Farm Indiana / December

DECEMBER 2014

Rural Living & Local Food

On guard

Karen Newhall and her dogs of Shady Creek Herding

ALSO INSIDE: WINTER MARKETS | HYDROPONICS | CHRISTMAS TREES | CLINTON CENTRAL FFA

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Editor’s Note

A

ANOTHER YEAR HAS PASSED — already. We all tried to swath ourselves in blankets of denial regarding the coming winter, but the bitterly cold temperatures that arrived early this season changed that right quick. Whatever denial we had is now gone with the bitingly cold wind. Winter is here, and so are my insulated overalls.

So with that, I invite you to sit by the fire, grab a warm cup of tea and dive into this issue of Farm Indiana. We’ve visited with yet more folks pouring their energy into all things agriculture around the Hoosier state. In this issue, we chatted up Joe and Sue Peiffer, Christmas tree farmers in Johnson County who experience their busiest season — no surprise — this month, as well as Randy Stout of Stout’s Melody Acres, who carries on a tradition of making sorghum syrup with his family each year. There’s also Karen Newhall of Shady Creek Herding, who teaches dogs of all breeds to become bona fide livestock herders, and Linda Proffitt of Peaceful Grounds in Indianapolis who regularly gives Indy’s school kids the dirt on growing food.

Also in this issue, we are happy to introduce a couple of new regular features. One will focus on technologies in farming — look for

stories and news on the latest applications, websites and webinars that can help you learn to work more efficiently on your farm. If you know of a new software program or phone app that’s helpful, we’re all ears. Write to us, call us or tag us on Facebook or Twitter to share the many wonders of technology that you’ve discovered.

We also kick off a series of monthly features on FFA chapters around Indiana this month. Thanks to FFA, the faces of our farmers — and the skills and knowledge they bring to the field — are constantly changing. If you have a suggestion on a local chapter that is doing great things, be sure to send us a note. And with that, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season. Stay warm, and thank you for reading Farm Indiana. We will see you next year!

During this Special Holiday Season we would like to

Thank Our Customers.

May you enjoy the season’s best.

6672 East 650 South | Edinburgh, IN 46124

812-526-5574 | 800-284-2676 kokomograin.com FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 3

Contents DECEMBER 2014

30

ON THE COVER

Read more about Shady Creek Herding on page 34.

Photo by Josh Marshall

6 From The Field 8 Winter Markets 14 Don Villwock 18 Feel Good Farm 22 Peiffer Christmas Tree Farm 26 High Tech

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P eaceful Grounds Center for Agriculture and Sustainable Living

34 Shady Creek Herding 38 Clinton Central’s FFA 42 WOLF Cooperative Mill 46 Paramount School of Excellence 48 Making Sorghum Syrup 52 Dunbar Heritage Farms 55 Organic Dairy 56 Public Greens 60 SoBro Café 62 Local Food

A monthly publication of Home News Enterprises, Farm Indiana offers the local news and views of Indiana’s farming world, including features about local families and their farms, agriculture businesses, equipment and technological advances, educational outreach programs and more. Farm Indiana promotes and celebrates Indiana’s rich history and tradition in farming; serves as a conduit of information among growers, producers, farmers, retailers, farming organizations and local food consumers; educates readers about the nutritional, social and financial importance of local food support and consumption; and highlights Indiana local foods and agritourism.

PUBLISHER Chuck Wells EDITOR Sherri Lynn Dugger CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Cissy Bowman, Liz Brownlee, David Hoppe, Cheryl Carter Jones, Jessica Ervin, Katie Glick, Jessica Hoopengardner, Kay Jernigan McGriff, Garrett Kelly, Shawndra Miller, Jim Poyser, Jon Shoulders, Clint Smith, Rebecca Townsend, Ryan Trares, George Kalogridis, Catherine Whittier, CJ Woodring COPY EDITOR Katharine Smith SENIOR GRAPHIC ARTIST Margo Wininger ADVERTISING DESIGN

Emma Ault, Hollie Brown, Dondra Brown, Tonya Cassidy, John Cole, Julie Daiker, Ben Hill, Phil Manning, Josh Meyer, Desiree Poteete, Tina Ray, Kelsey Ruddell, Robert Wilson PHOTOGRAPHER Josh Marshall IMAGE TECHNICIAN Matt Quebe

©2014 by Home News Enterprises.

All rights reserved. Reproduction of stories, photographs and advertisements without permission is prohibited.

Comments, story ideas, events and suggestions should be sent to Sherri Lynn Dugger, The Republic, 333 Second St., Columbus, IN 47201, call (812) 379-5608 or email farmindiana@hnenewspapers.com.

To advertise, contact Mike Rossetti at (812) 379-5764 or mrossetti@hnenewspapers.com.

For more information, contact Amber Fischvogt (812) 376-7772 or afischvogt@heritagefundbc.org

To subscribe to Farm Indiana, call (800) 435-5601.

12 issues (1 year) will be delivered to your home for $24.

Back issues may also be purchased for $5 per issue.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 5

High Tech

From Phone to Farm CLIMATE APP REINS IN A VARIETY OF WEATHER INFORMATION

By Garrett Kelly » In the past, farmers relied on almanacs and their own hunches for weather forecasts in their area. They’d look for signs in nature to help them plot the harvest.

Today’s farmer has more tools at his disposal than ever before, and these tools help make the hard work a little easier.

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The Climate Corp. designed one such tool for new-age farmers. The company, which is based in San Francisco, created a detailed weather app that includes many impressive features that go beyond what you would find on similar products. These additional features were designed specifi-

cally with farmers in mind.

Jacob Carver, a farmhand at Hamilton Farms in Flat Rock, says he was introduced to the app when Hamilton Farms became a Precision Planting premier dealer. One of the features he values most is the rain gauge on the app. It breaks down how much rain an area got in two time frames, the past 72 hours and in the last 24 hours. Each measurement is displayed to a tenth of an inch. “For me it’s nice to check how much rain I got,” Carver says. “It’s actually pretty darn accurate.”

What’s more useful is the fact that you can select your own fields for monitoring.

The Climate Corp.’s actual

website allows you to search for and select your fields to observe. Once you save your selections online, the information is updated on the app for your phone. Then you can select each plot you work and see what’s happening. “You can check every field to see which one got more (rain) and which got less,” Carver says.

The app, which is available for Apple and Android products, is available for free or at cost, depending on the services you choose. Farmers can opt for the free Climate Basic or choose Climate Pro, which, in 2014, cost $15 per acre monitored. Climate Pro offers advice on all stages of growth, from planting to harvest, to help you end up with the best yield possible.

Climate Pro also advises on nitrogen, field health, pests and disease.

Climate Basic’s weather features include wind direction, wind speed, precipitation predictions, temperature and radar, as well as the rain gauge. The free app lets you know if a particular field is workable or not. Carver says he generally checks a field’s workability himself after a rain, but admits the feature is useful.

“I can see where it helps guys who have farms far away,” he says.

The free app also allows you to put notes in when you do certain tasks at your fields. If you just planted at a field, you can select that field and add information in the notes for later review.

You can keep track of what crop you planted, seed hybrid information, the number of acres, how many seeds per acre and add general observation notes as needed. Each note is time stamped with the date you performed that work.

Other than planting activity, you can leave several other types of notes related to your fields. At harvest time, you can input your actual yield per acre and make note of the grain moisture. You can keep track of the nitrogen levels throughout the seasons.

Carver admits he doesn’t check the app religiously, but he does test his gauges against the app from time to time. His only complaint with the app is that you have to go online to update your field selections. He would like to see an in-app feature that will accomplish that.

Though this product isn’t for every farmer, he believes it’s nice for what it is. “It’s like anything else,” Carver says. “Some places need it more than others.”

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 7

From the Field

End-Of-Season Cleaning

By Cheryl Carter Jones

By the time fall arrives and the garden is finished for the year, I am longing for a break. While the outdoor work is complete, there are still things to be done before a gardener or farmer can slow down for the season. Tools and equipment are a big investment, and they, too, need some attention before being put away for the winter. And, for the record, that does not mean we farmers are without anything to do during the colder season. It just means the outdoor farming phase closes for the year. There is still plenty of other work to be done.

» HAND TOOLS

» POWER TOOLS

Even those tools not sporting a motor require care for longevity. Shovels, rakes, hoes and such should be free of any dirt or rust, and then oiled, if appropriate, to prevent rusting over the winter. The edges of shovels and hoes may well benefit from sharpening before applying a thin coat of oil. If you are not fortunate enough to have a handyman father, skilled in sharpening knives, tools, and lawn mower blades, as I have, first remove any rust with steel wool and then use a piece of emery cloth to sharpen the edges.

Wooden-handled tools require some special attention. If the wood has rough or splintered places, a fine-grit piece of sandpaper may be used to smooth it out. Next, dampen a cloth with linseed oil and rub it into the wooden handle. The oil will seal and protect the wood.

