Delicious Saturday: 10am – 12 noon

It’s the height of tomato season and the time of year where we have the most variety! Swing South on your way to your weekend and get some beautiful locally, sustainably and organically grown produce straight from the farmer!

Sweet salad mix, spicy and baby spicy salad mix, arugula, baby arugula, cucumbers, beets, carrots, yard long beans, all sorts of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, kale, dandelion greens, escarole, endive, radicchio, onions, pumpkin, radishes, ginger, Italian basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, holy basil, garlic chives, dill, cilantro, parsley, passionfruit, a few bags of fat fresh Mediterranean figs, fresh cut zinnia flowers!

Our pumpkins were petite but incredibly flavorful this year. They have a very pungent, dry flesh that holds up beautifully to cooking. By the slice!

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Luca is always up before the sun on farmstand days to harvest and sort.IMG_8100.JPG

Saturday 10am – 12noon Tomatofest!!

ARTfarm is awash in the juicy, sweet, flavorful fruits of the solanum lycopersicum plant! From the absolute candy-sweet explosion of a cherry tomato to the richness of the big juicy sandwich sized slicers and heirloom tomatoes to the mellow pungent complexity of a plum tomato, there are possibilities to be explored here! As with all harvests, it is a glorious but brief moment to enjoy, so get yourself over here this morning from 10 AM – 12 noon and enjoy this seasonal treat!

To go with your tomatoes: Sweet salad mix, spicy salad mix, teen arugula, baby arugula, baby spicy salad mix, microgreens, cucumbers, more tomatoes of all types, sizes and colors, purple yard long beans, kale, dandelion greens, beets, two types of radishes, sweet peppers, chili peppers, fresh ginger root, Italian basil, lemon basil, holy basil, lemongrass, dill, cilantro, mint, parsley, scallions, a few bunches of bulb onions, passionfruit and zinnia flowers.

From our partners: we have been regularly selling out of I-Sha’s vegan ice cream in unusual local fruit (and even vegetable) flavors and we have a new batch today! Miss Wanda Wright will bee here again this morning with her homemade salad dressings and meads (apeterif honey wines with fruit infusions) made from the bounty of her beehives. Also, to go with all the salsa and Bloody Marys you’ll be making, don’t forget to pick up a few kafir and key limes grown at Spring Gut Orchards.

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ARTfarm Season Finale! Last Saturday

ARTfarm sweet cornAll good things must come to an end; summer, a great meal, a super dance club extended remix, and the season at ARTfarm. There will be a few weeks’ pause before the next season begins.

Today, 10am – 12 noon: Sweet salad mix, arugula, beets, sweet corn, onions, sweet potato greens, bunched arugula, Kang Kong Asian water spinach, Italian basil, holy basil, garlic chives, recao, mint, tarragon, bananas, papayas, and soursop! From our partners, we have dragonfruit from Solitude Farms, raw local dark honey from Errol, bread from Tess, and our famous “Shades of Joy” magic color indicator avocados from Tita & Diego.

Q&A: Someone stopped us in a parking lot the other day and asked us if our arugula was organic. For anyone who might be wondering, all ARTfarm produce is grown using organic methods, to the standards of USDA Certified Organic produce. In some cases, our sustainable practices exceed what is required by the USDA NOP (National Organic Program), and our farming philosophy and practices have continuously met our strict standards since 1999 on St. Croix.

BUT… it is against US law to claim that your produce is “organic” unless you have spent the time and money to achieve organic certification through a USDA approved agency. This involves lots of paperwork, expensive fees, a percentage of the farm’s profit going to a certifying agency on an annual basis, and flying an inspector to the island at the farm’s expense at regular intervals to examine our records and practices.

There are pros and cons to having the USDA organic stamp of approval. We respect those farms who have gone through the arduous process of becoming organic certified. We are considering the process, but are not interested in raising our prices to cover the cost. The official stamp from the USDA doesn’t seem to be important to most of our customers.

But is our arugula organic? If you really want to know, get to know your farmer. Ask about our farming practices. Ask how we raise food sustainably using organic methods. Ask us if we are involved in the community. Learn more about the debate and what growing organically really means, so you know the right questions to ask! You might just find the long answer as assuring and satisfying as the shortcut of a sticker stuck to your food. 😉

Love, ARTfarm

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!