ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI

ARTfarm Wednesday’s farmstand is full of dragons dragons dragons, but they’re friendly. Are you a Seeker of organically grown produce? Last night’s extreme thunderstorm from the North blew in lots and lots of nitrogen, instantly ripening baskets full of adorable dragonfruit, plus loads of sweet sweet potatoes in all sizes, lots of Prefect Percy papaya, plentiful passionfruit, mysterious sweet potato greens, Malvoy (Malabar) spinach, wild pasture gherkins, garlicky garlic chives, Italian Basil fresh from the Quidditch field, recao, rosemary, lemongrass wands, bunched arugula, a few sleepy soursops, giant orange pumpkin slices delightful for making refreshing pumpkin juice or delicious pumpkin pastries (perfect for train travel), and of course lots of native trees that would love to be planted out into a Forbidden Forest in these moist conditions. 

Also a new fresh batch of Sugarloaf pineapple slips, big and ready to be planted by a budding herbologist like Harry Potter. 

From our partners, fresh off the Hogwarts Express, we have Fiddlewood Farm goat cheese, Errol’s local dark honey, Golden Snitch eggs from Yellow Door Farm and loads of magical vanishing avocado from Tita – some of which are very close to being perfectly ripe!

If you’re a Muggle scratching your head at this point, no worries. Our farm kids are deeply engrossed in the Harry Potter book series this month! (Spoiler alert: don’t ask, they might tell you the ending.) 

Speaking of kids and literature, please come out to support the 3rd Annual Children’s Book & Film Festival continuing this weekend. Clean Sweep Frederiksted has done a beautiful job producing four Friday night evenings of book-related entertainment for our island kids. Two more Fridays to go! Free new books plus activities, food and the screening of a book based movie! Friday 6-9pm in Buddhoe Park (next to the fort). More info on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/cleansweepfrederiksted/ Bring your own picnic blanket and some kids!

For Saturday we’ve got: Lots of papayas, lots of sweet potatoes, shaddock (pink grapefruit), passionfruit, half a dozen dragonfruit, Italian basil, lemongrass, garlic chives, recao, rosemary, and sweet potato greens for cooking. And lots of pineapple slips and various native drought-tolerant trees for sale. 

From our partners we have fresh local goat cheese from Fiddlewood Farm, honey from Errol Chichester, and beautiful avocados and limes from Tita! Come see us in the morning!

ARTfarm will be open on the South Shore from 3 to 5:30 on Wednesday. We’re donating at least half our gross sales from the farmstand for the day to the Women’s Coalition of St. Croix to help families in crisis. 

Grown at ARTfarm: Loads of beautiful papaya, lots of sweet potatoes, bunched arugula, garlic chives, Italian basil, recao, lemongrass, passionfruit. 

From our local partners we have goat cheese from Fiddlewood Farm, local honey from Errol, and avocados from Tita. 

One love. 

I hate to repeat myself, but farming can be quite repetitive. Here is the lineup, a bit similar to Wednesday: Lots of papaya, lots of sweet potato, the last Haitian kidney mangoes, a few dragonfruit (soon to be loads), lots of passionfruit, some shaddock, Italian basil, recao, garlic chives, and lemongrass.

From our partners we have honey from Errol, beautiful avocados from Tita and the last of Mallika mangoes from Tropical Exotics, and goat cheese from Fiddlewood Farm. Eggs from Yellow Door Farm. 

There is a lovely musical production of Disney’s Little Mermaid at the old Good Hope School theater at 8 PM on Saturday night. Support the arts!