Garden hose care is often overlooked, but replacing them each year can be costly. It is important to first drain any remaining water from the hose before storing it indoors for the winter. Make sure there are no kinks in the hose.

This has not been a good year for Carters and chainsaws. I personally own nine and my father has two. By the end of the season, we just decided to laugh at all of our comical mishaps.

I think there was always at least one that did not run — usually more.

Aside from the occasional chain that needed sharpening or slipped off, the major problems were spark plugs — our reserves now rival our friendly NAPA store — and carburetor issues. I had to have the carburetor in my pole saw rebuilt twice this year. Charlie Bailey, of Bailey’s Bait and Tackle near Nashville, can usually guess what is wrong before I say a word. According to Charlie, gas is the main culprit that causes the carburetor issues, so heed my words and drain the gas. While some people adhere to the practice of using a fuel stabilizer, I have decided I am going to start draining the gas in mine after each use in order to leave nothing to chance. By all means, do one (use a stabilizer) or the other (drain the gas) at the end of the season. While you are going over your chainsaws, it also makes sense to get chains sharpened and fill the bar chain oil reserve.

The same applies to other types of power equipment, such as tillers. Check the oil, drain the gas and sharpen the blades. Go the extra mile to give them a thorough cleaning for the season — it is nice to have them all clean when you get them out in the spring.

Equipment comes with an owner’s manual. Keep them all in a standard place, and take the time to read over the maintenance section to see if the manufacturer recommends anything else.

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» TRACTORS/ LAWN TRACTORS

» TRACTOR ATTACHMENTS

If you have the ability to store your If you have attachments for a tractor, equipment indoors, out of the weather, such as a field mower, plow, cultivator it puts you miles ahead. As with other or disc, that equipment may very well equipment, fall and winter are a great sit out in the weather for the winter. time to do annual maintenance on That does not mean that there is nothyour tractors. Change the oil and filing to be done to ready it, however. ters. If your equipment has a radiator, One of the most important things check the anti-freeze. that can be done is to TIP My father and I are get it off the ground going to make check by placing something Keep equipment lists for each piece flat underneath it, stored outside of my equipment to raise it up even a off the ground this winter, but one couple of inches. That by placing decision I have made way blades or shovels is to also change the something flat are not sitting in water hydraulic fluid (where underneath it. and do not freeze to applicable) each year. the ground. If you can Raising it up will That may not be necescover it with a tarp, ensure it’s not sary, but it does not that is even better. Fall sitting in water. hurt, and I want my is a great time to give equipment to last as your attachments a long as possible. At a minimum, thorough cleaning, grease or oil where check the level of hydraulic fluid. appropriate, and paint, if needed.

If the equipment will not be used A visual inspection will also let you over the winter, then it is a good idea know if you have parts that need to be to disconnect the battery cables and replaced. If the equipment sits outside, clean the terminals. You can also coat it is a good practice to go through the the terminals with a terminal protecsame drill again in the spring. tor. Many manufacturers of lawn tracOnce everything is winter ready, tors recommend storing the battery, you can sit back, breathe a deep sigh wrapped in a plastic bag, in a climateof relief, and then get busy planning controlled area or dry basement. for the spring and knocking off everyAgain, read your owner’s manual thing else on your to-do lists. and give your tractors a good cleaning.

Farming — it really is a great life!

Cheryl Carter Jones is an Indiana farmer and a board member of the Local Growers’ Guild, a cooperative of farmers, retailers and community members dedicated to strengthening the local food economy in central and southern Indiana through education, direct support and market connections.

For more information on the guild, visit localgrowers.org.

woes

winter

By Jessica Hoopengardner

I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge fan of winter. Winter on the farm can be hard. Winter is the period between milking the goats and kidding the goats. We stop milking (also known as “drying off”) the goats in December. The goat kids start arriving in March. So in January and February, nothing really eventful is happening. Basically we just try to keep them warm and healthy, so the goat kids will be healthy in the spring.

The biggest pain of winter, besides the cold or snow or ice, is hay. We bale our own hay in the summer and store it for the winter.

Since we have no pastures for the goats in the winter, we have to feed them hay. Let me tell you the one fact about hay that everyone should know: It gets everywhere. I am bound to find hay in my Carhartts, my boots, my pants and my hair when I go inside. Hay is also really pokey, and I promise it’s not very fun to have it down your pants.

Other than the hay, winter really isn’t that bad. As long as it doesn’t get bitter cold, we can still keep up with the needs of the farm. Snow doesn’t really bother the goats, but the mud that comes after the snow does. Ice also doesn’t bother the goats — they don’t mind wiping out. Really, the goats are quite adaptable.

The only time they don’t want to get up and go outside is when it is bitter cold. Goats grow plenty of down to keep them warm in

the winter, but sometimes that’s not enough when it gets into the negative numbers.

That bitter cold is always scary for us humans because we worry about the health of our goats. To keep them happy and content, we make sure they have plenty of clean water to drink. The goats actually consume more water in the winter than in the summer. We also have to give them plenty of that dreaded hay to ensure their rumen keeps working. Since goats are ruminants, they need to have roughage to keep their stomach in balance. In addition to hay and water, we give them a mixed grain, which gives them muchneeded protein and energy.

After we make sure the goats are content, my family often goes inside, makes some hot chocolate and watches the goats play in the snow from the comforts of our house. But we don’t get too comfortable, because we know we have to go back out in a couple of hours to check on the goats. That’s how winter works at my house.

Jessica Hoopengardner, above on her family farm, is a senior at Eastern Hancock High School in Hancock County. Very involved in 4-H and FFA, Hoopengardner is the vice president of her 4-H club and the president of her FFA chapter. She plans on going to college outside Indiana and majoring in English and biology.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 9

From the Field

Indiana Horticultural Congress provides many opportunities for farmers to network and learn

The

Big Event

Even in this age of webinars and phone conferences, there is really nothing that compares with a good, old-fashioned meet and greet. Such events not only allow for folks to talk and network — the educational opportunity is heightened by the hands-on, in-person sessions that are offered. In our region there are numerous conferences that are very worthy of taking the time to attend.

A word of caution, however: Such events can be addictive.

They bring folks together in a way that can feel like a family reunion and allow for conversations and connections that simply can’t take place through a computer. The most difficult part is figuring out which ones you should attend. So Indiana Horticultural look around at the options Congress & Trade Show and, if you can, take someone DATE with you so you can see and Jan. 20-22, 2015 hear as much as possible.

LOCATION Hoosier Organic Marketing Wyndham Indianapolis West, 2544 Executive Drive, Education (HOME) sponIndianapolis sors the Indiana Horticultural INFO Congress (IHC) & Trade Show. inhortcongress.org We’ve been participating since 1991 and providing organic workshops during the three-day conference for several years. Although HOME’s focus has historically been about organic production and certification, in the last few years we have been actively concentrating on the larger picture, including educating producers and handlers about issues that go beyond just organic farming and handling — like looking into regulations and alternative certifications and assisting people with finding funding for their operations.

From our perspective at HOME, it’s really not about just being “organic.” It’s about helping farmers understand and jump through the seemingly never-ending set of hoops sometimes placed in front of them.

At the coming IHC, we will be offering our typical presentations on organic production and handling, as well as a presentation on evaluating inputs for approval under the USDA National Organic Program. There will also be sessions on farming and economic development, grants and programs that help farmers, foraging and wildcrafting and an entire day dedicated to achieving wholesale success. On Jan. 20, a “Meet the Buyers” session is also planned so producers can talk directly to local buyers and determine their needs and potential markets.

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By Cissy Bowman

The free wholesale success session, which is funded in part and is made possible by a grant from USDA’s Risk Management Agency, is dedicated to helping producers with regard to post-harvest handling and on-farm food safety. Today’s markets require a great deal of professionalism — some of it regulatory. The goal of this session, which we are working with FamilyFarmed.org to present, is to get some real communication started so that Indiana’s producers can meet this growing market demand in a professional manner and to help them meet the regulatory requirements that are coming their way. Attendees of the entire Thursday session will receive a certificate that shows they attended the training session, as well as a wholesale success manual, which covers up-to-date best practices information on food safety, postharvest handling, packing, business management, marketing and crop-specific profiles for over 100 crops.

This entire conference is a wonderful opportunity to meet, greet and visit with some incredible Indiana producers and educators — folks you can learn from, who can help you identify your market potential and can tell you about proposed regulations that may affect you. It will provide an opportunity for you to understand the regulations that are coming your way and how to make sure you are in compliance. There will be updates on ongoing research, pesticide application recertification, sessions on agritourism, fruit and vegetable production and more.

If you register for the IHC, check the box for the Hoosier Organic Marketing Education as your “affiliated association” on your registration form. HOME is not a membership organization and does not ask for donations or fees. We are an equal opportunity provider, and we do not share mailing lists.

