Tag: local fruit

ARTfarm Pre-Holiday Joy! Saturday 10am – 12 noon

Start stocking up for Thursday! Fresh for you, Saturday morning at ARTfarm: Microgreens, baby arugula, sweet salad mix, sweet potato greens, French breakfast radishes, Japanese radishes, cucumbers, fresh mint, Italian basil, lemongrass, recao, garlic chives, thyme, rosemary, passionfruit, a few dragonfruit, zinnia flowers, vegetable starts, pineapple slips, native trees and some young thin-skinned ginger root!

From our partners: we have fresh Mahi from Ryan & Kim, vegan ice cream from I-Sha, honey from Errol, ridiculously amazing Nam Doc Mai mangoes and mamey sapote from Tropical Exotics, and avocados from Smithen the Cane Juice Man!!

Ripe, green skinned mangoes are piled in a tub for market.
5am mangoes harvested and ready for the farmstand!

 

 

ARTfarm Saturday Deluge 10am – 12 noon

Thanks, all of you who did such a heartfelt raindance. Unfortunately the quantity and velocity of the precipation over the last few days has cost us some lettuce production.

On offer for Saturday morning: Microgreens, mint, garlic chives, lemongrass, thyme, zinnias, a few cucumbers, and treats from partner farms: creamy, fiberless Nam Doc Mai mangoes from Tropical Exotics, dragonfruit from Solitude Farm, local raw honey from Errol, and beautiful avocados from Smithen the Cane Man!

All this rain makes it a sensible time of the year to plant. We have pineapple slips and various native trees for sale — also a few vegetable starts.

Saturday ARTfarm : Plenty of TS Bertha Salad Greens, Sweet Corn & More!

Our farm is open 10am – 12 noon Saturday morning: Sweet salad mix, microgreens, baby spicy salad mix, baby arugula, onions, sweet corn, cucumbers, radishes, beets, holy basil, Italian basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, thyme, recao, mint, lemongrass, passionfruit, and papaya. From our partners we have honey from Errol, bread from Tess, and coconut-based vegan ice cream from I-Sha! This morning we are waiting on deliveries of mamey sapote and avocadoes, too.

Please forgive Farmer Luca if he’s terribly sleepy at the farmstand. He’s been up at night pollinating the dragonfruit blooms!

How many of you are old enough to remember the R.E.M. song "Gardening At Night"? Dragonfruit blooms only open after 8pm, and often need to be hand pollinated in order to bear fruit. So forgive us if we're a little sleepy!
How many of you are old enough to remember the R.E.M. song “Gardening At Night”? Dragonfruit blooms only open after 8pm, and often need to be hand pollinated in order to bear fruit. So forgive us if we’re a little sleepy!

ARTfarm Wednesday, 3–6 p.m.: Time for a Rain Dance!

20140730-120152-43312034.jpgOur last Wednesday for the summer! Open 3–6 this afternoon and then only Saturday mornings, 10 AM – 12 noon. Today’s farm treats include: sweet corn, salad mix, baby spicy salad mix, baby arugula, microgreens, baby onions, baby beets, cucumbers, holy basil, thai basil, Italian basil, papaya, passionfruit and bananas. From our partners: mangoes and mamey sapote from Tropical Exotics, raw local honey from Errol, and vegan coconut milk-based ice-cream in tropical fruit flavors from I-Sha!

For those of you who have yet to sample a mamey sapote, it is an unusual Central American fruit that is incredibly sweet, and one of our family’s favorites. It has a sandpapery outside and a reddish-orangey inside with a seed that looks like modern art. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about it:

The fruit is eaten raw or made into milkshakes, smoothies, ice cream and fruit bars. It can be used to produce marmalade and jelly.[3] Some consider the fruit to be an aphrodisiac.[citation needed] Some beauty products use oil pressed from the seed,[4] otherwise known as sapayul oil.[5]  The fruit is an excellent source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C, and is a good source of riboflavin, niacin, vitamin E, manganese, potassium and dietary fiber. Research has identified several new carotenoids from the ripe fruit.

20140730-111608-40568049.jpgGood news/bad news time, dear readers: Due perhaps to the extremely dry conditions we’ve had over this spring and summer, the Nam doc Mai, Julie and Malika mangoes are ending early. The harvest is finished, but the trees are flowering now, which means that they should have fruit again in a few months. So there will be a strange off-season of mangoes in fall/winter if all goes well and the trees hang onto their fruit through the storm season. We still have several more weeks of cucumbers in the gardens, some dragonfruits ripening on the vines, and we will do our best to continue some lettuce production despite the super dry conditions for a few more weeks. Everybody, please do a rain dance out there and let’s get some precipitation on St. Croix!