ARTfarm Saturday 10am-12 noon

 

We’ve got some beautiful sunflowers for sale this weekend!
 It’s been a busy week for a lot of chefs and food lovers with the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience and the Taste winding down. Happily for small farms like ours, the foodie trend over the last decade or longer has been to put local produce on the menu.   

Farmer Katie got dolled up and did a great job setting up our booth on Thursday!
  Thursday evening marked our 16th year of being a part of the Taste event!

Here’s the Saturday morning list: Sweet salad mix, teen arugula, teen spicy mix, onions; cherry, slicer and heirloom tomatoes; lemon basil, holy basil, Italian basil, parsley, garlic chives, bell peppers, hot peppers, seasoning peppers, a few cucumbers, fresh ginger, sweet potato, pumpkin, bunched spicy greens, a few bunches of kale, a few bunches of carrots, and loads of amazing cut flowers including large multi-branched sunflowers! 
From Fiddlewood Farms we’ve got fresh local goat cheese. Yum!

Wednesday 3-6pm, Fresh Fish, Chef of the Week, Spring Planting, Q&A

As is typical for this time of year, the tomato season at ARTfarm is beginning to show signs of slowing down (as are the farmers!). While we still have plenty of beautiful ripe tomatoes, you may notice a reduction in the average size of the bigger slicing varieties.

Today, 3-6pm: Sweet salad mix, plenty of baby arugula, baby spicy salad mix, onions, all the (cherry, heirloom, slicer, plum) tomatoes, lemon basil, holy basil, Italian basil, parsley, garlic chives, pumpkin, sweet bell peppers, hot peppers, seasoning peppers. Earlybird specials (small quantities): cucumbers and passionfruit.

From our partners we have fresh Mahi and tuna from fisherman Ryan DiPasquale, Fiddlewood Farms fresh locally made goat cheese​, and local coconut vegan ice cream in various local fruit flavors from I-Sha.

Spring is rapidly making way for summer! Dragonfruit are blooming, watermelon trials are going well. Pineapple plants are setting fruit. Luca is excited about planting more sweet potato to keep Pete happy. (Are you reading this, Pete?)

Also figs are bursting with new buds. Hopefully we’ll have loads of fruit in a few weeks.

 Q&A Wednesday: many questions were asked and answered when Farmer Luca appeared with Farmer Grantley of GLG Plants & Produce on the “It’s Your Perspective” YouTube live streaming talk show with hosts Ras Kimba (David Christian, CHS ’83) and Ras Soup (Campbell Carter) last night. They talked for about an hour about farming, the state of agriculture today, and the Taste of St. Croix. Their 4/12/2016 interview is archived on YouTube.

We look forward to seeing friends at the Taste tomorrow night! Stop by our table and say hello! If you are not attending, we urge you to make a reservation at Chef Ken Bigg’s kitchen over at Galangal for a lovely night out! Chef Ken wins the ARTfarm Chef of the Week award for personally delivering seven boxes of fresh frozen fish carcasses he saved for our composting system. Nothing says “I love you” to this farmer like a tower of fresh fish parts on your doorstep!

Sweet Saturday Papayas!

 

We get a lot of joy out of the little things on a farm.
 Lots of nice greens, plenty of ripe tomatoes available, more of our sweet potatoes, and ginger and turmeric for you this weekend! And delicious papaya! Here’s the full list, open 10am – 12 noon Saturday:

Sweet salad mix, micro spicy greens, baby arugula, a few cucumbers, all tomatoes, all peppers, all basil bunches, a few bunches of kale, small amounts of radishes, small amount of carrots, onions, garlic chives, parsley, recao, rosemary, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, ginger, turmeric, passionfruit, papaya and cut flowers. 

This is a great time of year to plant ginger and turmeric. Pick up a few extra pieces and pop them in your garden bed!

ARTfarm Wednesday, 3–6 p.m.: Tomatoes Galore

Tomato picking on a sun-flooded afternoon. The heavy rains in February and March gave our tomato plants a boost.

 

We planted lots of wildflower mixes around the farm this season to attract more pollinators.

Sweet salad mix, arugula, spicy salad mix, lettuce heads, green bell peppers, two hot peppers and the yellow mild-but-pungent pepper, all the basils, recao, onions, all the tomatoes, zinnia flowers and sunflowers, parsley, garlic chives, rosemary, a few bunches of cooking greens, papaya and passionfruit. And from our partners we have I-Sha’s vegan ice cream! Goat cheese will be back next week.

Congratulations to Patrick Kralik and Digby Stridiron, balter is officially opening on Saturday! We are grateful for balter’s support of our and other local producers’ locally-grown food.