Hey BUUUUUUDDY! Little pink buds are appearing on the dragonfruit vines. They’ll be fruits in about a month or so.
How about those April showers? Right in the nick of time. ARTfarm has been keeping a little bit of lettuce alive with careful irrigation at night. We’ve got some sweet salad mix, radishes, ginger and turmeric, and some oregano and other herbs to share, so we will be open for a POP-UP (no reservations, first-come first-serve) farmstand in the afternoon, Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 5 – 5:30pm.
We’d appreciate if you have any hint of ill health, send a friend to pick up, or wear a mask when you are interacting with Farmer Luca. We need that guy to stay healthy!
Because it’s a quieter time of year, we are not expecting a big crowd. Looking forward to seeing you! Thank you so much.
If you’re looking for someplace to donate your generous tax refund, The Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition, who tirelessly advocates and supports small farmers and farm to school programs in the US Virgin Islands, is a worthy cause. Go to their Facebook page now to learn more and make a donation: /goodfoodvi
Last year around this time, the VI Good Food Coalition distributed assistance to local farmers through their Farmer Drought Mitigation and Support program. Thanks to VI Good Food, ARTfarm ordered more water, worked on fire breaks and purchased extra water pumps.
Greetings from early April 2023! In case you missed this in the previous farm email:
Late afternoon in the ARTfarm gardens. Hills are drying up as spring approaches. The pineapple plants are reaching full growth.
Due to some rain shortages and staff shortages, we weren’t able to keep up the lettuce plantings over the last month. We’ll be taking a short break of an unspecified number of weeks to catch up on that and do a rain dance. Later this spring into summer we’ll start to have some tropical fruits like pineapples, in addition to salad greens. We’re also experimenting with some late season cherry tomatoes. Stay tuned, and thanks for your support!
Gorgeous freshly harvested ginger and turmeric can be used for so many healthy treats!
Wow. It got so dry so fast. First South Shore wildfire of this season happened on Tuesday, and our water reserves are dangerously low, so we have to take a break over the next few weeks to reboot, and do a rain dance. So sign up now to get your last delicious juicy tomatoes in tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) pickup! It will be our last distribution for at least a few weeks. Learn more about how climate change is affecting our region from NOAA’s Climate Hub. Looking forward to summer mangoes, pineapple and more!
Sign up below for one of 51 reserved pickup timeslots, for Saturday starting at 11 am! If you missed this signup, stay tuned… we are on a short hiatus due to lack of rainfall and staffing shortages. Volunteers still welcome to help us with farming tasks – see below.
Check out our different size preorder ‘farmshare’ selections listed below
See details and a list of extra add-on items available first-come-first-served during your pickup time
Click the link and fill in our quick reservation form. (Reserve an earlier pickup time to catch these first-come-first-serve items)
More details for newbies below!
Brisk farm workouts in peaceful breezy nature available: We’re looking for volunteers (non smokers). Luca could use a hand even if it’s only for two hours at a time, to do all kinds of farm tasks including garden bed preparation, building Hugel beds, and end-of-season garden maintenance. You can get a great ab and full body workout, mostly standing using rakes and hoes. There is also sifting of compost, hand weeding, late day transplanting and more. Delivery drivers too!
We are looking for handy folks to help us complete our walk-in cooler storage facility project. Learn about retrofitting shipping containers into eco-friendly food storage and more! We can promise you it is RIVETING work.
Learn about market gardening, construction, food prep. Fast walkers encouraged. Could convert to part-time employment depending on skills and efficiency.
Farmshare choices for Saturday, April 1st, 2023:
We will have 51 timeslots/farmshares available for scheduled pickup Saturday morning. You can also order and specify a neighbor, friend or family member to pick up your order and theirs. The minimum order is one farmshare, and you CAN order more than one farmshare. At the farmstand, you can choose from remaining add-on extras and we’ll total your order. We are chronically understaffed and need to keep farmstand hours brief; add-ons and extras are not currently available independently of a farmshare minimum purchase.
SWEET ‘n’ MATERS farmshare, $19, will include:
1 bag sweet salad mix
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 lb. heirloom tomatoes
SLICERS ‘n’ HEIRLOOMS farmshare, $10, will include:
1 lb. slicer tomatoes
1 lb. heirloom tomatoes
MIXED TOMATOES 2LB farmshare, $8, will include:
2 lb. 2nds and smaller mixed tomatoes (discount per lb.)
2LB GINGER ROOT farmshare, $12, will include:
2 lb. fresh ginger root
Extra Add-Ons (non-reservable)
(Must accompany farmshare purchase, these items cannot be purchased individually. No reservations on these items, they are all first come first served during your pickup slot):
early birds:
CHERRY tomato pints
SLICER tomatoes
YELLOW WATERMELON
CARROTS with juicable tops
ONIONS with green scallionish tops
assorted COOKING GREENS
baby FENNEL
seasoning PEPPERS (smoky, not hot)
SWEET PEPPERS
various Winter SQUASH/PUMPKINS including Delicata!
plenty:
RADISHES in white and pink, with green edible tops
assorted HERBS bunches: $2 each
fresh GINGER: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
fresh TURMERIC: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
PINEAPPLE slips to grow-ur-own: $2-3 each as sized
Herb bunch choices for this distribution
(Available as EXTRAS or included in farmshare)
Kafir lime leaves
Lemongrass
Parsley
Please contact us immediately by TEXT or PHONE at (340) 514-4873 if you have reserved a farmshare and cannot pick it up. Supply is limited, demand is extremely high and someone else will gladly purchase your share, if given enough time to respond. We have limited time for distributions and they are scheduled. Our produce is harvested fresh and needs to go home with you same day. This is an honor system since we are not collecting payment until pickup. We do not have cold storage for uncollected shares.
During the COVID era we switched to a pre-order system instead of open farmstands, and customers preferred the predictability and drastically shorter wait times. So we’ve stuck with it, for now.
1. Order/reserve at least one of our different sized farmshare selections (minimum purchase) and choose your timeslot ahead on our website form (the link above)
2. The signup form will show you a “Thank You” page and send you a confirmation email if submitted successfully. If you don’t find it, please check your spam/junk, trash, inbox tabs, and ‘all mail’ folders for the confirmation email, and search for noreply@jotform.com (JOTFORM IS SINGULAR, no ‘S’)– this has been a common problem for several customers and with a little searching they typically find it. For more tips, visit our Help page.check for your confirmation email so you know your name will be on the list!
2. Please arrive in our parking lot on time but not more than 10 minutes early to prevent traffic jams and longer wait times. We appreciate your cooperation!
3. At the stand, if you’re at all not feeling well, please bring a mask and wear it while upwind of the farm staff. We’ll call your name during your timeslot in order of signup. Let the farmer handle the produce for you; Choose extras from first-come-first-served availability; Wait to bag until we’ve totaled up your items; Bring change, cash or check and pen; drop payment in the blue bucket, we try not to handle cash.
Please note: With Farmer Luca caring for his elderly folks who are immune compromised, we’d appreciate if all customers would help us stay healthy and working, and PLEASE wear a mask if your’e not feeling well, and maintain social distancing when interacting with us at the ARTfarm stand this 2022-23 season.Please help us healthy at work, and protect our family and friends!We shall do the same! We are all one! Grateful for life!!
ARTfarm is a tiny mom and pop family farm who have been growing food with sustainable organic and permaculture methods on St. Croix since 1999. See our FAQs for more info!
Thank you!
The signup form will show you a “Thank You” page and send you a confirmation email if submitted successfully. If you don’t find it, please check your spam/junk, trash, inbox tabs, and ‘all mail’ folders for the confirmation email, and search for noreply@jotform.com – check the spelling, jotform has no ‘s’… this has been a common problem for several customers and with a little searching they typically find it. For more tips, visit our Help page.
Need help with the pre-order signup form? (Click here): Q: I can’t seem to order more than one item.
A: We have designed our order form not to allow any one customer to purchase all of one extra. Sharing is caring. If you’d like extra of something (beyond what you could reserve through our order system), put it in the comments with your order, and remind us at your pickup time: if we can supply it to you we’ll do our best. If you are in the food service industry and looking for bulk availability, please contact us; our order form is for individuals and families to place a single order for a scheduled pickup.
Q: My order isn’t going through.
if the automated confirmation email is not immediately found, check your spam folder
and the ‘all mail’ folder
make sure all required fields are filled/selected
just try again
use a cellular device (smartphone or tablet) that isn’t using WiFi internet
restart your browser/device
clear your cache and cookies in your browser/device
reboot your router (unplug it for a minute and plug in again)
Q: The form says I didn’t enter my email, but I did.
Our pre-order form requires everyone to type their email in twice, and makes sure the two match exactly. We had a lot of customers in such a rush to get their order in that they’d spell their own email incorrectly and then complain that they could not find the confirmation email. Our ‘type it in twice’ system ensures that you’ll find any email mistakes before you submit the pre-order form.
Q: I ordered before, but I’m not getting your emails.
Our pre-order form does NOT automatically sign you up for an ARTfarm email subscription. Do that HERE!
ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI 