ARTfarm Mango & Greens Pop-up 9/24/22 Saturday 11:30am!

Nam doc Mai mangoes from Tropical Exotics orchard on St. Croix are fiberless, buttery smooth and sweet.

Water water everywhere! Thanks to Tropical Storm Fiona and other weather events passing through the area, we have been blessed with over six inches of rain and the catchment ponds are finally refilling!

Saturday 9/24/22 Pop-up at the ARTfarm 11:30am — 12 noon: Sweet salad mix and Thai mangoes! Lots of Nam Doc Mai mangoes from Alex at Tropical Exotics orchard — wisely picked right before TS Fiona so fruits wouldn’t get bruised from falling — ready/ripe in the next three days, priced as marked.

We’ll also have sweet salad mix, sweet onions with delicious green tops. Early birds will also choose from sweet potatoes, garlic chives, lemongrass, mango/white turmeric, kafir leaves, and zinnia flowers. Also, pineapple slips for down-the-road DIY piña coladas.

Tropical Storm Fiona dropped over 6 inches of rain on the ARTfarm over several days. Our largest lined pond is approaching capacity.
If the soil has some moisture in it from previous rains, it takes a minimum of 4 inches of rain over less than a week, to get the guts running to fill the unlined dam (pond) on the east end of the ARTfarm pastures. Tropical Storm Fiona was able to fill it 3/4 full! This will help to recharge the water tables on the South Shore.

First come first serve. No reservation required!

Farmer Luca and family wants to take a moment to encourage everyone to support local farmers. If you can’t make it to our farmstand, Sejah Farm is a wonderful farm/market that sells their own produce plus lots of produce from all over St. Croix. They have a wide selection and are open more hours and days than we are.

There is also the Saturday farmers market at the Department of Agriculture grounds where you can buy directly from farmers.

Remember the best way to support agriculture in the US Virgin Islands is to buy produce directly from farmers.

Hop down to the South Shore and see Farmer Luca!

ARTfarm got Half an Inch of Rain!!! More ART! See you 4:30 – 5:30pm Wednesday!

Lignum Vitae Gathering. Sumi ink and gouache on paper, 6” x 6” ©2021 Marina Gasperi.

Smile and say “season”! We are back to weekly (socially distanced) farmstands: ARTfarm will be open every Wednesday afternoon 4:30–5:30pm. For now these will be first-come, first-served socially distanced distributions, but we may revert to the online pre-order system and longer open hours, as the season gets underway and crowd sizes increase. Your feedback is always welcomed.

Farmer Luca is finally smiling underneath his COVID mask, because we have finally gotten a few early morning rain showers on the farm this week. It hasn’t exactly replenished our reservoirs, but it is a reprieve from the drought conditions that South Shore farmers have been experiencing this season.

Wednesday 12/8/21, come see Farmer Luca in the breezy parking lot. He’ll have plenty of fresh sweet salad mix, lots of radishes and garlic chives, turmeric, and zinnia flowers! Early birds will also get pick of: dragonfruit, yellow summer squash, cilantro, dill, baby bok Choi, turnips, baby ginger (super thin skin no fibers), Thai basil, lemongrass, green hot chili peppers, and eggs from Mongoose&Zinnia (just one or two cartons, as chickens island-wide have been on a laying strike during the extra warm autumn months). And…

Looking to grow some food at home? Farmer Luca will have a few extra tomato slips ready for transplanting into your garden or container: Black plum, Black cherry, Hawaiian slicer, Cherokee green varieties. We’ll also have pineapple slips available.

Extra thanks and shout out to super customer Jennifer Larkum for her sharp eyes and memory, she was able to connect a stray cat that showed up on the farm with its relieved owner via a several-weeks-old Facebook missing pet post. Awesome detective work! PSA: Please, please bring lost, found or unwanted pets to a vet clinic or the animal shelter. Do NOT drop animals at a farm, it is an unsafe environment for them and stray animals cost the farmers a lot of time. They will wind up at the shelter anyway, so save us the trip please!

The painting above is a new original artwork soon to be added to the current exhibition, “Small Life” showing at Café Christine Tues-Fri 10am-2:30pm, now through December 26th. Please visit the Café in Christiansted over this holiday time and enjoy this ARTfarm production!

Love, ARTfarmers

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend; Also, Regular 4:30 — 5:30pm Wednesdays!

Garden of Small Lives. Sumi ink and gouache on paper, 6” x 6” ©2021 Marina Gasperi.

Happy Saturday!

We are saying goodbye to a loyal farm employee who has been with us for 22 hard working years. She joined us at Southgate and travelled with us to the ARTfarm on the South Shore. She is a Kenmore refrigerator, fondly known for years as “Left Fridge”. We are in temporary need of a household refrigerator to cool produce in. If any customer has a spare working (ugly is fine) full sized refrigerator they would like to loan for a few months or donate to the farm, please let us know via text or call at (340)514-4873.

Thank you!

So it’s finally becoming a “thing:” we will be holding regular (socially distanced) farmstands Wednesday afternoons 4:30-5:30. For now these will be first come first served, but we may revert to the pre-order system and longer open hours as the season gets underway and crowd sizes increase.

Looking to grow some food at home? Farmer Luca will have a few extra tomato slips ready for transplanting into your garden or container on Wednesday: Black plum, black cherry, Hawaiian slicer, Cherokee green. We’ll also have pineapple slips available. A full list of available produce will be published and emailed before Wednesday afternoon.

The image above is original artwork from the current exhibition, “Small Life” showing at Café Christine Tues-Fri 10am-2:30pm. Please visit the Café in Christiansted over this holiday time and enjoy this ARTfarm production!

Love, ARTfarmers

Salad Greens Pop-Up 4:30 — 5:30pm Wednesday 12/1/2021

Ms. Eurythrma Mongoose in her Finery, ca. 1889. Mixed media on paperboard, 10” x 12.5” ©2021 Marina Gasperi.

Can you believe it’s December tomorrow? Wednesday afternoon pop up at ARTfarm, 4:30pm – 5:30pm. Lots of sweet salad mix, we will not run out of salad mix!!! you can come at 5:30 and still get it. Also radishes, fresh garlic chives, turmeric, dragonfruit and zinnia flowers. Pineapple slips for grow-your-own-ers.

Earlybirds will enjoy baby ginger (first harvest of the season, super thin skin no fibers), Thai basil, lemongrass, fresh Mongoose&Zinnia eggs, and green hot chili peppers.

First come first serve
Please wear a mask and keep social distancing
Bring change and smaller bills or a check

The image above is original artwork from the current exhibition, “Small Life” showing at Café Christine Tues-Fri 10am-2:30pm. Please visit the Café in Christiansted over this holiday time and enjoy this ARTfarm production!

Love, ARTfarmers