Happy holidays all, here comes 2025! Tuesday afternoon we’ll have sweet salad mix, baby arugula and spicy mix! Also a few fruits and herbs for the early birds. New Years Eve ARTfarm PopUp 4:30 – 5:30pm
We’ve been trialing black paper mulch this year with the watermelons and tomatoes, and both are growing nicely and forming fruits. Caterpillars are starting to lessen their impact on young plants. Papayas are recovering and very productive.
Ask about volunteering on the farm, or tell a friend if you know someone who might be interested in learning more about sustainable, regenerative gardening practices — we would love some help in the gardens and with a few other tasks as well.
No reservations; first come, first served.
Plenty
Sweet salad mix (extra tender!) Baby spicy salad mix Baby arugula Radishes with green tops Kafir limes Italian basil
Early Birds
Lettuce heads Cilantro Garlic chives Lemongrass Pomegranates Papaya fruit Coconuts (for water and jelly)
Trialing black paper mulch on the ARTfarm in the 2024-2025 growing season. Seeing if it makes sense to phase out our reusable permeable woven plastic mulch we’ve used for years, for biodegradable material. The Mongoose & Zinnia pastured chickens are thrilled with all the caterpillars and fresh grass in their moveable paddock.
Happy holidays, everyone! Sweet salad mix today! 4:30 to 5 PM at ARTfarm
Today’s Christmas Eve ARTfarm PopUp features sweet salad mix that’s extra tender from the rain, white and pink radishes with green tops, lemongrass, kafir limes.
4:30 – 5pm!!
As usual at this time of year, it’s a great time to ask about volunteering on the farm, or tell a friend if you know someone who might be interested in learning more about sustainable, regenerative gardening practices — we would love some help in the gardens and with a few other tasks as well.
No reservations; first come, first served.
Delicious watermelons are comingMore greens are growing!
Rainy gray days on the farm are slowing growth of crops. Youngest ARTfarmer must carry our one eyed cat around to keep the paws dry.
St. Croix was deluged with heavy rains in October and November of 2024. This is good, and bad.
Bad news first: the rain has been a little much for some of our crops. Persistent and continuous weekly flooding caused the topsoils at ARTfarm to be excessively waterlogged. When the tiny aerated gaps in the topsoil fill with rainwater, it causes plant roots to suffer from a lack of oxygen. Various crops are dying because of this condition. Papayas in particular are suffering and we’ve lost about a third of them. We have had to re-seed and re-plant crop successions multiple times in the hopes that conditions will improve. The cloudy conditions have also had an effect on the ability of leafy greens to grow properly. Wahhh-wah.
Season’s starry greetings. Our papaya harvest will be greatly diminished by the rains. Those that were salvaged were pretty sweet. Hopefully we’ll have more to share later in the season.After a lot of years of intense drought, it’s quite a change to be wearing boots every day on the farm.
The great news is that we have more stored rainwater than we’ve ever had at this point in the season. Our ginger, turmeric, yams, established fruit trees and coconuts are looking great. We are also experimenting with cover crops planted near our food crops, and those beds are performing better in these overly wet conditions. Farmer Luca is experimenting with organic biodegradable paper mulch on our watermelon beds, with pretty good results so far.
Coconuts in the Hugel bed are getting more water than they probably ever have in the past.Our fruit trees are looking pretty happy after all of the heavy rains. Some of the row crops, not so much.
ARTfarm is not giving up and will continue experimenting and learning from these epic and relentless conditions, which may be the new normal.
As usual at this time of year, we have some great new volunteers and are always looking for more helpers. Tell a friend if you know someone who might be interested in learning more about sustainable, regenerative gardening practices — we would always love and appreciate some help in the gardens and with a few other tasks as well.
Trying different mulching methods after heavy rains to protect the young plants
Stay tuned for information on when we’ll finally open for the season, and thanks to all our loyal customers who have been checking in!
The great reward for those elite few of you who have read this entire email is that we will have a salad mix pop-up on Wednesday December 11th with sweet salad greens, radishes with green tops and garlic chives. 4:30 PM to 5 PM. Regular farm stands will hopefully start at the end of December. Ho-ho-ho!
Early Birds September plums Kaffir limes Garlic chives Sour oranges
We’re always on the lookout for volunteers to help with garden preparation. Come hang with Farmer Luca and learn some farming skills! Non-smokers/non-tobacco users please. Also – feel free to admire our new roadside sign! One down, one to go…
Stay cool, put a pinch of salt in everything, and see you Saturday 11:30am – 12pm!
ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI 