Category: community

Pineapples! Happy ARTfarm Saturday! 10am – 12 noon

Summer is the season for pineapples at ARTfarm! Sweet sweet sweet!
Summer is the season for pineapples at ARTfarm! Sweet sweet sweet!

Sweet salad mix, microgreens, macrogreens, lots of sweet ARTfarm south shore pineapples, passionfruit, a few cucumbers, a few tomatoes, Italian basil, beets, radishes, scallions, sage, delicious serrano chili peppers, zinnia flowers, and local honey from Errol.

We have a few bunches of Ethiopian kale today. It is a tender cooking or juicing green with a pungent, sweet flavor that resembles a mild mustard green.

Ethiopian kale! This flavorful cooking green is mild enough to eat raw. It has a mustard-like flavor but will not make your eyes water like true mustard greens.
Ethiopian kale! This flavorful cooking green is mild enough to eat raw. It has a mustard-like flavor but will not make your eyes water like true mustard greens.

We have tickets available at the farmstand today for the annual Caribbean Dance performance that is coming up on May 29 and 30th (Friday and Saturday evenings). Each ticket is also a raffle entry to win round trip plane tickets, a Buccaneer vacation and more!

Tickets are $15 each and will also be available at the door on the nights of the performance. The show takes place in the air conditioned theater at the Educational Complex and curtain time is 7:30 PM.

The Caribbean Dance School celebrates their 39th anniversary on the stage this year. Performers range in age from preschooler to adult, and include students and members of the Company. Disciplines range widely from ballet en pointe to contemporary, jazz, hip-hop tap and Afro-Caribbean calypso this year. It is a completely family-friendly show! (Costumes and choreography are all in good taste and G-rated.) Even if you cannot attend, your purchase of a ticket enters you in the raffle and helps to support this great nonprofit cultural institution.

Thanks for supporting the arts on St. Croix!

ARTfarm Wednesday, 3–6 p.m.: Groove to the Beet

There was a substantial brushfire at Castle Nugent just east of us last night, and though we went to help our neighbors, we did not experience any active fire on our farm last night. Thanks to everyone who expressed concern, offered help or simply checked in with us yesterday and today!

We’ve got lots of beautiful lettuce and quite a few bunches of gorgeous beets with delicious leafy tops today! Come down the South Shore 3-6 pm today and enjoy this flavorful early summer produce! Sit in our breezy shaded farmstand and enjoy a little cup of ice cream!

Freshly harvested early this morning for you: Sweet salad mix, teen arugula, microgreens, macrogreens, a few cucumbers, beets, carrots, onions, Italian basil, tons of beautiful scallions, a few tomatoes, a few passionfruits, a few pineapples, a handful of brave and resilient zinnia flowers, and from our partner I-Sha, locally handmade vegan fruit flavored coconut-based ice cream. Enjoy!

You can't beat beets for nutrition and "delicion". These hot weather beets are so sweet and delicious! Raw or cooked, you need them!! And we never tire of taking pictures of beets and subjecting our customers to them! Feast your eyes on this beauty!
You can’t beat beets for nutrition and “delicion”. These hot weather beets are so sweet and delicious! Raw or cooked, you need them!! And we never tire of taking pictures of beets and subjecting our customers to them! Feast your eyes on this beauty!

ARTfarm Wednesday, 3–6 p.m.! Get a Taste!

It is really Taste week on St. Croix! We had a brief visit from visiting celebrity Chef Sam Choy early this week when he came out to ARTfarm to pick up some ingredients for a charity dinner. We enjoyed talking to him about growing techniques in Kona, Hawaii, where he is a leader in the farm-to-table movement.

Celebrity Chef Sam Choy visits the ARTfarm to pick up some ingredients for a St. Croix Food & Wine Experience charity event. We talked breadfruit and ate limes!
Celebrity “Iron Chef” Sam Choy is actually a big ol’ softie. Here, he visits us at the ARTfarm to pick up some ingredients for a St. Croix Food & Wine Experience charity event. We talked breadfruit and ate limes! Whatta nice guy!

For today’s midweek farmstand we have on offer: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy salad mix, a few bags of microgreens; scallions and Italian basil; onions, beets, carrots and radishes with beautiful green tops for cooking or juicing; cucumbers, and diminishing numbers of end-of-season cherry tomatoes, small heirloom and slicer tomatoes.

Yummy beets for you and for Chef Joe! Looking forward to the Taste of St. Croix event on Thursday, April 16th 2015!
Yummy beets for you and for Chef Joe! Looking forward to the Taste of St. Croix event on Thursday, April 16th 2015!

If you need some fresh ideas of what you can do with your ARTfarm produce, we will be hosting a table at the Taste tomorrow night! Chef/restauranteur Joe Smith and his partner and lovely wife, Jen Valiulis are owners of Garden Table Market in Salem, Indiana, and both have been longtime residents of St. Croix and employee farmers at ARTfarm. Joe and Jen will be our chefs tomorrow night, representing us with several delectable dishes using a lot of ingredients straight from ARTfarm and a few other local farms and producers, including Dr. Bethany Bradford’s Fiddlewood Farm local goat cheese! Come see us at booth #4 on the west end pier of the event if you are fortunate enough to have tickets to this great charity event.

Saturday ARTfarm Stand 10 AM – 12 noon!

Happy Saturday everyone! We are open regular hours today, 10 AM – 12 noon. Today’s harvest: Lots of salad greens! Sweet salad mix, lots of microgreens, arugula, teen arugula, spicy salad mix, cucumbers, onions, beets, carrots, watermelon radishes, the beginning of the end of the cherry tomatoes, medium sized tomatoes, a few pounds of baby sweet potatoes, radicchio, escarole, dandelion greens, sweet potato greens, ginger, Serrano chili peppers, Italian basil, Thai basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme,  zinnia flowers, and from our partners:  limes and sour oranges from Spring Gut Gardens, and I-Sha’s vegan fruit ice creams to cool you down during these hot, dry days before the rainy season.

"South Shore Dragon", 9 x 12" watercolor (c)2015 Luca Gasperi
“South Shore Dragon”, 9 x 12″ watercolor (c)2015 Luca Gasperi

Last night was the opening reception for “Men Of Industry”, a new art collection from Mike Walsh and Luca Gasperi at Walsh Metal Works Gallery here in St. Croix. So many of our wonderful farmstand customers and fellow artists came out to support Luca and Mike’s creative efforts, and we appreciate all of you who were able to make it last night! It was really packed!

If you missed it, or you’d like to go back and enjoy it without quite so many people there, the exhibition will run through May 9, 2015. Call the numbers listed below for exhibition open hours, or to make an appointment. For those of you off island who cannot attend in person you may view each piece through the link below! And if so inspired, purchase artwork by phone. The link is through the WalshMetalWorksVI.com website. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the information about the art exhibition and pieces for sale.

http://www.walshmetalworksvi.com/#!art

The phone numbers to call are:
Office: 340-773-8169
Barbara: 340-332-2504
Mike: 340-332-2682

Please note, all credit card purchases will have a 4% service fee added to the price listed with the work. Shipping arrangements can also be made with The Walsh Metal Works Gallery.

The muse for the painting. An outlier early-season dragonfruit ripens on the vine at ARTfarm.
The muse for the painting. An outlier early-season dragonfruit ripens on the vine at ARTfarm.