ARTfarm OPEN on MONDAYS! Happy New Year!

Farmer Luca Gasperi reaches into a harvest bin full of ripe cherry tomatoes at ARTfarm.
2011-2012 has been a particularly great season for tomatoes. The plants are growing in areas that have had natural organic soil amendments for the last two years, and the record rainfall and cool temperatures have combined to make the plants super productive!

We’re now open every Monday, 3-5:30pm. We’ll have big ripe heirloom slicer tomatoes, sweet cherry tomatoes, three varieties of fresh picked lettuce heads, basil in three flavors: lemon, holy and italian, garlic chives, cilantro, cucumbers, cooking greens, papayas, and colorful zinnias. We have yellow pear cherry tomato plants for sale, ready to put in a pot or your garden! And spicy salad mix for one or two early birds.

We still have a few of our reusable ARTfarm shopping bags left! $7 for the regular size (replaces up to four disposable plastic grocery bags) and $10 for the really big ones (can work as a beach bag too). They stuff into their own cute tiny little stuff sacks with a tiny carabiner to clip onto your keys or toss into your purse. We used our ChicoBags for years for our own grocery and other shopping, and decided to get some for our customers to try. Kick the plastic grocery bag habit in 2012 with us!

Our farmstand schedule still includes Wednesday afternoons, 3 – 5:30pm, and Saturday mornings, 10am – 12 noon.

ARTfarm OPEN Xmas Eve Morning, 10am-12noon!

If you missed us on Wednesday, come out Saturday to ARTfarm for more tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, cooking greens, chocolates, our new reusable bags, local honey and other little treats and stocking stuffers! Merry merry!

Food sculpture: a basket of heirloom tomatoes nestles in a giant flower made of cucumbers.
Food sculpture: a basket of heirloom tomatoes nestles in a giant flower made of organically grown ARTfarm cucumbers.

Happy Solstice from ARTfarm… Tomatoes galore at the farmstand today!

For today’s farmstand at 3pm we have boatloads of tomatoes in holiday colors, a pineapple or two for a lucky early bird, and fresh greens to go with them! Herbs, salad mixes, cucumbers, flowers, all our amazing fresh stuff…

Two happy people at ARTfarm showing off the new reusable shopping bags in front of crates full of fresh lettuce heads.
Our old friend Edward White is back at ARTfarm for a few weeks, and we’ve got snazzy new ARTfarm reusable shopping bags for sale! Happy holidays!

In 2012 we are going to move away from the use of plastic grocery bags at our farmstand. For years we have had a revolving system where customers bring in their clean grocery bags and share them with each other for their shopping. We figure if our customers have a snazzy and convenient, strong and roomy reusable, washable shopping bag to use here at ARTfarm AND at the grocery store, none of us will feel justified in picking up all those bags at the grocery store, and we can end the plastic grocery bags’ carbon footprint and inevitable journey to the landfill.

To make it easy to switch, we have some stylish reusable shopping bags for sale at the farmstand today, with a great ARTfarm design on it — for less than the cost of a tee shirt.  They stuff down tiny to fit in your bag, and are lightweight with a little snap so you can even keep it on your keychain. Throw them in the laundry to wash. They’d make great holiday gifts and stocking stuffers – so cute!

Happy Solstice! And YES, we will be open Christmas Eve morning!!

Tomatoes…and introducing our new pasture management team.

Five hair sheep in a paddock at ARTfarm
ARTfarm welcomes the newest members of our Pasture Management Team: Sleepy, Coco, Yooyoo, Nobby, and Whoopsie. These local hair sheep are Dorper, St. Croix White and Brazilian Nova mixes.

We are now at the point in the season where we put up the giant “TOMATOES” sign, and you’ll start to see our cherry tomatoes in local fine dining establishments!

Saturday morning’s stand will also include fresh microgreens, sweet mix, spicy mix, teen spicy, a plethora of varied cooking greens, herbs including some new ones for this season (sage! holy basil!) and your old favorites (delfino cilantro, italian, lemon and thai basils, thyme, caribbean oregano, lemongrass, garlic chives, and giant scallions!)…cucumbers, lettuce heads, and of course giant zinnia flowers, chocolates and a few baked treats!

Please call or let us know at the stand,  if you’d like to special order fresh local meats: chicken (half or whole), lamb or goat (leg, roast, cut for stew).

ARTfarm gift certificates are beautiful and make a thoughtful gift.

And in other exciting farm news, our Livestock Manager has acquired five experienced new employees (pictured above) who are charged with improving our pastures and keeping things nicely trimmed around the farm. Please join us in welcoming Coco, Sleepy, Yooyoo, Whoopsie and Nobby. They’re all expecting! Christina plans to bring them out to visit at the farmstand after they’ve had a chance to get accustomed to their new home and the staff.

Come visit the ARTfarm!