This information will simply allow us to evaluate how many people to expect and to create a contact list for invitations to future events. Including HOME on your registration form will help us continue our work at IHC.

The founder and program director of Hoosier Organic Marketing Education, Cissy Bowman has been growing food organically since 1973 and on her current farm, Center Valley Organic Farm, since 1983.

For more information on Hoosier Organic Marketing Education, email cvof@earthlink.net or call (317) 539-2753.

THE ORGANIC FIELD Several winter conferences help farmers grow their offerings

By George Kalogridis

George Kalogridis works for Ecocert ICO (formerly Indiana Certified Organics LLC). Ecocert ICO, a subsidiary of Ecocert Group, is the only USDA National Organic Program accredited certification agency in Indiana and operates across the United States and beyond. For more information, visit ecocertico.com.

THOUGH ORGANIC PRICES have come down from pre-harvest levels, the current prices offer a lot of hope for farmers who are signing contracts for crop year 2015. As of November, organic prices were recorded at Clarkson Grain in Cerro Gordo, Illinois, as: Corn $9.50 per bushel Soybeans $23 per bushel Wheat $12 per bushel Organic acres in the continental U.S. dropped in 2008 as conventional prices for commodity row crops became comparable to organic. Now that prices for conventional corn and soybeans are below the cost of production, farmers are looking to bring some of that acreage back into organic production. However, it takes three years to convert farm land that has had applications of synthetic pesticides back into organics.

Many farmers are looking for information on how to farm organically, and the winter months offer opportunities to attend workshops with courses designed for new organic growers. Here are several that we at Ecocert ICO will be attending this season.

DEC. 4-6 2014 Acres U.S.A. Conference & Trade Show Columbus, Ohio acresusa.com/events

JAN. 20-22 Indiana Horticulture Congress & Trade Show Indianapolis, Indiana inhortcongress.org

FEB. 5-7 2015 Missouri Organic Association Conference University Plaza Hotel and Conference Center, Springfield, Missouri moaconference.org

FEB. 6-7 Northern Indiana Grazing Conference

FEB. 26-28 2015 MOSES Organic Farming Conference La Crosse, Wisconsin mosesorganic.org/conference

MARCH 4 2015 Southern Indiana Grazing Conference Odon, Indiana daviesscoswcd.org

MARCH 5-7 2015 Indiana Small Farms Conference Hendricks County Fairgrounds, Danville, Indiana ag.purdue.edu

Michiana Event Center, Howe, Indiana lagrangeswcd.org

We will be available to answer questions or assist you with organic certification at any of these conferences. Meetings may be scheduled at the conferences or locally by contacting info.ecocertico@ecocert.com. For those who may not be able to make a trip during the winter months, you may also be interested in taking eOrganic webinars. For more information, visit eorganic.info.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 11

From the Field

THE VIEW AT NIGHTFALL

Give Thanks for the Seasons

T

BY KATIE GLICK

THE WHOLE SCENE WAS GOLD, full of sparkle as the wind blew. I stood still for just a moment, and it seemed as if it was the first time I had noticed them. I looked down at my feet and up at the trees to see golden leaves that seemed to sparkle with a little bit of sunshine when the wind hit them.

It was another harvest weekend, and I was home alone while my farmer husband was busy in the field. As I stood still for a moment (which rarely happens), I realized that I have so much to be thankful for this season and during all the seasons. There is gold and sparkle all year-round, not just in the fall.

As our farmers complete another harvest, another season, they are mindful of the next season that will be upon us soon and how that will affect their land, crops and animals.

Farmers live and die by seasons, and they learn to appreciate each one of them. All four bring their blessings and sometimes their misfortunes. Spring supplies warm weather to melt the snow and warm the ground so that farmers can plant their seeds and begin again.

Some farmers pray that a late frost doesn’t coat their crops and that rain doesn’t flood and wash tiny seedlings away. Farmer prayers in the summer might include timely rains in July and August. The harvest prayer is for safety in the fields, on the roads and at the farm, along with a bountiful harvest. Winter is a time to plan for the spring planting season, rest a little and care for the animals.

Growing up on a farm, I realized at a young age that my life revolved around the changing seasons and the various blessings and unfortunate events that came along with them. I will never forget the flood of 2008 and my father’s face as he stared in despair at our fields that had been consumed by water. Or the time in elementary school when my father couldn’t come to basketball games, fall book drives and chili suppers. It was harvest time, and it was our way of life.

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Dad’s anxious feelings during winter when spring seemed so very far away would sometimes drive us all crazy, and that late snowfall that blanketed the ground as the new seeds were just starting to grow was yet another setback. But each season taught us about how misfortunes of each season can help you appreciate the blessings of the next even more.

I lost my farmer dad in the middle of harvest. It was five years ago this fall when the tractors were still rolling in the fields and the grain dryer was buzzing through the cold, clear night air. But to this day we still celebrate his life during the harvest and during each season. His presence reminds me to be still for a moment every so often and to gather with friends and family with a grateful heart.

So when I look outside and see the snow this season, I will appreciate its sparkle and think of it as golden white. And tomorrow I will be grateful for this season and the seasons behind me and those still ahead.

As our Indiana farmers complete one season and prepare for another, gather around and give thanks for the food on your table … for those who planted it, nurtured it, harvested it, took time away from their families to provide it for you and who may have lost their lives doing it. Give thanks for the old farmers, the young farmers and the future farmers. Give thanks and be still this season, and every season, as you celebrate the blessing and misfortunes along with the gold and sparkle each one brings.

Katie Glick grew up on her family farm in Martinsville and now lives with her husband on their family farm near Columbus, where they grow corn, soybeans and wheat, and raise cattle and have a private seed company. She is a graduate of Purdue University and has worked in Indiana politics. She now works in the agriculture industry. She shares her personal, work, travel and farm life stories on her blog, Fancy in the Country.

Community Support

BY LIZ BROWNLEE

»My husband Nate’s fourth-grade teacher emailed us recently. She sent words of encouragement for what we are doing and ordered some of our pasture-raised meat.

At every turn, we find community members like her, reaching out to encourage us and help make our farm a success.

This month, I wanted to explain just how critical community support is to first-year farmers.

We moved back to Indiana at Christmas time in 2013. We had spent five years in Maine, New York and Vermont, mostly working on farms. In those communities, we had mentors, relationships with customers and other farmers, and a solid community of friends. We knew that when we moved home, we would have to rebuild these relationships, and we knew that that might be hard. But in true Midwestern fashion, we’ve received a warm welcome back to Indiana.

FARMERS AND NEIGHBORS Our first year of farming on our own simply wouldn’t be possible without our friends and neighbors. Instead of borrowing a cup of sugar, we tend to ask to rent equipment, borrow tools or ask for guidance and knowledge.

Sometimes, we ask well in advance and pay to, say, rent another farmer’s tractor to plant our pasture. We don’t need large equipment often, and they already own it.

When we do need a tractor, it’s helpful (and logical) to be able to rent from a neighbor.

Other times, we ask for help when we get stuck. Our requests sound something like this. “Yes, our new (used) truck is running fine. Any chance you know a trick for a stuck tailgate, though? We’re hauling chickens tomorrow, and it sure would be handy if the tailgate would open. We’ve tried everything we know to try.” The neighbor brings knowledge and WD-40, and the tailgate opens. In exchange for these little (but critical) bits of help, we offer to lend a hand or bring over some homemade pies or rolls.

Some might dismiss this neighborly helpfulness as old-fashioned. We call it an asset, for which we are incredibly grateful.

MONTHLY MEAT SHARES Any business needs customers, but some of ours are uniquely important. We sell at farmers markets and to restaurants, but we also run a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture program.

Customers become members of our CSA when they buy meat shares. A share can be one whole chicken per month or five pounds of pork, etc. We bring their shares to a pickup location each month, either at a farmers market or a local business.

This model benefits our customers and us. CSA members receive a 10 to 15 percent discount off retail prices.

Joining the CSA also ensures members have a steady supply of pasture-raised meat, without needing freezer space.

The CSA offers clear, community-minded benefits to us, too. CSA members pay for six or 12 months of meat upfront, which means that we have cash to help pay for the cost of raising their food when the bills are due (rather than getting the money after the fact). For example, our first four CSA

tions with members, either at pickup sites or when they visit the farm, inspire us.

ENCOURAGEMENT Some days, out of the blue, my cousin writes to ask how the farm is doing. She encourages us, asks questions and likes our pictures on Facebook. Her support buoys this first-year farmer, because it reminds me that we’re on an exciting and worthwhile track. My cousin is not alone. People stop us at market or send emails just to tell us that they like what we’re doing and to keep it up. We’re flattered and encouraged.

There are many lessons to learn in the first year of farming. This one is clear: Our community is our foundation and our future.

members paid our first feed bill (3,200 pounds of GMO-, antibiotic- and hormonefree feed). Beyond economics, we also get the chance to know new people and help connect them with the land. Conversa-

After years of gaining experience on other farms, Nate Brownlee and his wife, Liz, recently moved back to Indiana to start their own family farm, which they named Nightfall Farm. Here, they will share stories of the many trials, tribulations, successes and failures in running a new family business. For more on Nightfall Farm, visit nightfallfarm.com.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 13

winter markets

TO MARKET, TO MARKET Fresh produce brightens dreary days While Indiana denizens still engage in a bit of mid-winter California dreamin’, the culinary scene has changed considerably within the past few years: Winter farmers markets have sprung up like portobello mushrooms, offering produce, packaged and/or prepared food from October to as late as the following May, when summer markets reopen.

A winter farmers market, on-farm store, co-op or yearround bricks-and-mortar market is sure to be located in or near your neighborhood, so there’s no excuse to abandon healthy eating habits established the prior spring — or to disconnect from local growers who provide seasonal sustenance.

By CJ Woodring PHOTOS SUBMITTED

14 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

MARKET TIME

� Bush’s Market is one of the oldest in Indiana.

Established 85 years ago, the Columbus venue is open July through October, providing seasonal produce to local and regional shoppers.

But from the first of December through midMarch, the owners purvey a wide range of stateinspected pork products at their winter market.

Fresh pork, butchered on site at 4 a.m., is available to shoppers at 8 a.m., says principal Rick Bush.

The market was founded in 1929, when Bush’s grandfather, Henry Bush, and his uncle, Clarence Bush, began selling cucumbers at a small roadside stand. Pork production began during the 1930s and ’40s, when Henry Bush, a widower, engaged his five children in delivering it door-to-door.

Rick Bush says they’ve been operating from the current building, which includes a slaughterhouse, since about 1962, processing the same cuts of meat: backbone ribs and tenderloin. The most popular sellers are sage sausage and cube tenderloin, the latter a renowned Hoosier specialty.

Bush has seen two significant market changes within the past few years, he says: Lard sales have increased, and clientele has gotten younger.

“We now see the children and grandchildren of former clients shopping here, and that’s always encouraging,” he says.

“We always had a pretty broad base of customers, age-wise, and still have. I used to call them ‘independent thinkers’... people who would bother to come to a place that was different.”

Today’s shoppers, especially those adhering to restrictive diets, appreciate pre-packaged items, she says, because they know the food didn’t have any cross-contamination. And, increasingly, more local and regional residents have become independent thinkers, insisting on natural, locally sourced foods.

DO YOU CO-OP?

ON-FARM STORES

� Member owned and operated, early co-ops offered — as they still do — locally grown produce and sustainable foods. (The term “locally grown” varies by co-op, generally meaning anything grown or produced within a 60- to 100-mile radius.)

Three Rivers Co-op Natural Grocery has been a Fort Wayne mainstay since 1976. Now in its third location, the co-op has faithfully adhered to its original mission of dedication to quality. Whether locally or nationally sourced, produce is 100 percent certified organic.

Grocery coordinator Rosemary Mausser says when the store first opened, it carried a lot of bulk items –– herbs and spices were prominent –– and few packaged products. “We had very little produce and just a few local products, such as honey and cheese,” she says. “And at that time, ‘organic’ was just coming into being as a term.”

Although the store now stocks more packaged products than bulk items, demographics remain largely the same, she says.

BUSH’S MARKET

� On-farm stores generally are operational throughout winter, offering customers the same fresh, quality products that are normally grown, picked or produced on their land and available in warmer months.

In Huntington County, Seven Sons Family Farms & Co. produces and sells all-natural grassfed beef, pastured poultry and free-range pork, along with fresh eggs, cheese, butter, yogurt, dry goods, e.g., raw honey and maple syrup, and seafood.

Owned and operated by founders Lee and Beth Hitzfield, their seven sons and their families, the Roanoke-based enterprise operates within four states. The company has 13 Indiana pick-up locations and partners with Green BEAN Delivery to offer delivery service right to your door.

EAT YOUR GREENS

� Independent food stores or markets are in a class all their own, open year-round and offering natural and organic products and seasonal

winter markets

INDIANA 2014-15 WINTER FARMERS MARKETS produce. Seeds and Greens Natural Market & Deli, perhaps Indiana’s newest market, opened in October in New Albany.

Owner Stacey Freibert, a Floyd County native, says she wants to give southern Indiana residents –– who most often travel to Louisville, Kentucky, for natural foods –– a local option. But she doesn’t want to mislead customers regarding food sources.

“About 25 percent of my shelf items are from local suppliers; 75 percent are from other locations within the United States,” she says. “We also make our own deli and ‘grab-and-go’ items.”

Freibert says she buys only natural or organic foods, without GMOs or artificial coloring, through her distributor; however, shelves will be labeled so customers can tell the exact source.

TAKE YOUR PICK

� Before you head out, consider your destination: Whether summer or winter, all farmers markets and co-ops aren’t created equal.

Each has a distinctive personality and ambience, geared to attracting a specific shopper base.

Binford Farmers Market THREE RIVERS CO-OP NATURAL GROCERY

Lawrence North High School, north parking lot 7800 N. Hague Road, Indianapolis (317) 841-0755, binfordfarmersmarket.com Please consult website for select Saturday hours

Bloomington Winter Farmers Market Some markets offer music and other forms of entertainment. Co-ops most often distribute a monthly newsletter featuring new products and specials, and present on-site cooking demos, readings and related activities.

Some venues carry crafts, gift items and/or flowers and plants. Others are solely food markets, existing for serious fresh produce and meat shoppers. Still others are viewed as social destinations where family and friends gather.

Market offerings, of course, vary by season.

Keep in mind that smaller winter markets may offer, for example, organic coffee, baked goods, herbs and spices –– and little else.

Select the destination that best fits your needs.

Then to market, to market you go.

Harmony School gymnasium 909 E. Second St., Bloomington bloomingtonwinterfarmersmarket.com 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturdays, Dec. 6 through March 28 (closed Dec. 27)

Bush’s Market 7301 E. 25th St., Columbus (812) 379-9077, (812) 379-9906, facebook.com/BushsMarket 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1 through mid-March

Carmel Winter Farmers Market Indiana Design Center underground parking garage 200 S. Rangeline Road, Carmel carmelfarmersmarket.com 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, through mid-March

Daily’s Farm Market 2255 Jonathan Moore Pike, Columbus (812) 372-3276, dailysfarmmarket.com 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

Downtown Terre Haute Farmers Market Clabber Girl Museum and Bake Shop Ninth and Cherry streets, Terre Haute (812) 243-5922; downtownterrehautefarmersmarket.com 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, through May

Farm to Fork Market at Normandy Farms 7802 Marsh Road, Traders Point area, Indianapolis (317) 439-0714, farmtoforkmarket.org 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, through April 25

Farmers Market at Minnetrista 1200 N. Minnetrista Parkway, Muncie (765) 282-4848, minnetrista.net 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, through April

Fort Wayne Farmers Indoor Winter Market SEEDS AND GREENS

Parkview Field, 1301 Ewing St., Fort Wayne ftwaynefarmersmarket.com 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, through May

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 15

winter markets

Georgetown Market 4375 Georgetown Road, Indianapolis (317) 293-9525, georgetownmarket.com 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

Goshen Farmers Market 212 W. Washington St., Goshen (574) 533-4747, goshenfarmersmarket.org 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday year-round

Granger Farmers Market 12650 State Road 23, Granger grangerfarmersmarket.com 2 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday; 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday year-round

Farmers Market at the Fairgrounds Hancock County Fairgrounds 620 N. Apple St., Greenfield (765) 763-0246 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, through April

16 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

Indy Winter Farmers Market

The Downtown Farm Stand

The Platform West Wing of Indianapolis City Market 202 E. Market St., Indianapolis indywinterfarmersmarket.org 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, through April 25

185 E. Main St., Muncie 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sunday year-round (765) 288-3775, munciefarmstand.com

Jeffersonville Winter Farmers Market First Presbyterian Church gymnasium 222 Walnut St., Jeffersonville (812) 283-0301, jeffmainstreet.org 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, through May

New Albany Farmers Market 210 E. Third St., New Albany (502) 905-3640 10 a.m. to noon every other Saturday, through April 25; closed Dec. 20 through Jan. 17

Richmond Winter Farmers Market Elizabeth Starr Academy cafeteria 301 N. 19th St., Richmond (765) 993-8410, facebook.com/ RichmondWinterMarket 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every other Saturday, through March

The Green Market at Traders Point Creamery Seeds and Greens Natural Market & Deli 207 W. First St., New Albany (812) 944-3800, seedsandgreensmarket.com 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday

South Bend Farmers Market 1105 Northside Blvd., South Bend (574) 282-1259, southbendfarmersmarket.com 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday; 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday year-round

