week, with some of our other crops still reeling from the affects of 14 inches of rain in less than two months (spinach, lettuce), we’re sure happy to have cabbage.  You might get a red or a green cabbage this week; we had to harvest both varieties to get enough heads for the boxes.

At your house, if you don’t use your cabbage right away, you can store it in a plastic bag in your fridge.  An uncut head will store for several weeks; even a cut head will keep for over a week, although you may want to trim the cut edges if they turn brown. Another way to store cabbage at home is to shred it and make a cabbage slaw.  Toss it with a light vinaigrette and a bit of salt, then pull it out and use it to top sandwiches or combine with other, more perishable vegetables in a salad.

Thanks,

Please make sure to include your account name, the one on the sign off sheet ? on the box, in every correspondance to Valerie

Recipes............................

Cabbage Springrolls — This recipe uses cabbage as a wrapper as well as an ingredient.

Crumble 12 oz. firm tofu with your fingers, then marinate with soy sauce and sesame oil.  Allow to sit for at least 15 minutes.

Carefully remove the largest 10-12 outer leaves from 1 head of cabbage, trimming the bottom of the head as necessary to allow the leaves to slip off unbroken.  Reserve them.

Cut the intact cabbage in half, then cut 1 half into quarters.  Thinly slice 1 of the quarters. 

Trim and clean 1 leek, then cut into 2 inch lengths.  Cut each section in half lengthwise, and then slice into matchsticks.  Soak 4 dried shitake mushrooms in hot water until soft, then slice thinly.

Scrub 2 carrots and 1 or 2 beets, then grate them.  Combine in a small bowl and add the juice of half a lemon.

Heat 1 T. canola oil in a wok, then add the leeks and stir fry until soft.  Add the tofu and cook for 5 minutes, until it begins to brown.  Add the shredded cabbage and the mushrooms and cook until the cabbage is tender but not soft.

Combine the cooked vegetables with the carrot/beet mixture.  Serve with the cabbage leaves.  Place a spoonful or two of filling on each leaf, drizzle with your favorite dipping sauce, then roll it up to eat. 

CSA membership fees ~payment due day is first of month.~~ Quarterly discounts are given for any 3 month period only if paid in advance.
They are given as an extra credit when the payment is applied, you won't see your monthly rate change.
 

For mid-month changes,  Up/downgrades are $5 per week per increment.  Small to large is $10.

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.  Include your account name in full (what's on the sign off sheet).

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. To be able to read the statements you need to be logged in as an administrator on a PC, and virus programs may corrupt the file. Some Mac operating systems do allow the file to be viewed.  We can't resend them, and it wouldn't work any better the second time anyway.

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com

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