It’s officially spring on St. Croix, although conditions are crunchy dry and blisteringly hot in the midday hours. Keep up those rain dances, we got a few brief relief showers last night! For the stand this afternoon, lots of fresh salad greens, and Farmer Luca has a new Japanese heirloom mini-melon called the Kiku Chrysanthemum for you to try. Similar in size to the Sakata, perfect single serving sized, with sweet white flesh.

We had a recent visit from the guys at Leatherback Brewing. They’re planning a ginger-infused craft beer among other local flavors and will be launching their tasting room in May if all goes according to plan. We’re thrilled at their interest in working with local farmers.

Harvest forecast for Wednesday: Lots of sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy, cucumbers, decent amounts of tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes, lots of cherry tomatoes, French breakfast radishes, purple radishes, Italian basil, garlic chives, seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, dill, cilantro, parsley, scallions, lots of ginger and turmeric, zinnia flowers, a couple half dozens of turkey eggs and Japanese melons!

We have updated our GoFundMe ARTfarm post-hurricane recovery goals to reflect the federal disaster funding available to us (turns out, incredibly, none at all for any damaged or destroyed farm structures. !!) If you are in a position to help us fund the reconstruction and repair of our hurricane-demolished farm buildings this summer, please consider a donation and share with others interested in preserving small sustainable family farms. Offline donations (directly by check) are the most efficient as GoFundMe takes about 10%.

Thank you for your support.

Well, it may be a bit slower on Saturday, with all of the Irish and Irish-for-the-day parade goers lining up early in Christiansted to get a good view of all of the greenery, but we will have our own version of holiday greenery at ARTfarm at the usual time and place. Hope to see you there.

For Saturday morning, 10am – 12 noon: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy salad mix, teen arugula, teen spicy salad mix, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, some tomatoes and heirlooms, a few beautiful baby bok choy bunches, zucchini-like “serpent of Sicily”, garlic chives, cilantro, dill, parsley, scallions, Italian basil, new young radishes, rat tail radishes, loads of ginger and turmeric, lots of beautiful seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, assorted butternut squashes and zinnia flowers.

Tomatoes are now starting to ripen from our third and last tomato succession planting crop for the year. So there will be a tiny surge in tomatoes soon. And watermelon vines 2.0 are doing their best to come back, despite the lack of rain.

For Wednesday afternoon, 3 – 4:30pm: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy salad mix, teen arugula, teen spicy salad mix, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, some tomatoes and heirlooms, assorted cooking greens, garlic chives, cilantro, dill, parsley, scallions, Italian basil, lemon basil, holy basil, new young radishes, rat tail radishes, loads of ginger and turmeric, lots of beautiful seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, small poblano peppers, assorted butternut squashes, jojo plums and zinnia flowers.

Please help us out by washing your car, leaving your car windows open, leaving expensive electronics out in the yard at night, and leaving your laundry and bed pillows hanging in the open air… so that it might rain.

When your farmers are tired after a long day and don’t have the energy to cook dinner, and we still have a bag of salad greens, we prepare a Supersalad. We take a bag of sweet mix, a handful of seeds, a handful of nuts, and crack open a can of beans and toss in about half. If we have any leftover cooked grains, we throw in a handful. If we have any leftover cooked veg like steamed beets or sweet corn or sweet potato we throw that in too. Dried fruits like apricots or figs are great, or we might open a can of sardines. We toss all that in a bowl, throw in a little salt and pepper, pour on some olive oil and apple cider vinegar, and sprinkle the whole thing liberally with folic acid-rich nutritional yeast.

It’s not the most elegant dish you’ve ever seen, but it’s delicious and quick and requires no cooking and almost no cleanup.

I am sitting here on Friday afternoon surveying an abundance of sweet salad mix that we harvested early in the morning from a field of rapidly drying earth, and recalling the nearly five months that we went without the electrical power which makes this delicious treat possible to produce and store. I hope we are not all lulled back into taking for granted both the old and new fangled technology that makes our modern farming and food distribution system possible. We hope that all of our readers and customers will continue to conserve energy, shop local, reduce and reuse, fly less, and vote for policy change that will reduce climate change. If nothing else, then conserve because you love our sweet salad mix and tomatoes: because climate change makes it harder to produce.

Saturday, 10am – 12 noon: Sweet salad mix, teen arugula, teen spicy salad mix, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, some tomatoes and heirlooms, assorted cooking greens, garlic chives, a few root veggies including sweet potatoes, beets, onions and carrots, cilantro, dill, parsley, Italian basil, lemon basil, holy basil, new young radishes, lettuce heads, rat tail radishes, loads of ginger and turmeric, lots of beautiful seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, small poblano peppers, assorted butternut squashes, Jojo plums and zinnia flowers.