The D&R Market 105 N. Creasy Lane, Lafayette (765) 448-6196, dandrmarket.net 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday

9101 Moore Road, Zionsville (317) 733-1700, tpforganics.com Specialty markets opened 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily throughout winter

INDIANA FOOD CO-OPS

Bloomingfoods Elm Heights 614 E. Second St., Bloomington (812) 822-0235, bloomingfoods.coop

Bloomingfoods East 3220 E. Third St., Bloomington (812) 336-5400, bloomingfoods.coop

Bloomingfoods Ivy Tech 200 Daniels Way, Room C133, Bloomington (812) 822-0143, bloomingfoods.coop

Bloomingfoods Kirkwood

ON-FARM STORES

419 E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington (812) 336-5300, bloomingfoods.coop

Blue River Natural Foods

Bloomingfoods Near West Side 316 W. Sixth St., Bloomington (812) 333-7312, bloomingfoods.coop

City Foods Co-op 632 Main St., Lafayette (765) 746-6903, cityfoods.org

Lost River Market & Deli 26 Library St., Paoli (812) 723-3735, lostrivercoop.com

Maple City Market 314 S. Main St., Goshen (574) 534-2355, maplecitymarket.com

Purple Porch Co-op 123 N. Hill St., South Bend (574) 287-6724, purpleporchcoop.com

winter markets

6001 E. Road 500S, Greenfield (765) 763-0246

Engleking’s Country Beef Shop 9842 Road 350N, Charlottesville (765) 785-2842, englekingscountrybeefshop.com

Seven Sons Family Farms & Co. 15718 Aboite Road, Roanoke (877) 620-1977, sevensons.net

Tyner Pond Farm 7408 E. Road 200S, Greenfield (317) 446-5886, tynerpondfarm.com

Vogel Certified Organic Dairy Farm 1170 W. State Road 44, Franklin vogelcertifiedorganics.com

River City Food Co-op 116 Washington Ave., Evansville (812) 401-7301, rivercityfoodcoop.org

Three Rivers Food Co-op Natural Grocery 1612 Sherman St., Fort Wayne (260) 424-8812, 3riversfood.coop

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 17

From the Ground Up Don Villwock shows his appreciation of the land … both on and off the farm.

By Shawndra Miller Photography by Josh Marshall

If

you’ve ever enjoyed popcorn from a movie theater’s concession stand, you may have eaten a snack food grown by Don Villwock, Indiana Farm Bureau president. The same goes for microwave popcorn, Cracker Jack and popcorn sold by the Boy Scouts.

Villwock, whose Edwardsport-based farm operation spans 4,000 acres in four counties, grows popcorn varieties used for all four of these markets.

18 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

You might say he built his agricultural vocation from the ground up, as a third-generation farmer. “I was born on the farm and raised on the farm my whole life,” he says. “I went to Purdue with the full intention of returning to the farm, which I did in 1972, with a degree in farm management.”

He’s been farming ever since, expanding beyond the boundaries of the family farm to rent land in adjacent counties. In addition to

popcorn, he raises white corn, soft red winter wheat and soybeans. The white corn is made into cornmeal for tortilla chips, while the wheat becomes pastry flour for pasta and treats.

The soybeans are grown for seed.

MULTIPLE ROLES »Villwock expresses pride in his role as representative of Indiana’s agricultural base. Though he is somewhat unique in growing popcorn, many of

his concerns are no different from the 75,000 farmer-members who make up his constituency: On the day he’s interviewed, he’s fretting about yet another rainy October day. The wet fall has delayed harvest. The wait is extra worrisome for him because his crops take a few weeks longer than yellow corn to ripen for harvest.

Because the demands of his Farm Bureau work require his presence in Indianapolis, he relies on a farm

OPPOSITE PAGE | Don Villwock on his combine near his home in Edwardsport. ABOVE | Villwock with wife, Joyce.

RIGHT, FROM TOP | A restored barn on the farm. Villwock stands near one of his tractors that is being restored.

A sign hanging in one of Villwock’s barns.

manager and three full-time employees — not to mention his wife, Joyce — to keep the operation running smoothly.

“My wife is the accountant for the farm,” he explains, but then equivocates about reducing her role to just one thing. “She works extremely hard, so she needs a better title than that.”

His daily two-hour commute (“the worst part of the job”) and frequent out-of-state travel take him away from his first love of farming. Ironically,

“Our goal is to leave as much of the soil untouched as possible,” he says. “As long as there is plant life or residue from a previous crop on the soil, it leaves it protected from raindrops.”

—DON VILLWOCK

the tight schedule means he must now take vacation days to work the land.

But he’s never lost the deep passion for farming instilled in him as a child.

“All farmers — when you’re raised on a farm — from the day you can walk, you’re following your dad around on the farm,” he says. “You get to tag along, although maybe you’re in the way, but that’s what kids do.” (His own children, daughters Sarah and Betsy, used to ride on the tractor with

him. He proudly notes that though neither is actively involved in farming now, both can drive a combine.)

Growing up that way, he says, “you have an appreciation of the land and how important it is to take care of that.”

That background makes soil conservation a high priority for him.

His farm operation has been no-till for 30 years. “Our goal is to leave as much of the soil untouched as possible,” he says. “As long as there is FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 19

Villwock talks on the phone with a local farmer. Villwock has an airplane, which he flies to monitor crops and to go to work in Indianapolis when weather allows.

20 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

plant life or residue from a previous crop on the soil, it leaves it protected from raindrops.” With an average of 40 inches of rain a year in Indiana, soil erosion is a big problem.

On the most erodible land on his farm he uses cover cropping to further hold the soil in place. In late summer, cover crops, such as cereal rye grass, tillage radishes and oats, are aerial seeded in the fields. Between the rows of popcorn, white corn and soybeans, a green mat sprouts that remains until it’s sprayed in springtime.

“Not only does it protect the soil from erosion, which is our number one goal,” he says, “but number two, those plants … soak up any leftover nutrients in the soil, so they don’t leach out through the soil and get into the groundwater.” Cover crops also shade out competitors, leaving fewer weeds the following spring. Indiana leads the nation in adoption of cover crops, he says.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT | The Villwock farm has been recognized as a Hoosier Homestead farm. Villwock holds up a receipt to an antique bike hanging in a barn. The bike was purchased on Sept. 9, 1803, for $150 in Vincennes, at the E. B. Hunter Bicycle Repair Shop.

LEFT | He holds his favorite model tractor in front of a large collection of model tractors that are displayed in his home office.

BEYOND THE FIELD »Villwock’s favorite thing is to have his hands in the dirt. But a long list of awards and memberships testifies to his other life as a public figure, which he sees as a clear extension of his onfarm vocation. “I’m very fortunate,” he says. “This December I’ll be 64 years old, and I’ve really never had a job.”

He’s been a member of the 25 x ’25 Ag Energy Working Group, a national task force, for the past 10 years, recently retiring from the commission. The task force promotes the nation’s adoption of 25 percent renewable energy use by 2025. Because of the importance of agricultural land to several renewable fuels — from growing corn for ethanol and soybeans for biodiesel to installing wind turbines — the task force strives to inform policymakers about these technologies.

A development that particularly excites him is the use of methane digesters, which collect methane gas from

large hog and dairy operations’ manure lagoons. The methane gas is used to run a gas-powered generator, allowing the farmer to produce electricity.

Villwock emphasizes that a key goal is to replace imported oil with options produced here at home, while generating income for farmers in rural communities.

His desire to influence the direction of policy is why he ends up with long stretches away from his first love of farming. “I found out that I can’t just stay on the farm,” he says.

“In a democracy, you have to participate and you have to be involved.”

“So part of my heart, even though it wants to be home on the farm, knows that … somebody needs to make the sacrifice and come to town and be the representative, and right now that’s me.”

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FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 21

Changing the System Feel Good Farm feeds Green BEAN Delivery’s local food pipeline

BY REBECCA TOWNSEND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH MARSHALL

a

midst the fields of soybeans and corn, so common along the rural roads of Indiana, the thousands of broccoli plants — heads highlighted in deep, rich purple and standing tall on stocks festooned with green leaves — at Feel Good Farm capture the attention of more than a few passersby.

“We get lots of rubber-necking because it’s so unusual,” says Matt Ewer, 36, who leases and farms the organic produce operation near Sheridan in Hamilton County.

Many motorists stop to ask what Ewer is doing when he’s out in the fields. They also often ask if the broccoli is for sale. Unlike many Indiana vegetable growers, however, he does not operate a roadside produce stand; he does not even take the supply to the farmers market.

Instead, Ewer likens himself to a “glorified milkman,” too humble to admit that his work is helping to revolutionize Midwestern food systems. He uses the milkman analogy to help people understand that, in essence, he is carrying on a centuries-old tradition of loading up farm-fresh foods — like jugs of milk — and taking them to town for same-day delivery to customers’ homes.

Feel Good Farm operates hand in glove with Green BEAN (Biodynamic, Education, Agriculture, Nutrition) Delivery, which Ewer began with his wife, Elizabeth (Beth) Blessing, 37, in 2007. More than 100 farmers from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky direct their products to five regional Green BEAN food hubs where the goods are packaged before being distributed to customers’ doors year-round. In Indianapolis, the packaging takes place at

22 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

Green BEAN’s facility near Pendleton Pike and Interstate 465.

Green BEAN is not designed to compete against farmers markets and CSAs; it is primed to compete at a larger scale, explains Ewer, Green BEAN’s president and chief executive officer. Software enables members to customize orders for weekly or bi-weekly deliveries of produce online, and the customer base has been rising steadily. Green BEAN has grown by

more than 20 percent each year since its inception. Now serving more than 10,000 families throughout its Midwest markets, the company projects sales for 2015 to exceed $20 million.

Ewer’s wife uses her substantial knowledge of food and nutritional issues to guide the recipes and news she collects for Green BEAN’s blog, “Healthy Times.” The Noblesville native employs a bachelor of science in dietetics from Indiana Univer-

sity and a master’s in nutrition from Bastyr University in Washington to frame her approach — a bonus to customers in search of guidance on exactly what to do with their regularly delivered bins full of local food.

Ewer grew up in Marion. His parents owned a farm that the family leased but routinely occupied in the summertime, giving him a dual identity as a townie and a country kid. During those years, he began selling sweet

corn door-to-door from his little, red wagon. He also began to notice the disappearance of a lot of family farms he’d known around Marion.

“I made a lot of ice cream money,” Ewer recalls. “That started my passion for entrepreneurship and agriculture … (and) to create economic stability for family farms.”

After graduating from IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Ewer moved with Beth to Washington

OPPOSITE PAGE | Matt Ewer stands among rows of broccoli.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT | Stalks of kale. Submitted: Matt and

his wife, Elizabeth (Beth). Rainbow chard grows in a hoop greenhouse. Jose Ruiz (left) and Austin Collins wash turnips before they’re boxed and shipped to customers.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 23

state — where he managed a successful 300-acre, organic farm and Beth worked as a nutrition expert with the local extension service. In Washington, they began to hatch a plan to move back to Indiana to start a family and build their own organic enterprise.

In their research, they came across Steve and Anita Spencer, stalwart promoters of local agriculture through ventures such as Local Folks Foods, a line of homemade products featuring sauces — from tomato to barbecue to hot sauce. Spencer and his brother, Tim, represent the sixth generation of Spencers to farm the family’s 60 acres where Feel Good Farm is located.

Ewer called Spencer to discuss the possibility of working together in organic produce.

“Call me when you get back to Indiana,” Spencer told him.

Ewer did. He is now the first ever non-Spencer to farm the land, which has been in the family for 176 years.

Spencer started off as Green BEAN’s first vendor, selling his shiitakes

Turnips are ready for shipping to customers.

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24 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

through the company. But soon, he and Ewer hatched a plan to ramp up the farm’s produce production.

“This gave us an opportunity to get out of the rat race,” Spencer says.

The farm offers Ewer the personal satisfaction of providing his children, Izzy, 4, and Jesse, 2, the same luxury he enjoyed as a boy: being part townie and part country kid.

“The ability to bring my kids out here … the dream to have my own farm ... a connection with nature is important to me,” Ewer says. “Mother Nature is extremely humbling.

She’ll teach you who the boss is. …

It’s a tough business … very rough, tough, hard, hot, dirty, stinky.”

Still, he adds, “you see beautiful things working with nature.”

Spencer says he and Ewer “spent a lot of time working in the worst conditions for days on end, harvesting, cleaning and packing.” Those hours serve as a testament to their belief in nature’s ability to bear healthy, wholesome food in exchange for a commitment to prac-

tices such as crop rotation and cover crops of rye to break up and recharge the clay soils. So far, they’ve yielded a bountiful mix, including cherry tomatoes, lettuces, leeks, white turnips, peppers and blueberries, on the farm.

And Green BEAN has been successful in channeling these products to a growing consumer base. Combined with the offerings of dozens of other local operations, Green BEAN is solving distribution challenges that often prevent growers from scaling up their operations — and their revenue.

Ahead on the not-too-distant horizon rests the goal of expanding beyond Feel Good’s current 60 acres, growing into what Ewer said he hopes will be “the premiere certified organic brand in the Midwest.”

The company’s whole mission, he explains, “has been to grow consumer support and then grow back into the farm. This farm doesn’t even come close to working without Green BEAN Delivery, and Green BEAN doesn’t work without the farms. They come together.

An Overview of Green BEAN Delivery » Green BEAN’s new corporate headquarters at Interstate 70 and Emerson Avenue in Indianapolis includes a 35,000-square-foot building featuring 25,000 square feet of warehouse and production space.

The company employs more than 200 people. CEO Matt Ewer says he encourages his employees to “think outside the bin” as they create and grow food systems that build opportunities for family farms.

Since its inception, Green BEAN has donated more than 250,000 pounds of food to combat local hunger through partner organizations such as Gleaners Food Bank and Second Helpings.

to the Cincinnati Zoo on the condition it remain in agriculture. Now in its second growing season on the land, Green BEAN directs some of its produce to its Cincinnati distribution hub; another portion is directed to the zoo for use in feeding the animals. » Tiny Footprint Distribution, which collects and distributes locally produced goods made sustainably and without artificial ingredients or preservatives. Just as Green BEAN Delivery does with fresh food, Tiny Footprint does with items such as barbecue sauce and herbal tea. “Our retailer partners of all sizes are looking to stock their shelves with unique and saleable local products. We simply connect the dots, and everyone benefits in the process,” the Tiny Footprint website explains.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

Green BEAN Delivery includes: » Two farms: Feel Good Farm in Indiana and Ec-Ohio, a 60-acre property bequeathed

greenbeandelivery.com or tinyfootprintdistribution.com.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 25

Family Trees 26 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

Managing the farm is an old-fashioned team effort for the Peiffer family

By Ryan Trares Photography by Josh Marshall

T

THE PEIFFER family is ready for the Black Friday rush.

But it’s not fancy electronics or the hottest toy that is on their minds.

Rather, the Peiffers are prepared for the onslaught of customers hoping to pick out their own Christmas trees.

Families will drive out to the Peiffer Christmas Tree Farm just north of Nineveh and trudge through the fields with a saw in hand until they find the perfect tree for their holiday season.

“That’s really grown into one of our biggest days,” says Sue Peiffer, who operates the farm with her husband, Joe. “So many people spend Thanksgiving at one house, then Christmas at another, that people want to make sure they’re ready right away for whichever half of the family is coming.”

The Christmas season has become a year-round endeavor for the Peiffers.

The family prepares for the month-long window of tree sales with a constant rotation of work, from replanting new saplings in the spring to mowing competing vegetation during the summer to cutting down stumps of trees that have been harvested.

“It’s not a quick crop. It can take at least seven years sometimes to bring a tree to cutting size,” Sue says. “It’s not like corn where you’re planting the seed and harvesting in a few months.”

When customers come to the farm, they are provided with a handsaw and given free rein of the mature trees.

Families wander through the rows,

looking for the perfect combination of cone shape, full boughs and sturdy branches to hold ornaments.

“We can help you if you want, but most people really do prefer to do it themselves,” Sue says.

Part of the charm of cutting your own Christmas tree is the experience.

Customers tramping through the field in the early morning have startled rabbits, birds and sleeping deer, and on rare occasions, sandhill cranes fly overhead with their cackling call.

“It’s a more natural feel,” Sue says. “We try to keep a nice boundary of wildflowers along the edge, so we have good pollinators to keep nice, healthy environments.”

The farm was founded decades ago, after brothers Joe, Jim and Tim Peiffer all decided to work together on the project.

Tim was a forestry major in college and suggested that starting the tree farm would be a good side business. Joe had the land, and they started planting a combination of evergreen trees suited for central Indiana’s climate.

The largest trees are the white pines, which have long, soft needles and a bluish-green color. Roly-poly Scotch pines and prickly spruce trees are also spread throughout the farmland.

Canaan firs are a naturally occurring hybrid from the southeastern U.S., which combines the look and aroma of traditional fir trees with hardiness ideal for Indiana weather.

OPPOSITE PAGE | Joe Peiffer points out the differences among the many trees. ABOVE | A white pine Christmas tree. BELOW | Peiffer pulls back tall grass to expose a young Christmas tree.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 27

Peiffer inspects Christmas trees that need to be trimmed. After trimming, only one lead will remain at the top of the tree. INSET | A handful of pine cones, also for sale at the farm.

