A post-Thanksgiving leftovers ARTfarm update for our supporters, direct from Farmer Luca!

It’s been a long summer of learning, researching and planning and we wanted to share some of those things with you as season approaches.

Here’s the update:

The weather has brought our water storage levels nice and high!

Cover crops have been mowed and turned back into the the soil – along with the lobster compost we’ve made with big thanks to Duggan’s Restaurant.

Sorghum (an old world grain) has been interplanted with sun hemp (sorry, not CBD hemp), sword bean and cow peas — they are almost ready to be harvested for our chickens.

Lots of tomato seedlings are in the ground and are already over a foot tall! They’re starting to flower and are looking a lot stronger than the tomato seedlings did at this time last year.

Our lettuces, radishes, Italian & Thai basils are all growing nicely. We’ve planted lots of flowers that attract beneficial insects and hopefully we’ll have many bunches of carrots of different varieties and shapes this year too!

Our papaya patch is looking wonderful and putting on fruit now, and our pomegranates have started and are putting on more fruit regularly.

Our limes have nice dark leaves and are loaded both the crucian Keylime and the kafir lime.

Our longan trees are loaded with blossoms right now and they are setting their little sweet fruits.

Pineapples are looking very strong – even the ones that got burned in the fire.

Soon our cucumbers, watermelon and zucchini will get transplanted.

Our family and volunteers have been enjoying the Shangri-La mulberries which are out of this world and are still going.

We’ve been busy for the last few months researching regenerative agriculture practices and various products/ techniques to improve the farm further.  We’ve always practiced many regenerative ways, but there’s so much more to learn as new discoveries are made and as our climate changes.

Sheep! We’ve upped our sheep numbers to help with all the extra grass that is on the farm now. The Department of Agriculture came through and helped out in a huge way with mowing, bringing some ease to our pasture management and making it easier with fencing repairs post fire. Hopefully it helps with grasshopper management too.

There’s been a lot of research and purchasing of replacement materials that were lost in the fire. The beautiful thing about disasters is that they offer a chance to rebuild better and stronger. I’ve been taking the time to improve things where I can. We are all very appreciative of all the donations that people have made to help in that regard. VI Good Food Coalition, American Farmland Trust, Christina and Alyssa have all been very helpful in raising funds.

Thank you to all our volunteers since the fire – you’ve been incredible. The family and I still look back and we all feel very moved thinking of everyone that took time to help during and after the fire.

Moving forward, the farm can still use your help. If folks are interested in volunteering, please get in touch. At this stage in the season it is very important that any volunteer is a non-tobacco user and doesn’t live in a house with tobacco use. The tobacco mosaic virus can keep us up at night and can wreak havoc on the current and future fate of the tomatoes we’ve grown to love so much. Some of the current volunteer tasks are weeding, raking, pruning, setting out drip tape, topping off water bowls for mongoose so they don’t chew on our drip tape (old large metal pots or metal dog bowls are welcome for donation) We’re a farm so there’s countless other tasks as well but these are great beginner tasks.

You say you want to do more on the farm than volunteer? We have part time employment opportunities for volunteers.

Wrapping up, the farm is a beautiful example of hope right now and we are incredibly grateful for these blessings:

• Christina and Marina
• my parents
• all our friends
• our volunteers
• our farmstand customers
• our restaurant/chef partner a
• a farmer’s gift of wood chips
• our incredibly kind Post Office staff
• Maddy at the USDA
• our accountant
• Louis Hewlett and Fernandez Plumbers
• Mechanics Thomas Ledezma and Chiba
• Mike Bruno with Hybrid Power System
• John Stoll – compost volunteer and construction mentor
• the DoAg for their support
• Stewart and everyone at Quality Foods
• A Better Copy
• Dr. Amy Dreves and Dr. Larken Root at UVI
• Roneal Honeyman
• S&D feed
• Phil at smilinggardener.com
• Giovanni of Mil Agro
• American Farmland Trust
• VI Good Food farm advocates
• new Vieques and Puerto Rico farm friends
• Arte-suelo-ser soil advocates
• and lastly Slinky the Cat, Ginger & Spice the collies …and all the other cool creatures and plants both domesticated and not that are with me every day here at the farm that I’m slowly understanding and growing together with.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. We will update you soon when we have food or other farm news to share!