ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI

Wow, a big rain and thunder shower just went through the island (Tuesday afternoon), but not a drop here at ARTfarm. If anyone is heading west and can bring some of those nice big dark clouds back this way, we’d appreciate it!

With the hot dry weather we are starting to see the rapid decline of good growth in plants on the farm. The soil is drying up very quickly, vines such as cucumber and watermelon are experiencing sunburn, and the lettuce plants have very stunted growth. If we had nothing else on the agenda for the season we would extend the season with an increase in our plant lifesupport efforts. Unfortunately we still have to do the vast majority of our post-hurricane structure and fencing repair, fundraising and storm preparation for the coming season. So we are planning to shut down the farmstand for the season in the next few weeks to be able to focus on our construction projects. We may be able to put together a few volunteer days and we will keep everyone posted if that is a possibility.

Wednesday afternoon at the farmstand we will have sweet salad mix, French breakfast radishes, cucumbers, plenty of cherry tomatoes, slicing and heirloom tomatoes, lots of seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, Italian basil, garlic chives, dill, parsley, cilantro, scallions, lots of ginger and turmeric, some of that amazing watermelon, gargantuan turkey and chicken eggs, and zinnia flowers!

It feels like we are all collectively headed into a phase of real post hurricane fatigue. We’ve been running this marathon since September and like many of you it just has not stopped for us. Many of us on St. Croix and our sister islands are still struggling to make needed repairs to businesses and homes, all while trying to serve our customers and keep our families together and happy. It’s classic overextension.

We invite you to join us in the practice of inventorying and cataloging all the many great and small things we have to be grateful for. Even taking two or three minutes to breathe deeply and start to think about it will lower stress and improve your mood and energy levels! (Well, that and maybe a really big fresh salad with some sweet cucumber slices and nice cherry tomatoes on it…) It’s a great thing to do with those extra couple of minutes waiting for the ARTfarm to open on Saturday morning… 🙂

For Saturday 10am – 12 noon we will have sooo many good things: sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy, teen arugula, a few bunches of cooking greens, good amount of cucumbers, some watermelon, a few Kiku cutie melons, lots of cherry tomatoes, some tomatoes and heirlooms, lots of ginger and turmeric, a few sweet bell peppers, lots of various seasoning peppers, lots of Serano peppers, a few hot chili peppers, cilantro, parsley, Italian basil, garlic chives, scallions, a few onions, two types of radishes, a few bunches of rat tail radish pods, and cheerful, inspiring zinnia flowers.

Love, ARTfarm

It’s officially spring on St. Croix, although conditions are crunchy dry and blisteringly hot in the midday hours. Keep up those rain dances, we got a few brief relief showers last night! For the stand this afternoon, lots of fresh salad greens, and Farmer Luca has a new Japanese heirloom mini-melon called the Kiku Chrysanthemum for you to try. Similar in size to the Sakata, perfect single serving sized, with sweet white flesh.

We had a recent visit from the guys at Leatherback Brewing. They’re planning a ginger-infused craft beer among other local flavors and will be launching their tasting room in May if all goes according to plan. We’re thrilled at their interest in working with local farmers.

Harvest forecast for Wednesday: Lots of sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy, cucumbers, decent amounts of tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes, lots of cherry tomatoes, French breakfast radishes, purple radishes, Italian basil, garlic chives, seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, dill, cilantro, parsley, scallions, lots of ginger and turmeric, zinnia flowers, a couple half dozens of turkey eggs and Japanese melons!

We have updated our GoFundMe ARTfarm post-hurricane recovery goals to reflect the federal disaster funding available to us (turns out, incredibly, none at all for any damaged or destroyed farm structures. !!) If you are in a position to help us fund the reconstruction and repair of our hurricane-demolished farm buildings this summer, please consider a donation and share with others interested in preserving small sustainable family farms. Offline donations (directly by check) are the most efficient as GoFundMe takes about 10%.

Thank you for your support.

Well, it may be a bit slower on Saturday, with all of the Irish and Irish-for-the-day parade goers lining up early in Christiansted to get a good view of all of the greenery, but we will have our own version of holiday greenery at ARTfarm at the usual time and place. Hope to see you there.

For Saturday morning, 10am – 12 noon: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, baby spicy salad mix, teen arugula, teen spicy salad mix, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, some tomatoes and heirlooms, a few beautiful baby bok choy bunches, zucchini-like “serpent of Sicily”, garlic chives, cilantro, dill, parsley, scallions, Italian basil, new young radishes, rat tail radishes, loads of ginger and turmeric, lots of beautiful seasoning peppers, Serrano peppers, assorted butternut squashes and zinnia flowers.