Peiffer Christmas Tree Farm Operators—

Joe and Sue Peiffer Location—

1185 E. County Road 600S, Franklin, (317) 459-3278 Hours—

9 a.m. to dark Nov. 28 to 30, Dec. 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21; weekdays call for an appointment Typical size—

5 to 9 feet

The entire farm is 40 acres, with a portion set aside to grow soybeans and other row crops.

Since it’s on their property, most of the upkeep throughout the year falls to Joe and Sue. They fit the work into the schedules of their other careers. Joe owns a painting business and farms, while Sue is a horticulturist and greenhouse supervisor at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. As soon as the snow has melted and the ground has thawed, the Peiffers begin the planting season. Assessing where trees had been cut and which species need to have added numbers require constant monitoring year to year.

“You have to refresh every year, fill in the gaps,” Sue says.

Seedlings are imported from Michigan, where the small trees have established a good growing base in sandy soils ideal for pines.

By mid-June, it’s time to prune.

28 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

“We try to keep a nice boundary of wildflowers along the edge, so we have good pollinators to keep nice, healthy environments.””

—Sue Peiffer

Workers clip the branches to ensure they keep the traditional cone look. White pines and Scotch pines, in particular, need to be watched for rogue branches.

While the trees are moderately drought resistant, it can be necessary in times of extreme summer dryness to water the crop as well.

“As far as agriculture crops go, it’s one that requires some of the least input,” Sue says of the trees. “You don’t have to do heavy fertilization or heavy herbicides. From that standpoint, it’s a very nice thing.”

But during the winter rush, the whole family converges at the farm to help with the busy season.

Family members make wreaths of trimmed pine boughs. Others head into the field to cut down stumps that pose

a hazard for subsequent customers.

They need to help with the sawing of the trees, hauling them to the parking lot, bundling them in netting and tying them to car roofs.

The work can be intensive. But there’s a sense of community that the Peiffers wouldn’t get to share otherwise.

“It forces families that don’t live together to come together, share meals and have a nice time working hard together,” Sue says.

“It’s kind of old-fashioned.”

Choosing the Right Christmas Tree Scotch Pine

Pine-like to more round, depending on shearing NEEDLE LENGTH: 1.5 to 3 inches COLOR: Natural winter green BRANCH STIFFNESS: Good for ornaments FRAGRANCE:

FORM: Cone-shaped

Eastern White Pine FRAGRANCE: Pine-like FORM: Cone

or pyramid shape to 5 inches COLOR: Light green BRANCH STIFFNESS: Not stiff — ornaments will droop NEEDLE LENGTH: 2.5

Douglas Fir FRAGRANCE: Sweet

and fragrant to more round, depending on shearing NEEDLE LENGTH: 1 inch COLOR: Natural green BRANCH STIFFNESS: Moderately stiff — can handle ornaments, but not heavy ones FORM: Cone-shaped

Fraser Fir

FRAGRANCE: Pleasant

scent Can be perfect cone shape, or steep and narrow NEEDLE LENGTH: 1 inch COLOR: Dark green needles with silvery underside BRANCH STIFFNESS: Stiff — good for ornaments FORM :

Canaan Fir

FRAGRANCE: Traditional

fir smell Can be perfect cone shape, or steep and narrow NEEDLE LENGTH: 1 inch COLOR: Dark green needles BRANCH STIFFNESS: Moderately stiff — can handle ornaments, but not heavy ones FORM:

White Fir FRAGRANCE:

Citrus

FORM: Round NEEDLE LENGTH: 2

inches green BRANCH STIFFNESS: Stiff — good for ornaments COLOR: Silverish

Blue Spruce FRAGRANCE: Pungent FORM: Pyramid

shaped, often stocky and heavy inches COLOR: Distinctive blue-green BRANCH STIFFNESS: Stiff — good for ornaments NEEDLE LENGTH: 1.5

Norway Spruce Pungent shaped NEEDLE LENGTH: 1.5 inches FRAGRANCE:

FORM: Pyramid

COLOR: Light

green

BRANCH STIFFNESS: Stiff

— good for ornaments

— PURDUE UNIVERSITY FORESTRY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 29

The

Accidental

Farmer LINDA PROFFITT TEACHES OTHERS ABOUT AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING

By Shawndra Miller

photography by josh marshall

Passing a hammer to a ponytailed college student, Linda Proffitt exhorts everyone lining the length of Peaceful Grounds’ 100-foot hoop house to pull the plastic sheeting tight. The urban farming center’s founder and a dozen students are sealing the hoop house on this blustery fall day.

Though she calls herself an “accidental farmer,” Proffitt is perfectly at home in work gloves and ball cap as she directs the volunteer labor at the demonstration farm at Marion County Fairgrounds. On the far side of the hoop house are long raised rows of vegetables and herbs. On the other side, bordering the Cattle Barn, are several mobile chicken tractors containing layer hens.

Some 75 IUPUI students have come to Peaceful Grounds Center for Agriculture and Sustainable Living to lend a hand on this day of service. Working in wind and drizzle, they pull spent plants, shovel compost and wield hammers and drills in service of the cause.

Along the way they’ll learn about the importance of red wiggler worms, whose dietary needs and bathroom habits are key to safely and productively growing food, especially in an urban setting.

By the end of the day, both soft and hard plastic will be tacked to the hoop house wall and further bolstered by a bank of compost, or a “worm zone,” as Proffitt calls it. Just in time, because the temperature is expected to dip close to freezing after dark.

“Last year, through these means, you guys,” she tells the students, “this house was 100 degrees with 2 feet of snow on the ground.”

Proffitt’s center, which was designated a regional outreach and training center by urban farming champion Will Allen in 2011, has hosted countless groups like this. They bring their service and take home inspiration from the model of urban agriculture.

In fact, the place is entirely volunteer-created, from the hoop house to the compost heaps to the interior of the Cattle Barn, also known as “Worm Central,” or Peaceful Grounds Village. Its volunteer-built stage has hosted events ranging from local vaudeville act Blue Monkey Sideshow to rustic weddings.

“How do you explain a miracle?” Proffitt says, shaking her head.

Every week, large groups of people — some from as far away as Texas — come to participate in her mission. They find their way to her through church mission opportunities, youth groups and university groups, and their contributions are legion.

30 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

In its first year alone, Peaceful Grounds benefited from the energy of 2,000 youths, who worked nearly 19,000 hours to help set up the center, then located in Southport.

And just one month into this semester, 600 students have so far come to offer their skills and time to the cause, all while learning about urban agriculture.

Lyla Mahmoud, Proffitt’s right-hand woman for the school year, is a recipient of IUPUI’s Sam H. Jones Community Service Scholarship, earning her an internship at Peaceful Grounds. The pre-law student coordinates teams every Saturday, learning leadership skills while expanding her agricultural skills. She envisions a career in environmental law and expects the experience she gains here to serve her well.

That suits Proffitt, who is not only in the business of growing plants and building the soil that supports them, but nurturing leaders as well.

“The more continuity we have, like Lyla, the better,” she says.

“The more people that are here that know what’s happening, the better.”

Continuity is also provided by community members like Gena Landers, who lives in a subdivision just on the other side of a field across from Peaceful Grounds. Landers had never given much thought to how her food was grown until a sleepless night prompted her to turn on her television. As it happened, “Food Inc.” was being aired. The documentary opened her eyes to the consolidation of the meat and grain industries, and disturbed her deeply.

When she happened to notice signs for Peaceful Grounds, she found the answer to her newfound worries.

Landers says that when she walked in and met the center’s founder, she felt she’d known Proffitt all her life. After taking a tour and learning about Peaceful Grounds’ mission of building soil and teaching people, she was ready to sign on as a regular helper. Now she stops by every day to check on the chickens and spends several hours every Sunday doing whatever needs to be done to free Prof-

A helper at Peaceful Grounds collects eggs.

LEFT | Linda Proffitt sits with her beagle at her worm “help” stand that is modeled after Lucy’s stand in the “Peanuts” comic strip.

fitt’s time for administrative tasks. She’s frequently a team leader on work days like today.

Landers is excited to be part of the solution. “We’re going to have to learn how to get back to nature and respect the ground that our food comes from,” she says. “We have to nurture it, take care of it.”

For her part, Proffitt loves seeing people connect around food.

“The love that is expressing itself through the service of so many people is a reflection of what life on the farm is supposed to be,” Proffitt says. “It’s supposed to be a loving stewardship of the earth itself. Many people want to reconnect to that communion with the earth. That’s the heart of it, isn’t it?”

Peaceful Grounds is the outgrowth of a mission that began nine years ago when Proffitt founded Global Peace Initiatives, an organization dedicated to engendering peace and mindfulness.

But its story starts even earlier. Though born and raised in Indiana, Proffitt lived in Palm Beach, Florida, for several years before moving back to the Hoosier state in the early 1980s. She likes to tell a story about Florida friends’ reactions to the news that she was moving home to Indiana. “They looked at me like, ‘Are you crazy?’

Because it’s Palm Beach, Florida, for God’s sake!”

