For this Saturday, December 19th we will have, freshly harvested and ready at 10am:
December lettuces are tender and sweet!
Loads of sweet salad mix, baby arugula, teen arugula, baby and teen spicy salad mixes, and royal oak leaf lettuce heads;
These round yellow summer squash are tender and can be roasted, stewed, fried, stuffed…yum!!We love seeing what you do with our produce! Here is a stuffed zucchini with a side salad! Thanks Isabel Cerni & family!
Zucchini, round summer squash, lots of generously sized Ethiopian kale (it’s similar to a mild mustard green, super dark and tender), Tuscan kale and red edged kale, dandelion greens;
Fresh Mediterranean figs are beyond tender and sweet when ripe!
Wild cucumber gherkins, a few half pints of cherry tomatoes, our first slicing tomatoes of the season, and amazing fresh Mediterranean figs.
Open 10am – 12 noon but of course come early for the best selection! We will be open Wednesday, December 23rd, 3-6pm with a similar lineup.
Hot new work from the ARTbarn: Luca recently delivered the original art for the 2016 Taste Of St. Croix poster. The subject this year is one of our fellow farmers, Grantley Samuel, who is known as the Corn Man but is also renowned for his watermelon. Thought you all might enjoy this! Prints will be available at the Taste Of St. Croix in April!
The ARTfarm is back after our ridiculously long “summer break.” (If mangoes are out of season, why not us?) We have some green goodness for you! THANK YOU for waiting…
Early Saturday morning…
We’ve got beautiful sweet green zucchinis and round yellow summer squashes! Big beautiful bunches of tender, dark green Ethiopian kale plus two other kinds of kale. Dandelion greens. We’ve also got wild gherkins – these are pasture cucumbers, spiny but delicious as a quick (or slower) pickle. Quick pickle recipe below.
Salads are back! Come early and dig into the farmstand coolers: we’ll have sweet salad mix, baby spicy mix, baby arugula, and green oak leaf lettuce heads.
Early birds may spot one or two pints of our yellow super sweet cherry tomatoes, passionfruits, and fresh figs. (Late birds will still get Ethiopian kale and zucchini!)
Freshly early-this-morning-harvested herbs: thyme, Thai basil, Italian basil, holy basil, lemongrass, garlic chives, recao. Some green (red hot) chili peppers.
Say hi to Santa at the Christmas Boat Parade tonight, and tell him we’ve been really really good at the ARTfarm and we want a pony. No, make that lots and lots more rain.
Wild pasture cucumbers: salty, crunchy, earthy. A bit spiny to the touch – just rub the little points off with a dishcloth when rinsing!
Farmer Luca’s Wild & Quick Pickle Recipe*
Eating these weedy little cucumbers is a bit like those early childhood experiments where you’d find something outdoors and decide to “make a snack”. Sometimes when we are working in the pastures and run out of water to drink, these juicy little bite-sized cucurbits are just the thing! Nature’s little oasis. This quick pickle is delicious served as a crunchy little side anywhere you’d want a bit of relish.
3 c. tiny wild pasture cucumbers, cut in half 1/2 c. water 1/4 c. vinegar 1 tablespoon salt 1 tablespoon unrefined sugar (muscovado or coconut sugar) 1 teaspoon cumin seed 1/8 c. chopped fresh herbs; tarragon, or whatever is handy, to taste
Briefly dry roast the cumin seed in a saucepan. Add the liquids, sugar and salt and bring to a simmer.
Toss the cucumbers, onion and fresh herbs in a bowl and pack loosely into canning jars.
Pour hot liquid over chopped cucumber mixture to cover. Allow it to sit until just warm, then cover. Eat as soon as cool and/or refrigerate.
Will settle in flavor and taste even better the next day.
*This is a rough, down and dirty farmer recipe, the percentage of all ingredients can be increased or decreased to taste
The squash vines are kickin’ out lots of zukes at ARTfarm!
Ask and you shall receive! Last season Shepherdess Christina told Farmer Luca that, since our family was trying to go gluten-free but loves pasta, that we wanted some beautiful organically grown zucchini to make into gluten-free noodles (“zoodles”) with our spiralizer vegetable cutter.
Shazam! We have lots of zucchini, thanks to our water-preserving new gardening techniques. The squash vines are going crazy.
Tomorrow we will have loads of Ethiopian kale, 2 types regular kale, Italian basil, Thai basil, holy basil, lemon basil, garlic chives, Recao, lemongrass, small and large yellow round squash, green zucchini squash, Green Oak leaf lettuce heads, baby spicy, baby arugula, sweet salad mix, wild cucumbers (gherkins) and a few fresh sweet Mediterranean figs. Maybe 1-2 pints of yellow cherry tomatoes for the early birds, and fresh, lovingly produced eggs from Yellow Door Farm. See you in the morning!
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.
ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI 