Hooray for Summer Rain!

The Cinderella pumpkin has a thick dry flesh that is very sweet with few seeds.
Red skinned sweet potatoes are orange inside. We love eating pumpkin, sweet potato and sweet peppers chopped and sautéed with yellow seasoning peppers and cumin over rice. Delicious and highly nutritious!
Hopefully this nice thunderstorm and overnight rain will help the lettuce rejuvenate; however, for the meantime, expect the typical reduced availability of salad greens at this time of year. 

Wednesday ARTfarm, 3–6pm: sweet bell peppers, seasoning peppers, serrano peppers, garlic chives, lemongrass, Italian basil, loads of papaya, a few passionfruit, a few bags of Mediterranean figs, good quantities of pineapple, a few watermelons (pieces and whole), pumpkin that just keeps getting sweeter, freshly harvested zinnia flowers, and from our partners we have Fiddlewood Farm fresh goat cheese and Tropical Exotics’ nam doc mai mangoes.

Congratulations to all the recent graduates and hard-working students heading into a well-deserved summer of play, beach time and leisure reading. Life is good! And our thanks for making it all possible, to our veterans and service members.

See you this afternoon down the South Shore, 3 to 6 PM! Thank you for your support.

Did You Make The Mango Salsa?

Beautiful orange fleshed young sweet potatoes! These tubers are amazingly tender and sweeeeeet.
Hope everyone loved Luca’s mango salsa recipe from Wednesday’s blog post. If you didn’t try it yet, all ingredients will be available today and then some! ARTfarm Saturday 10 AM – 12 noon, here’s the list: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, teen arugula, teen spicy mix, radishes, sweet bell peppers, yellow seasoning peppers, serrano peppers, bunched arugula, garlic chives, rosemary,  Italian basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, parsley, lemongrass, recao, beautiful young orange fleshed sweet potatoes, pumpkin, loads of papaya, passionfruit, a few small watermelons, a few pineapples and zinnia flowers. 

And from our partners we have: Fiddlewood Farms fresh local goat cheese, and Nam doc Mai mangoes and longan fruits from Tropical Exotics. 
Come out and see us in the morning!

ARTfarm Wednesday: three little words that mean so much…

Nam. Doc. Mai.

A key element of Luca’s famous pineapple mango salsa is the tart green mango. Recipe below.
Alex at Tropical Exotics has carefully managed his water supply and fruit orchard through the long drought, and he is now harvesting beautiful Thai Nam doc Mai mangoes for us! These are one or two days away from pure ripeness, but right now they are tangy, firm and delicious grated or chopped in mango salsa (recipe included below)!

Also on the plate:  Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, bell peppers, radishes, chives, recao, Italian basil, lemon basil, lemongrass, pumpkin, all three hot/seasoning peppers, loads of papaya, passionfruit, a few pineapples, a few watermelons, Mediterranean figs, and fresh cut zinnia flowers. 

We are proud to partner with other small producers on St. Croix who have unique offerings and whose production practices we have personally inspected. From Alex at Tropical Exotics, we have the aforementioned beautiful Thai mangoes and small bags of longan fruit (dragon eyes). And, fresh local goat cheese from Dr. Bradford’s Fiddlewood Farm out west! 

ARTfarm is open 3–6 p.m. on Wednesday afternoons and 10 AM – 12 noon on Saturday mornings, on the South Shore Road at the East side of the stone cattle pens, between Ha’Penny Beach and the Boy Scout camp.

Pineapple Mango Salsa

One slightly unripe nam doc mai mango, peeled, pitted and chopped

1/4 fresh local pineapple, chopped

One medium sized local onion with fresh green tops, chopped fine

2 Thai chili peppers, minced

2 Trini seasoning peppers, minced

One bunch recao (culantro), finely chopped

Half a fresh lime, squeezed

Pinch sea salt

Combine all ingredients and toss. Enjoy with salads, over rice and beans, on fish or poultry, with chips as an appetizer, or just eat it right out of the bowl with a spoon when no one is looking!

Sliding Into Summer Saturday, 10am – 12 noon

Celebrating the first of two performances at Complex High School, 7:30 PM this weekend! Bring friends and family and come see Caribbean Dance tonight!
Come on down and celebrate good food on the South Shore road on this hazy lazy morning! Our congratulations to the dedicated dancers at Caribbean Dance on their 39th year annual show, and to the many diligent students who are graduating this year!

Get your greens at ARTfarm, there’s plenty to share! Two of our rams feast on legumes in the pasture.
Today’s offerings: Sweet salad mix, baby spicy salad mix, baby arugula, sweet bell peppers, red serrano peppers, Italian basil, rosemary, garlic chives, fresh pungent ginger root, pumpkin, loads of papaya, passion fruit and a few figs, Thai melons and a smattering of tomatoes. Farmer Luca will slice up an 18 pound yellow fleshed watermelon!

Loads of zinnia flowers available. If you need some for a special event, contact us and we can pick you a bouquet or two the day of your event!

We have plenty of fresh, locally milked and made Fiddlewood Farm goat cheese. Fresh goat cheese stores beautifully in the freezer, if you purchase extra and want to save some. 

Eye in the sky over the South Shore for the last few days. Was the slow-moving chopper from Google, taking inventory of the pineapple rows? Or the DEA? Luckily everything we grow is legal by federal standards! Chances are this guy flew over your house too. He’s everywhere!
Slight lull in the fruit fest today – a few early bird dragonfruits and pineapples will be available…lots of fruit ripening in the fields but not ready to pick yet.