Author: artfarmllc

Madame Francis and Butterball Mangoes!

ARTfarm Saturday: 10am – 12 noon. Mangoes like crazy today! Summer solstice arrives on Sunday, hopefully dragging some rain clouds with it for Father’s Day! Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. From the farm this morning: Small amounts of sweet mix and microgreens, a few pineapples and papayas, lots of passionfruit, fresh mint, Italian basil, garlic chives and lemongrass. Don’t forget the lemongrass – steep in hot water to make a very cooling and slightly sweet, refreshing brew to keep in the fridge!

From our partners: vegan ice cream from I-Sha in a rainbow of flavors, honey from Errol, and lots of beautiful mangoes, including Viequan Butterballs from Tita and Nam Doc Mai and Madame Francis from Dennis Nash. Farmer Luca, a mango connoisseur, claims that the VBs have even less fiber than the buttery  NDMs. Their velvety texture is a triumph of mango husbandry! Enjoy mangoes now, as the drought may possibly make this a historically short mango season.IMG_9559IMG_9561IMG_9560

Still pretty dry out here… We’ve heard some farmers remark that we are in a fifteen-year drought (meaning that it has not been this dry since after Hurricane Hugo – not that it will last fifteen years). Two years ago at this time of year we were able to grow a lot more summer crops. We know it has been an extended campaign, but please keep rain dancing! Your efforts have brought a few decent showers to the farm, but not enough to yet quench the thirst of the rock-hard topsoil. So keep on getting your groove on if you love local food!

ARTfarm Miracle Mangoes

ARTfarm is open Saturdays only (until it starts raining again), 10–12 noon today. We’re on the South Shore Road just east of the Ha’Penny Beach entrance. Fresh today: sweet salad mix, microgreens, bunched arugula, Ethiopian kale, garlic chives, recao, mint, bananas and passionfruit.

From our partners we have homegrown honey from Errol, vegan coconut-based ice creams in local fruit flavors from I-Sha, and miraculous mangoes from Tita. These mangoes are so fiberless and sweet that you can literally eat them out of the half like a melon with a spoon. They have an almost honey-like flavor. Incredible in any mango recipe or simply consumed fresh.

A yellow mango on a blue plate with a knife.
1. Select your mango.
A yellow mango halved on a blue plate.
2. Slice your mango lengthwise, skimming your knife along the flat mango pit within.
A yellow mango half on a blue plate has a spoon in it, with a round portion of mango flesh spooned out of the half.
3. Scoop out the perfect sized bite and enjoy. (This particular variety of mango is unusually fiberless!)

We want to acknowledge all the recent graduates! This is the time of year to celebrate the culmination of a lot of hard work. Congratulations to all those who have passed finals, completed performances, received accolades, and progressed in some large or small way. Keep on growing!

Jurassic Fruit, Fresh Sweet Salad!

Two hot pink dragonfruits ripen on a green, succulent spiny vine during the dry season.
The strange and wonderful pitaya, or dragonfruit, grows at the end of a primitive, spiny climbing vine. Early summer is typically the season for the dragonfruits to flower and ripen.

Pitaya, also known as dragonfruit, has one of the most strange and dramatic presentations of all the crops we can think of.

Today’s haul: Loads of tender sweet salad mix, Ethiopian kale, bunched arugula, mint, lemongrass, Italian basil, rosemary, zinnia flowers, a few pineapples, a few passionfruit, and red fleshed dragonfruit!

A trug full of ripe hot pink dragonfruit is photobombed by a pineapple and a magenta T-rex puppet.
Dragon photo-bombing the dragonfruit. We also have pineapples and passionfruit today for your inner fruit monster! OM NOM NOM NOM

From our partners we have raw local honey from Errol and vegan ice cream from I-Sha.

That’s 10 AM to 12 noon today, folks! ARTfarm is currently open just once a week during this drought.

ARTfarm Saturday: Back in action! 10am!

Slight drops in temperature combined with some much-needed but brief rain showers have blessed us with some beautiful greens to share this morning! 10 AM – 12 noon: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy/young lettuce mix, microgreens, a few tomatoes, pineapples, bananas, Ethiopian kale, Italian basil, scallions, garlic chives, mint, and zinnia flowers. From our partner food makers we have I-Sha’s vegan ice cream in beet-ginger, baobab, eggfruit and other flavors; and Errol’s beautiful raw local honey.

Last night’s Caribbean Dance performance pushed out so much incredible positive energy into the audience that at least 17 people exploded spontaneously with love! Tonight’s final show starts at 7:30pm at the theater at Complex. If you are not a ticket holder, allow a little extra time at the box office to chat with your neighbors! Concessions are available during intermission including local drinks and veggie pates. We encourage you to come out and support the arts! The show is a mix of uniquely Caribbean ideas, pop-culture references, and so much more!

Heather attended the show last night, and you can see that she is still smiling!

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