Keeping ARTfarm spotless! The fig trees are currently covered with young spotless red ladybugs, controlling pests naturally. Tomorrow morning we have lots of goodies! New and exciting: heirloom tomatoes, fresh baby ginger and turmeric, onions, pumpkins… Here’s the full list for Saturday:
Sweet salad mix, baby and regular arugula, baby and regular spicy salad mix;
Loads of cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, the beginning of our heirloom tomatoes, small amounts of sweet corn, summer squash, cucumbers, three types of kale, escarole, carrots, green bell peppers, scallions, a few bunches of onions, and pumpkin;
Italian basil, lemon basil, holy basil, dill, cilantro, recao, parsley, garlic chives, fresh baby ginger root, fresh baby turmeric root, edible yellow marigolds, big beautiful zinnia flowers, hot serrano and Indian chili peppers, jojo plums and a few passionfruit.
There will be more sweet corn in a few weeks.
On Wednesday at the farmstand we should have some fresh locally made goat cheese chèvres from Fiddlewood Farm. Local veterinarian and fellow farmer Dr. Bethany Bradford has spent the last several years building up her Alpine dairy goat herd on St. Croix! We’ll tell you more in the next post!
You Are A Chef!A beautiful tuna nicoise salad featuring ARTfarm cherry tomatoes! Thanks Norma H II! We love it when people take beautiful pictures of the food they make with our produce. Pictured above, a dish featuring ARTfarm produce prepared by the crew of the M/V Norma H II! This cargo ship out of San Juan visits our Gallows Bay port weekly on its way to St. Thomas and beyond. Give Ian or Brian a shout if you need to move anything large or small interisland, or to and from Puerto Rico. When they’re not busy eating and preparing a healthy diet, the Norma H II crew are here on St. Croix loading cargo on Tuesdays, arriving St. Thomas the following morning. They can move live animals, refrigerated items, large and small items boxed, crated or palletized…just about anything but people!
Today’s farmstand is 3-6pm. We have loads of sweet corn, sweet salad mix, arugula, spicy mix, slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers, cucumbers, summer squash, dill, cilantro, Italian basil, lemon basil, garlic chives, recao, kale, radishes, escarole and zinnia flowers.
Currently under construction in downtown Christiansted at Market Square, a new restaurant called balter is being developed with Chef Digby Stridiron at the helm. Here is a brief video shot at ARTfarm shortly before the drought began, featuring some of our livestock and gardens! Enjoy, and we look forward to the culinary creativity that will abound at balter, slated to open spring/summer 2016.
Luca with a nice big escarole on this overcast morning!
Good morning! We will be running two checkout tables again to move the line along this morning; and we haven’t been running out of tomatoes and sweet salad mix by the end of the stand – so come early, come late and get your healthy veggie fix! 10am-12 this morning down the South Shore! Here is the complete list for this morning, plus a few treats from Yellow Door Farm TBA (Wanda of Wright Apiary can’t make it this morning with her honey meads and sauces, but she should be back next week):
Loads of red slicing and cherry tomatoes, beautiful sweet corn, carrots, escarole, summer squash, cucumbers, radishes, kale, sweet green bell peppers, scallions;
Green serrano hot peppers, green Indian chili peppers, Italian basil, holy basil, lemon basil, mint, tarragon, cilantro, dill, parsley;
Jojo trees often volunteer where livestock have grazed.
Jojo plums have different flavors at different levels of ripeness.
Jojo plums are a healthy addition to your diet!
The jojo plum (also known as the Jujube or Chinese date, Ziziphus jujuba) or Ziziphus mauritiana (Indian jujube) is a highly drought tolerant, very attractive small pasture tree whose foliage somewhat resembles that of an olive tree in color and texture: its leathery, oval shaped leaves are silver underneath. Jojo trees provide shelter and food to a variety of wildlife and they are a prolific source of nectar and pollen for honeybees, with a citrusy sweet scent when in bloom. (It is non-native to the USVI but naturalized; it can spread and become invasive if not managed.)
The fruits of the jojo tree can vary in size from tennis ball to olive. Wild jojos tend to bear fruit on the smaller size, while the larger fruit bearing trees have been selected or grafted by horticulturists for larger fruit production. Imported from Asia during the Victorian age, the jojo or jujube is thought to be indigenous to North Africa and Syria, and was well known for thousands of years for its tonic properties in Chinese medicine – but didn’t seem to catch on in the West. On St. Croix’s South Shore, the jojo plum is well distributed by wildlife.
Each fruit contains a large pit, so the best way to eat them is to rinse them and then pop an entire plum in your mouth, gently chewing around the pit to remove the flesh. The thin skin is crunchy and edible, like an apple’s.
Today we have wild jojo plums on offer. Most Jojo enthusiasts prefer a specific level of ripeness depending on their taste. Some folks like the fruit at a late full ripeness when it turns an orangey red color and has a sweet overripeness to it. Others prefer the fruit in the middle, yellow stage, for a pear-like consistency and flavor. Others prefer the crisp brightness of the green fruits, which impart a sour tang not unlike a stateside apple.
Some folks swear by the slightly fermented overripe jojo fruit as a health tonic. At any stage, jojo plums are loaded with vitamin C and other micronutrients that can help keep your immune system in tiptop form. When our farm family catches a winter cold or flu, typically Farmer Luca does not succumb; he attributes this to the daily consumption of jojo plums as he walks around the farm.
Jojos are great trees for honeybees.
Be cautious when pasturing poultry near jojo trees. Domestic birds can experience problems if they gorge themselves on too many (the pits can fill the birds’ gizzards too quickly and cause blockage). Sheep wisely spit out the pits!
Come on by and see us this afternoon! Farmer Luca has for you: Sweet salad mix, arugula, spicy salad mix, lots of red slicer tomatoes, some cherry tomatoes, a little bit of kale, summer squash, a few cucumbers and green bell peppers. Lots of figs(!!!), Italian basil, cilantro, dill, garlic chives, hot green serrano peppers, some passionfruit, and lots of fresh cut zinnia flowers.
The season may be a short one for us this year due to the lack of substantial rainfall, so get it while the getting is good.
Sometimes one of the cherry tomatoes has “crazy eyes”. We are located on the south shore of St. Croix between Hapenny beach and the Boy Scout camp.
See you this afternoon! Thank you so much for your support.
ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI 