Tag: heirloom tomatoes

ARTfarm Winter Starts! Mon & Wed This Week!

Taste the sweet sun, cool rains and Christmas trade winds in our soil-grown produce available this week, special holiday hours: Sweet salad mix, microgreens, baby arugula, recao, garlic chives, basil, mint, radishes, zinnia flowers, lots of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and a few slicer tomatoes. We have a fresh batch of coconut-milk ice cream from Feel I in four delectable local fruit flavors: banana, soursop, passionfruit, and avocado. AND Kim will be on hand with fresh filleted tuna!

Open Monday, December 22nd, 3-6pm AND special hours Wednesday morning, Christmas Eve from 10 till 12 with more goodies! We look forward to seeing you this week!

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ARTfarm Saturday Farmstand

Sweet Saturday! Open 10 AM – 12 noon on the South Shore. Lots of goodies, despite the dry dry weather: Sweet salad mix, spicy salad mix, baby spicy salad mix, baby arugula, microgreens, kale, collards, mustard greens, large bunched arugula, radicchio, dandelion greens, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, broccoli leaves, Bodhi beans, carrots, beets, onions, fresh ginger root, cilantro, Italian basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, holy basil, dill, garlic chives, recao, epazote, mint, thyme, sage, rosemary, lemongrass, fennel, figs, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, slicer tomatoes, pineapples, passionfruit, sweet corn, lettuce heads. We will also have vegan coconut-based ice cream from I-Sha, raw local honey from the Jolly Hill Apiary, and fresh local eggs, from Marti Gotts.

Lots of things are flowering (including our passionfruit vines) and the bees are going crazy! An eco-friendly way to get rid of a swarm of bees that are not desired in your home or yard is to call a beekeeper. They have special equipment and can remove the swarm safely to another location where they will happily continue to pollinate plants and make our world a sweeter and greener place. Purchase local honey, and you’ll always have the phone number of a nearby beekeeper right in your kitchen! 20140426-084259.jpg

ARTfarm Q & A Monday with Farmer Luca

Q: Why have you planted so many trees around your farm?

A: To attract bird watchers.

More on that in a moment: today’s Monday 3-6pm farmstand includes: sweet salad mix, teen spicy mix, teen arugula, baby arugula, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, slicer tomatoes, recao, garlic chives, lemongrass, onions and carrots.

On January 27, we heard a strange noise in a densely shaded area of the farm. It sounded like this: We also heard tell-tale hammering on a tree trunk.

Christina called local birdwatcher Carol Burke of SEA, and biologist Claudia Lombard of US Fish and Wildlife, to try to identify the bird, who clearly was indicating to us that he or she was some kind of woodpecker — not something you typically encounter in the Virgin Islands. Soon, the farm started looking like this: treeholes
And then this: birdwatchers

The bird was indeed a woodpecker! It has been identified as a young female yellow bellied sap sucker. Female yellow bellied sap suckers spend summers in the northern regions of North America, and do venture south to Central America and parts of the Caribbean for the winter, but not often in the USVI. According to ebird.org, this is the first recorded sighting of one in the territory since 1999. Here’s a couple of Lisa Yntema’s shots! YBSapsucker_5Feb2014_Longford_LDY-7sm
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Our little red headed lady has peppered the neem tree with tiny holes, which drip sap that she likes to drink. The sweet, sticky sap also attracts bugs, which attract lizards. It’s pretty interesting how one little bird can shift an entire ecosystem around herself. She’s so industrious, we might have to call her “Martha”.

ARTfarm Saturday! 10-12noon, Extra Flavor Plus Plants!

Happy Saturday! Open 10am – 12noon this morning! ARTfarm is still pumping out some fresh sweet juicy produce despite the severe drought conditions on the South Shore, so our food has extra intensity of flavor! Microgreens, arugula, sweet and spicy salad mixes, Swiss chard, broccoli leaves, kale, Chinese cabbage, beets, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, yard long purple beans, bell peppers, fennel, dill, cilantro, parsley, basil, garlic chives, thyme, rosemary, limes, ice cream, flowers, fresh juicy Mediterranean figs.

Grey harvest tubs side by side hold green cucumbers and sweet onions with the green tops on.
Freshly harvested and rinsed morning onions and cucumbers, ready for bunching and heading up to the farmstand! Happy Saturday!

We are also selling assorted organically started herbs and plants! Get a pot and grow some of your own ARTfarm varieties at home!

Farmer Luca works between several tables full of colorful young plants in cell trays.
Luca moves trays of ARTfarm seedlings. We have some varieties for sale right now! We don’t usually sell plant stock, but we are conserving water at the moment so you can take advantage and purchase some organically started plants for your own garden!