ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI

This is a broadcast of the emergency tomato warning system. 

Today we may only have two bins of tomatoes available for customers instead of four. We ask that everyone be considerate of your friends and neighbors in line today and perhaps take a few less tomatoes than your heart might desire so that everyone can enjoy a few ARTfarm tomatoes today. (We should be good on cherry tomatoes, it is the slicing tomatoes that have been affected.)

Intense and heavy rains and winds of the last months have had a ‘deferring’ effect on our tomato plants. Gusty winds knocked off flowers, and provided a lot of nutrients and water to the plants. Typically at this time of year Luca is careful not to overwater the tomatoes because it will put them into a plant growth mode instead of a fruit growth mode. But because we could not control the weather, the tomato plants are deferring their fruit setting and they are moving toward vine growth. This means that we will have a lot of tomatoes later in the season if the weather starts to even out. But for the next couple of farmstands, we ask that you show consideration to your fellow customers and share what bounty is available until the crop starts rebounding.

Thanks, and our apologies to Langston Hughes for stealing his beautiful words to talk about something so silly. Have a wonderful day! We’ll see you at three.



Harlem

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Harlem-What-Happens-to-a-Dream-Deferred-by-Langston-Hughes

Well, this is probably old news but have you seen the 20th annual Taste of St. Croix poster image that Farmer Luca painted of Dale and Yvette Browne? Pretty awesome.

Wednesday farmstand 3-4:30pm: tons of sweet salad mix, loads of teen arugula and teen spicy salad mix, mature arugula and mature spicy salad mix, heirloom tomatoes and slicing tomatoes (cracked but still yummy), lots of cherry tomatoes (more than we’ve had yet), multiple varieties of cucumbers, watermelon, broccoli, lots of different cooking greens, red yard-long beans, green beans, zucchini, Italian basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, holy basil, cilantro, dill, garlic chives, mint, assorted chili peppers, the first few seasoning peppers, baby ginger, baby mango turmeric, baby red turmeric, young carrots, scallions, dandelion greens, zinnia flowers and for the early birds we will have figs!!! For the grammarians, we have merely this confession, that the penultimate sentence in this post was an extremely long run-on specimen, and yet doesn’t life just feel like that sometimes!?

Be greedy with the greens, folks!  We have tons and tons of salad greens so feel free to sleep in and come by the farm close to 12. We also have a great haul of cherry tomatoes, lots of beautiful cucumbers, now is the time to grab a healthy haul.

Farmer Luca wants you to know that cooking greens are tender and exceptionally easy to prepare. Chop them, rinse them and drain them like you would salad greens, and then drop them into whatever you’re cooking. They cook very quickly and add intense amounts of nutrients to your meal!

Here’s the master list for the morning: lots and lots of sweet salad mix, teen arugula, adult arugula, teen spicy salad mix, adult spicy salad mix, heirloom tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, lots more cherry tomatoes, multiple types of cucumbers, zucchini, lots of cooking greens, dandelion greens, baby bok choy, broccoli leaves, a small amount of broccoli, kale in a few varieties, Chinese cabbage, bunched arugula, Italian basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, holy basil, cilantro, dill, garlic chives, mint, beautiful carrots, scallions, radishes, all of our assortment of chili peppers including yellow cayennes, baby ginger, baby turmeric, mango turmeric, zinnia flowers, and for the early birds we will have figs and hopefully the beginning of our larger harvest of watermelon. As promised, we will also have Fiddlewood Farm goat cheese tomorrow!

Wednesday farmstand list: Sweet salad mix, teen spicy salad mix, teen arugula, adult arugula, microgreens, loads of cucumbers (four varieties to choose from), slicing tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes (harvest is rebounding), radishes, young carrots, scallions, zucchini, baby ginger, baby turmeric, baby mango turmeric, Italian basil, holy basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, dill, cilantro, mint, garlic chives, all of our assorted chili peppers, lots of cooking greens including two types of kale, dandelion greens, broccoli greens, collards, baby bok choy, Chinese cabbage, bunched braising greens, green beans, watermelon, Mediterranean figs, and zinnia flowers! Farmers in witty T-shirts! Everything you need!

Farmer Luca says Erma Gerdnersh! we will have salad greens and slicing tomatoes all the way to the end of the farmstand so don’t panic if ya can’t get here right at 3 o’clock!!