ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI

Come and get sweet cherry tomatoes today!The grass is turning brown and crunchy! The continued heat and dry weather has greatly slowed down production of both tomatoes and lettuce. The wild abundance we have been experiencing is going to be reined in, with tomatoes getting smaller and flavors sharpened, as the plants get older and dry windy conditions prevail. We will be accordingly reducing our retail hours to Wednesdays from 3 to 4:30pm and Saturdays from 10am to 12 noon. Today will be our last Monday afternoon ‘pop-up’ farmstand for the season.

Today’s farmstand list: lots of cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes and slicer tomatoes, baby ginger, our seasoning peppers and spicy peppers, and earlybird sweet salad mix. Also, Feel I will bring more I-Sha vegan fruit ice cream in a rainbow of local fruit flavors.

Thanks for your support, everyone! Special thanks to our super volunteers at the farmstand and in the field who continue to help us keep it all going this season.

Tomatoes continue in their abundance, with the dry weather increasing the flavor factor, wow. Lots and lots of heirloom tomatoes, lots of slicers, lots of cherry tomatoes. The highlight for Luca is the Hugel beds’ cucumber performance.

Saturday morning we will have the first harvest from the new cucumber patch. Sweet salad mix (take note: lettuces are stressed from the high winds and heat, so you may notice that the lettuce mix is a little bit stronger flavored than usual). Bunched arugula, French breakfast radishes, a few broccoli heads, lots of broccoli greens, lots of baby ginger, small amounts of sweet potato, Thai pumpkin chunks, baby turmeric, dandelion greens, escarole, Italian basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, onions, scallions, carrots, a few bunches of beets, all of our lovely seasoning peppers, all of our hot peppers, storm-planted papaya and a few zinnia flowers!

Luca just finished the poster image for the 19th annual Taste of St. Croix event, which (according to the press release we just saw) will be held in downtown Christiansted on Thursday, April 11, 2019. Contact the St. Croix Foundation to find out when tickets will become available! Registration for booths will start on Monday February 25th.

Conditions are drying up quickly on the South Shore. This intensifies flavors, so come and taste tomatoes that are even sweeter!

Wednesday farmstand: loads of heirloom tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sweet salad mix, arugula, spicy salad mix, garlic chives, cilantro, dill, Italian basil, Thai basil, baby ginger, baby turmeric, large butternut squash, assorted peppers (spicy and seasoning), dandelion greens, escarole, broccoli, and zinnias. Figs also!

Monday afternoon (Presidents’ Day, also the last day of the Ag Fair) we will be open in our usual time and place: South Shore, 3-4:30pm!

Luca’s list: Loads of heirloom. slicer and cherry tomatoes, sweet salad mix, Italian basil, assorted hot peppers and seasoning peppers, broccoli greens, ginger and turmeric.

A group of chefs shopping for an annual benefit dinner on Sunday stopped by us (and the Ag Fair, and other local growers) on Saturday to source ingredients. We were blessed with an invitation to attend and sat next to VI Senator Myron Jackson, a long-time champion of art and agriculture in the territory and fellow alumnus of Parsons School of Design. The dinner benefitted The Women in Culinary Leadership Fund through the James Beard Foundation.

This year’s chefs included visitors Asha Gomez (Atlanta), Xavier Pacheco and Maria Mercedes-Grubbs (San Juan PR), and local chefs Lamar Bough, Julius Jackson, Ralph Motta, Emily Weston, Amanda Dougherty, Byron Harrigan and host Chef Digby Stridiron.

Asha’s Shiny Tomatoes

Chef Asha Gomez is well known in Atlanta for her award winning restaurant Cardamom Hill. She stopped by the farm to pick up tomatoes for her wine pairing dish of old wife (queen trigger) fish and yucca, and we were looking forward to seeing what she would do with the small heirlooms she selected. When she presented her dish at the dinner, she explained, “The tomatoes were so sweet and flavorful that I did not have the heart to cook them.” They were simply served on a tray, sliced in half with a slightly sweet dressing.

3 lb. ripe small heirloom tomatoes

3 Tbspn extra virgin olive oil

5 Tbspn local honey

2 stems basil flowers

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

2 tsp cumin seed

Gently wash and drain the tomatoes but do not remove the stems. Slice them in half over a rimmed tray or serving dish, catching all juices in the tray. Use a sharp knife so the stems can remain.

Strip the basil flowers off the stem.

Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil, honey, and sprinkle with cumin seed, basil flowers, salt and pepper. Toss and let it sit covered at room temperature for at least 20 minutes. Toss again before serving.