We currently provide food for about 1200 subscriber households farming around 150 acres of vegetables and 50 acres combined of fruit and nut orchards.

OUR HISTORY

The seeds for Terra Firma Farm were planted in the late 1980s when Paul Holmes began farming a few acres in the hills west of Winters with a few friends under the name Sky High Farm. Paul developed a following for his garlic, tomatoes, and other vegetables as one of the founding members of both the Davis Farmers Market and Berkeley Farmers Market. Sky High Farm was also one of the original members of California Certified Organic Farmers, prior to official state and federal recognition of organics.

Terra Firma started its CSA in 1994 with a few dozen acquaintances at a single drop site in San Francisco’s Mission District (Capp Street). As word spread and the CSA slowly grew to include other sites in the City, the East Bay, and Sacramento. The farm grew as well. We rented additional fields for growing vegetables and leased small neglected or abandoned fruit orchards to augment the vegetables. We currently provide food for about 800 subscriber households farming around 150 acres of vegetables and 50 acres combined of fruit and nut orchards.

Before he became a partner in Terra Firma, Hector became one of its landlords when he and his family purchased 25 acres of land we were already farming, in 1999. In 2003, with the critical help of CSA subscribers, Paul and Pablito were able to finally purchase 80 acres of land. With the addition of Hector to the ownership team in 2005, Terra Firma has secure tenure on fully half the total land we farm.

Like the households of many of our subscribers, Terra Firma is a non-traditional version of a “family farm”. Nonetheless, Hector’s mother wife, Elena, and son Hector Jr., work in critical positions on the farm.

OUR FARMLAND

Terra Firma is located in beautiful Winters, CA, one of the oldest fruit and vegetable-growing regions in Northern California. Because of its high annual rainfall, rich soils, mild weather, year-round creek, and location just about 70 miles from San Francisco, Winters has provided urbanites in the Bay Area with fresh produce for over 100 years.

We farm a number of sites along the north and south banks of Putah Creek, totaling about 200 acres. Microclimates and different soil types allow us to produce almost 100 different crops each year, including spring, summer and winter vegetables as well as stone fruit, citrus and nuts (pistachios and walnuts). We have two distinct seasons here: dry and hot from May-October, and cool and wet from November-April. There are very few crops we can’t grow in Winters for at least part of the year, and the majority of the items in our boxes every week come from our own fields and orchards.

We are blessed with a reliable, clean, and sustainable water supply. The Blue Ridge Mountains to the west of Winters are the watershed for Lake Berryessa, the source of water for the Solano Irrigation District (SID) canal that supplies much of our irrigation water as well as drinking water for the cities of Fairfield and Vacaville. Since the Monticello Dam was built in the 1960s, SID has never run out of water. The lake is also the source of Putah Creek, which irrigates our fields located along its banks, and recharges our groundwater wells.

There are very few crops we can’t grow in Winters for at least part of the year, and the majority of the items in our boxes every week come from our own fields and orchards.