A peek at our farm in Winters Past.   Lake Berryessa

What’s Growing This Week:    Sweet Potatoes Dino Kale Leeks Baby Spinach Satsuma Mandarins Pink Lady Apples—-% Carrots (M, L) Escarole (M, L) Garlic (M, L) Salad Mix (M, L) Tokyo Turnips (M, L) Persimmons (L) Cauliflower (L) Radicchio (L)

Pablito .... 

Last week in my newsletter, I mentioned Lake Berryessa, the artificial lake in the Coast Range just west of Winters formed when Putah Creek was dammed in the 1960s.  Never heard of it?  Everyone in the Bay Area has been to Lake Tahoe, and most to the Napa Valley.  Yet most have never been to Lake Berryessa, and many haven’t even heard of it.  This despite the fact that it’s just over the hill from Napa, less than 60 miles from the Bay Bridge, and you drive right past it on your way to the Sierras.  Well, sort of.

Lake Berryessa is not easy to get to, from anywhere.  As the crow flies, the lake is just 5 miles west of our farm, but it’s a 20 minute drive up a winding canyon to the Monticello Dam that forms it, and another 25 minutes on a two-lane mountain road to get to the public access on the west side of the lake.  It takes about the same to get there from Napa, up several thousand feet of elevation and then back down again.  In other words, it would take the average person leaving the Bay Area almost two hours to get to the lake.

Perhaps if Lake Berryessa was as beautiful as Lake Tahoe, more folks from the Bay would make the trip.  Berryessa isn’t beautiful the way Tahoe is.  Its water isn’t clear and blue, and it is surrounded by oak and scrub forest instead of pines.  In the summer, it is hot and dry, even at night.

Instead, the lake is a mecca for recreational enthusiasts from the East.  No, not Japanese or other Asian tourists.  I’m talking about East of the Bay Area, i.e., the Valley.  For decades now, bass fishermen, (water and jet)skiers and (wake)boarders, and other motorized aquatic recreational enthusiasts have made Lake Berryessa their own.
For the most part, it’s a good place for these activities.  There’s no native aquatic wildlife to disturb or harm.  There are no natural beaches, and road access to the edge of the lake is limited, so anyone who wants to explore much needs a boat of some kind.

In the absence of interest from tourists with a more ecological outlook — and the environmental groups they belong to — the area around the lake has developed without much apparent oversight.  Like any popular vacation spot, Lake Berryessa and its environs have been under heavy development pressure, especially in the last ten years.  The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the lake itself and the land adjacent to it, leased land to hundreds of people who have installed semi-permanent structures — mostly mobile homes.  Many of these have septic systems located a hundred feet or less from the lake.  Twenty years ago, when the lake was a backwater, this might have been appropriate.  In 2007, it seems like an astonishingly inappropriate use of an otherwise world-class recreation area just a stone’s throw from the Bay Area.

As the population of this area has grown and weekend traffic to more distant recreation spots has gotten worse and worse, Berryessa has begun to attract a more diverse group of enthusiasts (otherwise known as “elitists”).  It has also come into the sights of environmental groups, especially since many of the leases held by individuals and businesses located alongside the lake are set to expire.  The historical “stakeholders” have not welcomed the new scrutiny of their picturesque fiefdom — who would want to give up a dirt-cheap lease on a lakefront property?  They have reacted with anger and hostility to the draft management plan put forward by the BuRec.

This is a “red state-blue state” issue.  The dividing line can be seen on any weekend drive from our farm to the lake.  Passing the RV park located right below the dam, you can see flyfisherman casting in the creek.  A  bit further on, RVs and diesel pickups towing powerboats pass a parking lot full of Toyota Prius’ and Subarus of dayhikers visiting the UC Davis preserve in the hills above the lake.  In the summer, the main reason “city folks” head further into the mountains around the lake is to visit the world-class wineries in the area (this is Napa County, after all).  The lake itself is a noisy party that time of year, the sounds and smells of powerboats echoing off the walls of the canyon.  But in the winter, you might find a group of kayakers or a canoe rowing to the far side of the lake, for a hike in the BLM wilderness.

On those days, Lake Berryessa is a beautiful place, desolate and silent.  Last Saturday, the lake was foaming with whitecaps from the north wind, and I was out on the water with a little board and a 9 square meter inflatable kite (this is how I spend my free time, “kiteboarding”).  Over the course of an hour, I saw just one boat out on that 30 mile long lake.  And if I looked to the east, away from the boat marinas and trailer parks, I could almost forget I was in a manmade reservoir and not a remote desert lake.

IN YOUR BOXES
There’s a lot of greens in your (M&L) boxes today.  Both Salad Mix and baby Spinach.  You may have noticed that we often pack these greens quite tightly in their little bags.  We do this to conserve space in your boxes.  However, I recommend that you open the bags and fluff the greens once you get them home, as they will keep longer this way.

In addition to the baby greens, there’s another round of Escarole and a bunch of Tokyo Turnips for you today.  Normally we wouldn’t send Escarole twice in one month, but a few different factors are at work this year.  The warm fall kept the first planting of Escarole from sweetening up, and by the time the first frost arrived, we had two plantings ready for harvest.  The heads are now beautifully blanched, and incredibly mild — really special, in other words.  Last week, I even found myself eating escarole hearts raw in a salad, something I normally wouldn’t consider.

 Tokyo turnips are an adaptable vegetable.  The greens cook quickly, have a tender texture and a mildly spicy flavor.  The roots can be sliced or shredded in a salad raw, roasted with other root vegetables in the oven, stir-fried, or thinly sliced and added to soups.

The recipe column this week has two quick soup recipes, each using one of the greens in today’s boxes.

 The heads of garlic in your boxes this week are the last of our 2007 harvest.  You may note that some of the cloves may have started to sprout slightly; these may have a stronger flavor but are otherwise completely edible unless they are shriveled.  Luckily, the warm fall weather this year has accelerated the growth of our first planting of Green Garlic — so much so that we will begin harvesting it after New Year’s this year.  Many years, the new garlic doesn’t get big enough to pick until March or even April.

Thanks,
    Pablito
 

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

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

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

New?  Sign up! 

Pickup Sites

Online Payments

Member's Answer Zone

Back to Basics

Newsletter Archives

Is it safe to eat Spinach?