Happy holidays all, here comes 2025! Tuesday afternoon we’ll have sweet salad mix, baby arugula and spicy mix! Also a few fruits and herbs for the early birds. New Years Eve ARTfarm PopUp 4:30 – 5:30pm
We’ve been trialing black paper mulch this year with the watermelons and tomatoes, and both are growing nicely and forming fruits. Caterpillars are starting to lessen their impact on young plants. Papayas are recovering and very productive.
Ask about volunteering on the farm, or tell a friend if you know someone who might be interested in learning more about sustainable, regenerative gardening practices — we would love some help in the gardens and with a few other tasks as well.
No reservations; first come, first served.
Plenty
Sweet salad mix (extra tender!) Baby spicy salad mix Baby arugula Radishes with green tops Kafir limes Italian basil
Early Birds
Lettuce heads Cilantro Garlic chives Lemongrass Pomegranates Papaya fruit Coconuts (for water and jelly)
Trialing black paper mulch on the ARTfarm in the 2024-2025 growing season. Seeing if it makes sense to phase out our reusable permeable woven plastic mulch we’ve used for years, for biodegradable material. The Mongoose & Zinnia pastured chickens are thrilled with all the caterpillars and fresh grass in their moveable paddock.
Rainy gray days on the farm are slowing growth of crops. Youngest ARTfarmer must carry our one eyed cat around to keep the paws dry.
St. Croix was deluged with heavy rains in October and November of 2024. This is good, and bad.
Bad news first: the rain has been a little much for some of our crops. Persistent and continuous weekly flooding caused the topsoils at ARTfarm to be excessively waterlogged. When the tiny aerated gaps in the topsoil fill with rainwater, it causes plant roots to suffer from a lack of oxygen. Various crops are dying because of this condition. Papayas in particular are suffering and we’ve lost about a third of them. We have had to re-seed and re-plant crop successions multiple times in the hopes that conditions will improve. The cloudy conditions have also had an effect on the ability of leafy greens to grow properly. Wahhh-wah.
Season’s starry greetings. Our papaya harvest will be greatly diminished by the rains. Those that were salvaged were pretty sweet. Hopefully we’ll have more to share later in the season.After a lot of years of intense drought, it’s quite a change to be wearing boots every day on the farm.
The great news is that we have more stored rainwater than we’ve ever had at this point in the season. Our ginger, turmeric, yams, established fruit trees and coconuts are looking great. We are also experimenting with cover crops planted near our food crops, and those beds are performing better in these overly wet conditions. Farmer Luca is experimenting with organic biodegradable paper mulch on our watermelon beds, with pretty good results so far.
Coconuts in the Hugel bed are getting more water than they probably ever have in the past.Our fruit trees are looking pretty happy after all of the heavy rains. Some of the row crops, not so much.
ARTfarm is not giving up and will continue experimenting and learning from these epic and relentless conditions, which may be the new normal.
As usual at this time of year, we have some great new volunteers and are always looking for more helpers. Tell a friend if you know someone who might be interested in learning more about sustainable, regenerative gardening practices — we would always love and appreciate some help in the gardens and with a few other tasks as well.
Trying different mulching methods after heavy rains to protect the young plants
Stay tuned for information on when we’ll finally open for the season, and thanks to all our loyal customers who have been checking in!
The great reward for those elite few of you who have read this entire email is that we will have a salad mix pop-up on Wednesday December 11th with sweet salad greens, radishes with green tops and garlic chives. 4:30 PM to 5 PM. Regular farm stands will hopefully start at the end of December. Ho-ho-ho!
ARTfarm sweet mix comes from many different varieties of lettuces, grown organically and sustainably with stored rainwater irrigation! We interplant to naturally deter pests. And because it’s pretty. We can use volunteers right now, if you’re a non-tobacco user please get in touch! Come play in the gardens!
Wednesday’s October ARTfarm PopUp features sweet salad mix that’s extra tender from the rain. Also a few herbs and baby pineapple plants, and a few dragonfruit and sweet potatoes for the early birds.
As usual at this time of year, it’s been just a handful of people so it’s usually a good time to bring your gardening questions and chat with Farmer Luca. It’s also a great time to ask about volunteering on the farm, or tell a friend if you know someone who might be interested in learning more about sustainable, regenerative gardening practices — we are short a couple of people right now and would love some help in the gardens and with a few other tasks as well.
Our thoughts, prayers and energy toward the people of Asheville NC and others in areas affected by the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
Today is Contract Day in the USVI. Honor the Fireburn Queens of 1878.
ARTfarm’s sweet mix is made from a variety of lettuce varieties. Harvested early morning in the fields of the South Shore, and on your plate weeks before imported lettuce finishes its journey to the island!
Green gorgeous salad, malabar chestnuts, flying yams, tomatoes… It must have been April fools – Farmer Luca thought the greens were done but the fields said OH KALE NO! So now THIS might be our last reservation Wednesday for this season – you never know what the weather will do – so reserve a shopping time or just come 5:30-6pm!
White YAMS are so delicious! Enjoy them NOW!!!
We ditched the long farmstand lines during COVID for a reservation system: Use the link below to reserve a scheduled pickup time and minimum order; early birds get first dibs adding an ever-changing seasonal array of always organically and sustainably grown extras, fruit and veggie seasonal items: fruits, greens, veggies, herbs, root veggies, specialty ingredients and other stuff. Today’s list and farmshare choices below. If you missed this signup, feel free to JUST SHOW UP in the last half hour and we’ll fit you in for extras – PLUS there will be another signup in a couple of days. Detailed instructions, and questions answered HERE if you’re new. Welcome!
ARTfarm NEEDS:
• an experienced Linoleum Flooring Installer. The World Central Kitchen project continues. We’ve knocked out the mechanical end of the 40′ container to recover an extra foot of space. Luca and the volunteer crew cut channels between the compartments to prevent thermal transfer and filled in the T-channel flooring with a combination of insulating foams to help the cold air stay in! Still need a helper with linoleum flooring experience to help us finish out the floor. Send us a contractor!
• ON-FARM VOLUNTEERS. Brisk farm workouts or zen seated handwork in peaceful breezy nature for volunteers (non smoke/vapers). As brief as two hours at a time. Weed, schlepp, spin salad, split seedlings meditatively at a shady table, hoe and rake yourself a sweaty six-pack! Help out with the livestock! Or deliver our produce to local restaurants! Could convert to part-time employment depending on skills, uptake and efficiency. Read HERE about the experience of volunteering at ARTfarm!
Farmshare choices for Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024:
Our baby and teen arugula is triple washed and ready to enjoy – it’s versatile – great mixed in to a salad, as a bed and garnish on a plate, as a snack straight out of the bag, or even gently steamed as a side green.
We will have 46 timeslots/farmshares available for scheduled pickup. You can also order and specify a neighbor, friend or family member to pick up your order and theirs. The minimum order is one farmshare, and you can order more than one farmshare. At the farmstand, you can choose from remaining add-on extras and we’ll total your order. We require a minimum farmshare purchase because we are chronically understaffed and need to keep farmstand hours brief; but we’ll do our best to make substitutions as needed; we want you to be happy!
Please note: Produce (including tomatoes) labeled “seconds” should be used/refrigerated immediately.
LARGE sweetarugu’matochoy farmshare, $33, will include:
1 bag of SWEET salad mix
1 bag of baby ARUgula
1 lb. TOMATOES (slicer/heirloom mix)
2 baby BOK CHOY
MEDIUM spicycherry farmshare, $18, will include:
1 bag of baby SPICY salad mix
1 pint CHERRY tomatoes
SMALL sweetsweet farmshare, $16, will include:
2 bags SWEET salad mix
YAMMY YAM farmshare, $10, will include:
4 lb. potato-like white YAMS (prepare like potatoes but healthier!!)
BOK CHOY BABY farmshare, $10, will include:
3 heads of tender BABY BOK CHOY
Extra Add-Ons (non-reservable – first come first served during your pickup slot):
early birds:
CHERRY TOMATOES by the pint
HEIRLOOM and SLICER mixed tomatoes 1 lb. bags
baby SPICY salad mix
farm pastured EGGS
POMEGRANATE fruits
FENNEL
SWEET peppers
tender baby salad TURNIPS with green tops, $3/bunch
French pink breakfast RADISHES with green tops
white DAIKON radishes
plenty:
SWEET salad mix
Malabar CHESTNUTS
CARROTS with green tops for juicing
PUMPKIN whole and slices
purple SWEET POTATOES
large white YAM
BABY BOK CHOY tender and yummy!
baby GINGER and baby TURMERIC
ONIONS with green onion tops!
assorted HERBS bunches: $2 each
Herbs for this distribution
(Available as EXTRAS)
Cilantro
Dill
Kaffir lime leaves
Lemongrass
small leaf OREGANO
Parsley
Rosemary
Scallions
Please contact us immediately by text and/or phone at (340) 514-4873 if you have reserved a farmshare and cannot pick it up. Supply is limited, demand is extremely high and someone else will gladly purchase your share, if given enough time to respond. We have limited time for distributions and they are scheduled. Our produce is harvested fresh and needs to go home with you same day. This is an honor system since we are not collecting payment until pickup. We do not have cold storage for uncollected shares.
The signup form will show you a “Thank You” page and send you a confirmation email if submitted successfully. If you don’t find it, please check your spam/junk, inbox tabs, and ‘All Mail’ folders for the confirmation email, as this has been a common problem for several customers and with a little searching they typically find it. (And then, add us to your address book!) For more tips, visit our Help page.
Need help with the pre-order signup form? (Click here): Q: I can’t seem to order more than one item.
A: We have designed our order form limit any one customer from cleaning us out. Sharing is caring. If you’d like extra of something (beyond what you could reserve through our order system), put it in the comments with your order, and remind us at your pickup time: if we can supply it to you we’ll do our best. If you are in the food service industry and looking for bulk availability, please contact us; our order form is for individuals and families to place a single order for a scheduled pickup.
Q: My order isn’t going through.
if the automated confirmation email is not immediately found, check your spam folder
and the ‘all mail’ folder
make sure all required fields are filled/selected
just try again
use a cellular device (smartphone or tablet) that isn’t using WiFi internet
restart your browser/device
clear your cache and cookies in your browser/device
reboot your router (unplug it for a minute and plug in again)
Q: The form says I didn’t enter my email, but I did.
Our pre-order form requires everyone to type their email in twice, and makes sure the two match exactly. We had a lot of customers in such a rush to get their order in that they’d spell their own email incorrectly and then complain that they could not find the confirmation email. Our ‘type it in twice’ system ensures that you’ll find any email mistakes before you submit the pre-order form.
Q: I ordered before, but I’m not getting your emails.
Our pre-order form does NOT automatically sign you up for an ARTfarm email subscription. Do that HERE!
ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI 