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Community Supported Agriculture Newsletter October 24, 2005 10/24/05 |
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Pablito .... 
OUR CUSTOMERS ROCK!
After the conclusion of yet another successful
farm day, Paul Holmes and I once again experienced our annual epiphany:
Our subscribers are great. Very few farmers in this country get to
meet their customers up close and personal, and even fewer could possibly
get as much positive and constructive feedback as we get from those among
you who come up to the farm each year. Any cynicism we might have
about these feelings — “It’s the same die-hard supporters coming every
year”, for instance — was easily dissipated this year by seeing how many
newbie subscribers made the trip.
We apologize to anyone who was unable to make the rain date after the short-notice change (especially the musical guests, Coyote Blue), but the decision turned out to be a good call, with both Sunday’s perfect weather and an abundance of ripe strawberries. Thanks again for all the kind words, good questions, and smiling faces.
YOLO COUNTY — #1
Newly released data from the Agricultural
Statistics Service shows that Yolo County, home of Terra Firma, is the
top ranking county nationwide in direct market sales of farm products.
With its close proximity to the Bay Area and Sacramento, as well as a long
growing season, Yolo County is proving to be an ideal spot for farms growing
for CSAs, farmers’ markets, and roadside stands.
This information is especially useful given that market forces and government planning agencies continue to put intense pressure on Yolo County to allow more farmland in the county to be developed for housing. Yolo is alone among the counties ringing Sacramento in its commitment to preserving agricultural land through restrictive zoning. While elements in the county and city governments here continue trying to undermine this official position, our neighbor counties have adopted one of two growth philosophies briefly summarized as: 1) Pave it all, farming sucks, or 2) There’s no way we could possibly pave it all, so why bother with restrictions.
So it’s nice for the pro-slow-growth voices in our county to have some positive economic numbers to back them up. Many of the crops grown in this county are low value commodities that are processed in other parts of the state, and thus make little direct economic contribution to the local economy. Direct market agriculture brings in far more dollars and employs more people per acre. While no type of farming can compete with shopping malls and car dealerships for taxes paid to a county, direct marketers are an improvement over commodity agriculture. This gives county government and elected officials more ammunition to fight the arguments of developers and landowners who would like to see zoning laws changed to allow more subdivisions to be built.
A GOOD YEAR FOR CA FARMERS?
It’s a trait among farmers all over to
keep quiet about their successes and make lots of noise about their failures.
There are few patentable products and techniques in agriculture, fewer
still of those are actually ever owned by farmers. So throughout
history, the farmer who bragged about his good years probably got more
neighbors peeking over his fences and copying his ideas. Moreover,
few people succeed in this business without learning that Mother Nature
giveth and taketh away, and that several good years can be wiped out in
a single bad weather event.
So don’t expect to hear stories this year about almond, walnut, pistachio, and grape farmers blowing this year’s profits with extravagant spending displays. These four crops represent a majority of California agriculture now, and all four are going to have a good year this year — high yields and/or high prices. After two years or more of neither, all the farmers that grow these crops needed a good year. And getting back to my last topic, agriculture needs to be profitable enough so that local governments — both pro-growth and pro-preservation — don’t find themselves confronted with an army of farms facing bankruptcy and demanding that zoning laws be changed so they can sell their most valuable asset (land).
As a small, direct market grower, why do I care how my walnut-growing neighbors fare? Well, to be completely truthful, I don’t want them all to tear out their nut trees, plant vegetables and fruit, and start competing with us for market share. I support every farmer who makes the switch, but that’s easy right now because few actually do. My second reason is even more simple: Subdivisions and farms make terrible neighbors. I’d rather deal with one or two conventional farmers spraying pesticides nearby than a hundred homeowners complaining about the smell of our compost pile and the noise of our tractors. Who knows, someday they might decide to transition to organic. Here’s to higher walnut prices!
IN YOUR BOXES
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter,
a very warm fall is accelerating the growth of many of our cool-season
crops, while also extending the season for tomatoes and peppers.
With an avalanche of veggies beginning, you’re going to see a slight reduction
in amount of fruit in the boxes this week. We’re hoping that cooler
weather will slow things down, but in the meantime, we hate to see perfectly
tasty vegetables go to waste when much of the fruit we currently have is
happy to wait another week or two on the trees.
Baby Bok Choy is a perennial favorite for many of you, and our first planting is coming on like gangbusters. This is one of the easiest Asian vegetables to prepare — just rinse each stem, steam, and serve with a light dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. Or add to your favorite stir fry, stems chopped or left whole.
Cabbage should be a staple in everyone’s fridge, especially since it will keep for several weeks if stored in a plastic bag. Add it to salads, shredded, or sauté it.
Spinach that refused to grow last year is steroidal this year, shooting up 4 inches in a single week. Too big now to cut for “baby” leaves, we are cutting and bunching whole plants which are ideal for sautéed spinach with garlic and olive oil.
Tokyo turnips are always fast growing,
so they are rocketing this year. Both the sweet roots and slightly
spicy greens are tasty. You can eat the former raw in salads or lightly
sautéed, while the latter are tender enough to benefit from just
lightly steaming or sautéing. Try them in the stir fry above,
combined with bok choy, cabbage, and some of those still-abundant sweet
peppers.
Recipes..............
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| Monthly | Quarterly | Yearly | |
| Small box | 52 | 150 | 580 |
| Medium Box | 86 | 245 | 959 |
| Large Box | 116 | 330 | 1294 |
**being offered only to existing everyother week subscribers, as the small box has better variety and is 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. |
46 | 131 | 513 |
| Vacation Credits: | Small | Medium | Large |
| Vacation credits are lower to discourage overuse, and to reflect actual cost to the farm | $8 | $13 | $18 |
We Up/downgrades are $5 per week per increment.
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. 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.
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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