A bit of fresh sweet salad mix, kangkong (Asian water spinach – a cooking green), garlic chives, and fresh mint. From our partners: Solitude Farms dragonfruit, Haitian kidney mangoes from Tropical Exotics orchard, and vegan coconut ice cream from I-Sha.
Zamorano (Hylocereus polyrhizus) has one of the flashiest dragonfruit flowers. Luca pollinated two of these flowers tonight. If all goes well each flower will produce a ripe fruit in approximately 3-4 weeks.
We will not have salad mix next week, nor for the next several weeks. We will still have some dragonfruit and mangoes, if you would like to purchase those over the next couple of weeks feel free to call the farm and we’ll do our best to accommodate you off-hours.
Valencia Pride mangoes are a “Technicolor sunset” hue.
Saturday, 10am – 12 noon: Sweet salad mix, limited amounts of microgreens, dragonfruit, passionfruit, papaya, mint and lemongrass. From our partners we have a varied selection of top mangoes including Nam Doc Mai, Madame Francis, Valencia Pride and Haitian Kidney from Dennis Nash, Viequen Butterball mangoes from Tita, and vegan coconut ice cream from I-Sha.
We heard you could smell it in Frederiksted. Dozens of acres of bull pasture that are part of UVI’s Senepol cattle operation burned early Monday morning, right across the road from ARTfarm. The fire was started by vandals who stripped a stolen pickup truck and then set it on fire halfway up Spring Gut Road’s south side at 3 AM.
Looking north from the road near the ARTfarm entrance, Monday’s reignited brushfire is seen here progressing west. Note the blackened hillside east of the smoke.
The blaze quickly spread west across the arid pasture. The VI Fire Service was on the scene by 3:10 AM and managed to extinguish most of the blaze by around 7:30 AM. It reignited soon after and burned all the way to Many Paws Road with flames up to 20′ visible from the South Shore Road, destroying more pasture forage, threatening nearby homes and our neighbor’s sheep pastures. VIFS returned and battled the brushfire again, putting it out again with the assistance of a sudden and very welcomed rain shower that arrived about an hour later.
Can you spot? A fire truck surrounded north and south by blazing pastures? Fire crawling up the hill toward houses? Two Senepol bulls being pushed into the next pasture by UVI cattlemen? A patch of flames much closer to the bulls? At times the grey and yellow smoke was so thick you could not see to move a vehicle.A clearer image of the firetruck up in the bush. A team of firefighters were working to extinguish the north head of the fire that was moving toward homes up the hill.Arriving just behind this 3,000 gallon pumper truck: well-timed backup from Mother Nature. The dark clouds approaching from the east brought a brief but heavy rainshower that helped to extinguish the blazing pastures.
ARTfarm is open Saturdays only (until it starts raining again), 10–12 noon today. We’re on the South Shore Road just east of the Ha’Penny Beach entrance. Fresh today: sweet salad mix, microgreens, bunched arugula, Ethiopian kale, garlic chives, recao, mint, bananas and passionfruit.
From our partners we have homegrown honey from Errol, vegan coconut-based ice creams in local fruit flavors from I-Sha, and miraculous mangoes from Tita. These mangoes are so fiberless and sweet that you can literally eat them out of the half like a melon with a spoon. They have an almost honey-like flavor. Incredible in any mango recipe or simply consumed fresh.
1. Select your mango.2. Slice your mango lengthwise, skimming your knife along the flat mango pit within.3. Scoop out the perfect sized bite and enjoy. (This particular variety of mango is unusually fiberless!)
We want to acknowledge all the recent graduates! This is the time of year to celebrate the culmination of a lot of hard work. Congratulations to all those who have passed finals, completed performances, received accolades, and progressed in some large or small way. Keep on growing!
The strange and wonderful pitaya, or dragonfruit, grows at the end of a primitive, spiny climbing vine. Early summer is typically the season for the dragonfruits to flower and ripen.
Pitaya, also known as dragonfruit, has one of the most strange and dramatic presentations of all the crops we can think of.
Today’s haul: Loads of tender sweet salad mix, Ethiopian kale, bunched arugula, mint, lemongrass, Italian basil, rosemary, zinnia flowers, a few pineapples, a few passionfruit, and red fleshed dragonfruit!
Dragon photo-bombing the dragonfruit. We also have pineapples and passionfruit today for your inner fruit monster! OM NOM NOM NOM
From our partners we have raw local honey from Errol and vegan ice cream from I-Sha.
That’s 10 AM to 12 noon today, folks! ARTfarm is currently open just once a week during this drought.
ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI 