CURRENT FARMSTAND HOURS

Since the pandemic in spring 2020, we wanted a solution to the long crowded lines that would form at ARTfarm in winter and spring during farmstand hours. We have started a “farmshare” reservation system (NOT a subscription!) with online signups available the day before, and staggered pickup times for a pre-selected ‘box’ of produce plus extra add-on items, primarily on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. With our reservation system, customer wait times dropped from up to 45 minutes to typically less than 15 minutes, and the harvest was more equally distributed to all families. Read our guidelines to find out how to participate.

Please AVOID contacting us individually to find out about the ARTfarm or our programs until you have taken the time to search this website for answers to your questions. We have been inundated with communication requests and new customers since the pandemic started; at the same time our workload has substantially increased in order to administer the distribution program AND to complete some farm improvement projects to help us serve the community during the pandemic and ongoing climate crisis.

ALL the information you need to understand and sign up for our services (including procedures, hours, location, produce listings, directions, troubleshooting email problems and other frequently asked questions) is already on this here website. Please help us spend more time farming and less time answering repeated questions; we appreciate you taking an extra five minutes to click around this site and read. Check out our FAQ section!

PRIOR TO THE PANDEMIC… And hopefully after…

Even when closed to the public, we are here at the farm, working on fine art goals, farm maintenance and sustainability/resilience improvement, regenerative projects, and hurricane recovery projects following the devastation of Hurricane Maria on September 20th, 2017. During the summer months which is our off season, if we get some good rain, or have a flush of summer fruit, we will host a one-off pop-up stand. This will be posted on our Facebook page and to our email list. You can sign up on this website for the email list to receive those notifications.

Barring any unusual issues, like a global pandemic or something, generally the farm (was) open Saturday mornings 10am – 12 noon and Wednesday afternoons 3 – 4:30pm. (Our hours are short because we pick everything fresh and sell out very quickly – this is essentially a very small and highly concentrated two-man family farm operation.) If holidays shift the schedule, we get some good rain, or have a flush of surplus product, we will host an extra “pop-up” stand, typically on Monday afternoons. All farmstand hours for upcoming farmstands, along with a list of produce, will be posted on our Facebook page and to our email list.

Subscribe on the right hand side of our website for email updates (at the bottom of the page if you’re on a smartphone), or visit and like ARTfarm’s Facebook page for a current listing of available produce and other special items! (We recommend the email subscription; most customers find it a more reliable way not to miss our announcements.)

You can always check the most recent posts on the homepage of this website, our roadside signs, or check our Facebook page posts (copies of our most recent website posting) to see what the current hours are. It does change seasonally.

HOW TO FIND US

ARTfarm is on the south shore of St. Croix, due south of Christiansted and Gallows Bay, about eight minutes’ leisurely drive from town. Our farmstand, at the entrance to ARTfarm, is located on the south side of St. Croix’s South Shore Road (Rt. 62), east of Ha’Penny Beach and west of the Boy Scout Camp. (That’s also east of the Hovensa/Limetree oil refinery and west of the Divi Casino, and due south of Canegata Ball Park as the crow flies, at the bottom of Rt. 85, Spring Gut Road.) Look for our signs and the stone cattle pens to find us.

Park along the short driveway or in the small field, before the white wooden fence. During open farmstand hours, the small people gate will be open. Follow the trail of cartoon ladybug signs to the farmstand behind it. Please maintain social distancing with other customers and farm staff, as some may be immunocompromised or caring for those who are!

Here is our location on Google maps:

If you have the free St. Croix Pocket Map, we’re number 1 in purple. If you have the free St. Croix This Week Magazine map, we’re number 1 in orange on the map of St. Croix. On either map, ARTfarm is the only marked feature due south of Christiansted on the South Shore of the island.

VISITORS

With the nature of the on-again, off-again global pandemic and flu season, and aging family members needing more care, we have less available free time and are more selective since 2020 with scheduling group visits to tour the ARTfarm. We are exceptionally busy in the months of September through April. Our website has a plethora of photos and information about us; consider taking a deep virtual dive there first. We most enjoy visitors who have taken the time to learn about us ahead of time – they ask the most interesting questions.

Visitors are welcome at the farmstand, during farmstand hours (once customer lines have cleared) for a quick verbal overview of the farm’s practices and techniques or to ask questions about our organic farming practices or your gardening quandaries. We’ll do our best to accommodate you. Please respect our need to service our customers first. We firmly request that dogs and other pets stay in your vehicle or on leash in the parking area OUTSIDE the entrance gate. This is for health code reasons and also for the safety of your pets, our farm plants and livestock, and our customers. Thank you.

School groups should call to arrange a day and time for a visit. We will supply you with more information when you call!

We occasionally keep some poultry or livestock near the farmstand entrance for young visitors to enjoy.

ARTfarm maintains biosecurity and is not an open-farm; due to plant virus issues, there is a strict no-smoking, no-tobacco, no pets policy in all areas of the farm. We also utilize electric fencing in some pasture areas, and construction projects are often underway, so for your safety please respect signs that restrict non-employee movement on the farm. We’re always happy to accompany guests around the farm for a tour as time permits. Click here for farm tour information.

OUR SEASON

ARTfarm’s season has been shifting and shortening with climate change since about 2015. Pre-COVID, our farmstand was typically open year-round on Saturday mornings, with the exception of a few weeks ranging from near the end of August or beginning of September to mid November where we may take a summer/fall break to work on bigger construction projects. (Some years due to natural disasters we may vary slightly or greatly from this schedule.) It’s best to always check the blog/website/Facebook page before coming out!

The week before Thanksgiving week, we’ll usually add Wednesday afternoons from 3pm to 5pm through the end of the growing season in May.

Our prime growing season (tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, vegetables) generally runs from October through April. In the summer months, we remain open to sell seasonal local fruits and whatever salad greens and herbs are available.

Tomato season is generally from mid-December through April, depending on the weather and other variables. Mango season begins in May – June, although some years we have had mangoes in October – December.

With the notable fluctuations in rainfall and climate, seasons can vary greatly, so please consider these to be estimates!

SUPPORT LOCAL

Farmers Luca and Christina want to take a moment to encourage everyone to support local farmers. Remember the best way to support agriculture in the US Virgin Islands is to buy produce directly from farmers.

If you can’t make it to our farmstand, don’t forget about Sejah Farm, another wonderful mom and pop farm/market that sells their own produce plus lots of produce from all over St. Croix. They have a wide selection and are open more hours and days than we are, and run amazing educational programs too. There is also the Saturday producers’ market at the Department of Agriculture campus in mid-island where you can buy directly from farmers. And there are many farms with a stand out front including Grantley Samuel, and Mr. Smithen the Cane Man, on Centerline Road.

SATISFACTION GUARANTEE

We are a micro-sized mom and pop business. We are committed to providing healthy, organically grown food to our community.

We want you, our customer, to be 100% satisfied with our produce that you purchase. There are always seasonal variations in the taste of small farm foods, and becoming accustomed to and even enthusiastic about this variation is part of learning to eat non-supermarket produce. Occasionally variation is due to farmer error; we’re human and we might pick something before its full ripeness. Proper handling and storage of farm-fresh produce (temperature, exposure to light and heat, airflow) is also a factor in its flavor and longevity, so please ask if you have any doubts as to how to properly keep an item you have purchased from ARTfarm.

If anything you purchase from us proves unsatisfactory, take a photo or two, and please inform us immediately. We will ask you to describe what happened, and then we will either replace the item or refund the purchase price, or issue a credit. Because we don’t typically issue receipts for retail farmstand sales, and some products are weighed and sold per pound, it’s most helpful in those cases if you can bring the product back to us as soon as possible, so we can credit you the proper weight, and/or share a photo. This also helps us learn from the mistake if farmer error was involved!

Thank you.