ARTfarm Pickups Wednesday January 11th! 4:30pm – 5:45pm

The 2023 crop of tomatoes is imminent, and cherry T’s are starting! We’re open for scheduled pickups on Wednesdays. Still splitting up the crowds with pickup times: Click to sign up below for one of 40 ‘health-bubble’ pickup timeslots, for Wednesday starting at 4:30pm! If you missed this signup, there will be another one next week.

Please wear a mask at the pickup table. Instructions below if you’re new. Welcome!

Beautiful sweet ripe figs for the early bird customers! Pick an early time slot for these.

Wednesday afternoon we’ll have preorder ‘farmshare’ selections that include bags of sweet salad mix, zucchini, herbs and pints of cherry tomatoes. See details below.

Extras to add on at your pickup time will include: more sweet salad mix, beautiful bunched white and pink mild radishes with edible green tops, red-stemmed turnips, and assorted fresh herbs including cilantro, Italian basil, garlic chives, lemongrass, kefir leaves, baby ginger, baby turmeric.

In more limited quantities, we’ll also have sweet Mediterranean figs, extra cherry tomato pints, romaine lettuce heads, both sweet and hot peppers, sugar apples, young scallions, and small sweet potatoes. A few dozen pastured eggs from our subsidiary on-farm chicken wrangler, Mongoose & Zinnia!

World Central Kitchen project ongoing! We’re still chipping away at ARTfarm’s new World Central Kitchen funded processing center, with lots of banging and clanging, and the help of some fantastic volunteer helpers. This decommissioned 40 foot refrigerator shipping container is getting a retrofit as energy-efficient and storm-resilient walk-in coolers and workspace.

Brisk farm workouts in peaceful breezy nature available: We’re looking for volunteers (non smokers). Luca could use a hand even if it’s only for two hours at a time, mainly to do final garden bed preparation. This is a great ab and full body workout, mostly standing using rakes and hoes. There is also sifting of compost with a whimsical homemade electric tumbler, hand weeding, late day transplanting and more. You’ll learn about market gardening, construction and/or food prep. Fast walkers encouraged as there’s always a lot to do. Could convert to part-time employment depending on skills and efficiency.

Yellowish green, pinecone-like sugar apples (sweetsop) of various sizes in a basket.
Yellowish green, pinecone-like sugar apples (sweetsop) are eaten fresh and ripe. Kids love the sweet flavor, and the seeds are large, hard and shiny. Like watermelon seeds, they’re perfect for spitting at your sister.

Farmers Luca and Christina want to take a moment to encourage everyone to support local farmers. If you can’t make it to our farmstand, don’t forget about Sejah Farm, another wonderful mom and pop 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, and run amazing educational programs too. There is also the Saturday farmers market at the Department of Agriculture grounds where you can buy directly from farmers. And there are many farms with a stand out front.

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!

New to ARTfarm? HOW TO ‘ORDER’:

During COVID times we switched to a pre-order system instead of open farmstands: Order/reserve at least one farmshare (minimum purchase) ahead on our website; check for your confirmation email so you know your name will be on the list! Please arrive in our parking lot on time but not more than 10 minutes early to prevent traffic jams and longer wait times. We appreciate your cooperation!

At the stand, please bring a mask. We’ll call your name during your timeslot in order of signup. Let the farmer handle the produce for you; Choose extras from first-come-first-served availability; Wait to bag until we’ve totaled up your items; Bring change, cash or check and pen; drop payment in the blue bucket, we will not handle cash.

Please note: With all the flu and viral infections circulating and effects of the “tripledemic”, some of which we have experienced, and Farmer Luca caring for his elderly folks who are immune compromised, we’d appreciate if all customers would help us stay healthy and working, and PLEASE wear a mask and maintain social distancing when interacting with us at the ARTfarm stand this winter season. We shall do the same! We are all one! Grateful for life!!

ARTfarm is a tiny mom and pop family farm who have been growing food with sustainable organic and permaculture methods on St. Croix since 1999. See our FAQs for more info!

Thank you!

Farmshare choices for Wednesday, January 11th, 2023:

Freshly dug sweet potatoes at ARTfarm.

We will have 40 timeslots/farmshares available for scheduled pickup Wednesday. 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 are chronically understaffed and need to keep farmstand hours brief; add-ons and extras are not currently available independently of a farmshare minimum purchase.

SWEET SQUASHY farmshare, $26, will include:
  • 2 bags of sweet salad mix
  • 1 lb. zucchini (summer squash)
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes
GREENS LOVER farmshare, $16, will include:
  • 2 bags of sweet salad mix
SMALL farmshare, $10, will include:
  • 1 bag of sweet salad mix
  • 1 fresh herb bunch, your choice
Extra Add-Ons (non-reservable)

(Must accompany farmshare purchase, these items cannot be purchased individually. No reservations on these items, they are all first come first served during your pickup slot):

early birds:
  • SUGAR APPLES
  • fresh Mediterranean FIGS
  • cherry TOMATO pints
  • fresh ROMAINE lettuce heads
  • small SWEET POTATOES $4/lb.
  • sweet and hot PEPPERS by the bag
  • young SCALLIONS
  • pastured EGGS from Mongoose & Zinnia (@ARTfarm)
plenty:
  • sweet SALAD MIX, $8/bag
  • Japanese heirloom CUCUMBERS
  • sweet tender ZUCCHINI and/or yellow squash for baking, frying, sautees, raw
  • young tender sweet salad TURNIPS with green tops, $3/bunch
  • mild white and pink RADISHES with green tops, $3/bunch
  • assorted HERBS bunches: $2 each
  • baby GINGER: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
  • baby TURMERIC: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
  • PINEAPPLE slips to grow-ur-own: $2-3 each as sized
  • NATIVE TREES in pots, priced as marked by size/variety
Herb bunch choices for this distribution

(Available as EXTRAS or included in farmshare)

  • Italian (Genovese) basil
  • Cilantro
  • Dill
  • Garlic chives
  • Kafir lime leaves
  • Lemongrass

Please contact us immediately by text and 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.

During this flu and cold “tripledemic” season, due to family members and customers who are immuno-compromised, we’d appreciate everyone wearing masks at ARTfarm during pickups. We went maskless for a while, and hope to loosen restrictions again soon, but for now please help us protect our family and friends!

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. 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)
  • visit our “help” page for additional tips
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!

Sweet-n-Spicy Saturday 10am-12noon

Saturday farmstand: Lots and lots of farm fresh goodies with two checkout lines set up to serve you. We have such insane amounts of stuff that you can easily sleep in and come at 10:30am and still select from of 95% of our offerings.

Loads of sweet salad mix, lots of baby arugula, and lots of baby and teen spicy salad mix; slicer tomatoes, salad tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, sweet yellow cherry tomatoes, lots and lots of yellow and pink and red watermelons, beautiful sweet mini white bell peppers with thick flesh (use raw or cooked), cooking greens, bok choi, radishes, lettuce heads, Serrano peppers, Indian hot peppers, Thai chili peppers, Italian basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, cilantro, dill, garlic chives, baby ginger and turmeric, a few bunches of onions, a few bunches of carrots, a few cucumbers, lots and lots of figs, and lots of cut flowers.

On our Hurricane Maria recovery fundraising front, we’re up to $24,282 out of $44,000 total funds needed to restore farm buildings including our seedling house and gallery building, and ensure resilience for future events. Check out and share our GoFundMe page at gofundme.com/artfarmllc …and a huge thank you to everyone who has donated!

Love, ARTfarm

ARTfarm Winter Roots Saturday! 10am – 12noon

This Saturday we’re open 10am – 12 noon. We have lots of beautiful root vegetables, herbs, cooking greens and pumpkins for your winter menu; with refreshing, juicy summery watermelon, ripe tomatoes and baby salad greens just to remind you you’re in the tropics! Here’s the full list (and a yummy drink idea from a friend at the end):

Starting at 10am down the South Shore we’ll have lots of tomatoes, lots and lots of cherry tomatoes, teen spicy salad mix, teen arugula, sweet salad mix, lots of various lettuce heads including large romaine type, just a few cucumbers, seasoning peppers, green bell peppers, a few Serano peppers, red and yellow-fleshed watermelons, lots of winter squash, various varieties. Farmer Luca’s favorite Tahitian pumpkin is now ready, also lots of large butternut winter squash sliced in smaller portions.

Baby carrots, onions, radishes, beets, lots of various cooking greens including three kinds of kales, dandelion greens, cilantro, dill, parsley, Italian basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, garlic chives, holy basil, sage, thyme, lemongrass, lots of baby ginger, lots of baby turmeric (which freezes beautifully and then is handy and easy to microplane into whatever dish you’re cooking), lots of colorful zinnia flowers, and fresh figs. We will have two cash registers set up for speedier service!

Amaranta’s Winter Anti-Ick Herbal Tea

Are you feeling icky and jacked? This rooty brew will soothe the savage icky beast within. (Probably can’t say the same for the ones without.)

A thumb or more fresh grated turmeric

A thumb or more fresh grated ginger

Couple pinches black pepper (activates beneficial things in turmeric)

Three quarts water

A splash of 1/2 & 1/2 (or non-dairy substitute)

2 tsp honey

Bring water to a boil. Add ginger and turmeric. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Pour into cup(s), add 1/2 & 1/2 or whatever non-dairy thing you want, and honey. Stir. Sip. Be happier than you were 20 minutes prior.

ARTfarmers make this adding a bunch of fresh lemongrass in the water. Heavenly warm or cold. And makes your house smell amazing, this.

Open Today 3 – 5:30 PM, Bounty!!

Sorry… Just had to share this beautiful still life of freshly harvested produce that will be for sale this afternoon at ARTfarm…

Sweet salad mix, teen spicy salad mix, teen arugula, cucumbers, loads of watermelons, a few cherry tomatoes, lots of herbs, scallions, onions, cooking greens, radishes, beautifully just picked sour oranges, passionfruit, baby ginger, fresh Mediterranean figs, papaya, and local honey.

It just keeps on raining!