And her flippant response proved to be prescient. “‘I’m moving home to be a farmer,’” she recalls saying. “It was a joke, in 1984, to my buddies in Palm Beach.”

Cut to a few years later, after she received her master of social work from IUPUI, lived overseas and returned home again to work for Gleaners Food Bank.

In this initial foray into food security, she coordinated Gleaners’ supplemental food program. Galvanized to bring more mindfulness and peace into the lives of city dwellers, in 2006 Proffitt started Global Peace Initiatives.

The nonprofit’s projects grew in scope over the ensuing years, but it all started with peace hikes through neighborhoods plagued by high vacancy rates. Sowing sunflower seeds in the shape of a peace sign in a vacant lot led to the idea of growing food for the hungry.

Proffitt had recognized the difficulties in cultivating peace when bellies are empty. So she partnered with local churches and schools to create 49 peace gardens, each linked to a food pantry.

But that experience led her to a bigger issue that would eventually result in Peaceful Grounds. Indianapolis soils held high levels of lead and arsenic. Not only that, but basic agricultural skills were

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 31

CLOCKWISE | Gloves hang from the barn walls ready for volunteers to arrive. A pile of vermicompost that will be used around the Peaceful Grounds property. Proffitt stands in the large instruction room in the Peaceful Grounds barn at the Marion County Fairgrounds.

Handmade signs inform visitors about agriculture at Peaceful Grounds.

woman says. “There are houses right over there.” lacking as fewer people were accustomed to growing their own Proffitt, addressing the entire group from the stage, refood. Proffitt began to see the need for a teaching/learning center. minds them that she herself was an IUPUI student some years “The peace gardens all told us we needed a center to teach that back. “So believe that you can be an enwas robust and could help connect the dots trepreneur and change the world.” between environmental stewardship, grow“THE LOVE THAT IS EXPRESSING The world-changing may step up a ing safe food and soil preparation,” she says.

ITSELF THROUGH THE SERVICE notch in the near future: Proffitt is in Now she connects the dots with talks to provide consulting services to hands-on helpers like these students, OF SO MANY PEOPLE IS A large-scale farmers looking to transiwho gather in small groups at the REFLECTION OF WHAT LIFE ON tion to sustainable practices. “What we end of their session to share insights THE FARM IS SUPPOSED TO BE.” know is that we have a prototype, and they gleaned from the experience. our prototype can be applied to larger “A lot of work goes into growing food,” —LINDA PROFFITT growing environments,” she explains. says a youth in a crisp white shirt.

“It’s a gift to be involved with farming,” she says, noting that “When you get enough people together, you large-scale farmers may hold the key to local food security. “You can do things faster,” says another student. get reattached to the earth and provide something people need.”

“It’s been really interesting to learn about this place — to For more information, visit globalpeaceinitiatives.net. know that this is right in the middle of the city,” a young

32 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

The Worms Crawl In “I think everybody in an urban environment should have a little worm environment going on,” says Linda Proffitt. “It only takes a tablespoon once a month to give a plant the fertility it needs to be productive.”

At Peaceful Grounds’ demonstration farm, the small worm bins people normally associate with vermicompost have been usurped by large piles and rows, some marked with things like “Thank a Worm” and “9-Month Habitat.”

Several enormous compost heaps are held elsewhere on the fairgrounds. The scale is necessary because each week Proffitt composts more than 10 tons of “beer mash,” or spent grain, from local brewers Rock Bottom and Black Acre, mixing in enough wood chips to maintain a 50/50 nitrogen/carbon ratio.

The worms enter the picture later on, once the compost stops reaching a peak temperature of 160 degrees. “(The piles) reach a place where they don’t come to temperature as much,” she explains. “If you turn it every four days when it comes to temperature, you can make 29-day compost.”

Limited mechanization at this point means Peaceful Grounds’ compost gets turned less often, but the goal is the same. “The mixing and the turning are all part of baking a cake,” she says. “If you don’t stir your cake batter, you’re going to have clumps.” Stirring allows all parts of the pile to heat up.

“And the worms are like Clabber Girl,” she says. “It’s the extra ingredient … that gives fertility to compost.”

After the piles cycle through the temperature peaks, she inoculates them with red wigglers or allows them to migrate there on their own.

The result — after the worms digest the material for 90 days — is a potent soil amendment. “You can have straight carbon/nitrogen compost, and that’s great,” she says. “But when worms digest the nitrogen, then … you have the carbon fixing process, which breaks the wood down and gives this beautiful compost.”

The last step for the finished vermicompost involves sifting in a giant tumbler. Fine worm castings and a coarser potting mix are the end product. Both are used in-house and as products that are sold to raise funds for the center.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 33

Herd Mentality

Nellie of Shady Creek Herding.

34 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

Shady Creek Herding’s Karen Newhall encourages dogs to follow their instincts

BY KAY JERNIGAN MCGRIFF | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH MARSHALL

K

KAREN NEWHALL stands in the corner of a green pasture. She gives commands to Nellie, her black and white border collie: “Here, Nellie, bye, walk in.” Nellie responds instantly to each command. She streaks across the pasture to the herd of 24 sheep milling by the far fence. Within a few seconds, Nellie has turned the herd. The sheep thunder across the grass while Nellie keeps a watchful eye from behind. With alert eyes, she anticipates the movement of any sheep that might stray from the herd and heads it off. The entire process takes barely 30 seconds.

“Lie down,” Newhall commands.

Nellie drops to her belly but stays focused on the sheep. Without any seeming effort, Nellie holds the sheep in position where they surround Newhall.

“Because she keeps them right here, I can do anything I want with them,” she explains. “Now I can handle each and every sheep and can do whatever I need, whether vaccinating, deworming, sorting.”

Today Shady Creek Herding, which lies between Rushville and Connersville, is a working sheep farm with a year-round flock of 25 breeding ewes. During the spring and summer, the flock swells to up to 70 ewes and lambs. It is also home to three horses, four dogs, two barn cats and a flock of chickens. Newhall also welcomes dog owners to bring their dogs to try teaching them to herd through her company, Shady Creek Herding.

Newhall first bought the 26-acre farm in 2002 to have room for her horses. Soon after purchasing the farm, she added sheep.

“I’d had sheep growing up, and I have friends with sheep and everything, so it just made sense to add on some sheep to help with grass harvesting,” she says.

Newhall started with a flock of 10 Katahdin sheep that she purchased from a farm in Pennsylvania. She chose Katahdin sheep because they are a hardy, low-maintenance breed. Developed by a grower in Maine, they are raised for meat production and grow hair instead of wool. Katahdin sheep mature slowly and so do not have to be castrated. Neither do they need their tails docked. Because of this treatment, the rams are considered kosher.

Newhall sells most of the rams to a buyer from New Jersey who sells to the ethnic market. She sells the ewe lambs

to local farmers who wish to start or replenish a flock of their own.

Even though the breed is low maintenance, her first sheep had not been handled much by humans and proved difficult at first.

“It was an all-day event to do anything with the sheep, so I knew I needed a working dog to help.”

Newhall brought Nellie on to help work the sheep in 2009. Since she knew nothing about training a herding dog, she bought a book to learn the vocabulary and some exercises. Then it took practice.

“I’ve got thousands of hours invested in her,” she explains. “The first year I had her, I worked her on sheep every day, literally every day. Through the winter we were out here in the snow and flashlights in the dark because I made the commitment ... that I wanted to get a dog.”

In 2012, Newhall added a second border collie, Ruby, who is still in training. Her background from cattle

Newhall gives commands to her border collie, Nellie, as they work together to drive the sheep.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 35

Nellie and Ruby wait for Newhall to give the command to enter the sheep pasture.

lines gives her intensity when working with sheep. Zoe, a stray left at the farm, has no interest in herding sheep but is the resident farm dog. The last dog to join the farm was Hank, a Great Pyrenees. Newhall brought him to the farm to serve as guard dog for the sheep.

“I’ve had a problem with feral dogs, neighbors’ dogs, and there are coyotes in the area,” she explains. “I can tell when there’s stuff going on because he will bark, and he works the fence. He’s constantly on guard at night. During the day, he’s pretty quiet and asleep.”

In addition to herding sheep, Nellie and Ruby are also certified therapy dogs with Pet Partners. They visit local nursing homes and were the first dogs to go to Riley Hospital for Children as part of its pet therapy program. They visit with staff, parents and patients.

“Nellie especially is phenomenal with the kids,” Newhall says. “She’ll just get in bed and snuggle, you know,

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“I’ve got thousands of hours invested in her. The first year I had her, I worked her on sheep every day, literally every day.

Through the winter we were out here in the snow and flashlights in the dark because I made the commitment ... that I wanted to get a dog.”

—KAREN NEWHALL

do tricks. Whatever they want to do, she’s like, all right, let’s do it.”

Newhall opened Shady Creek Herding to work primarily with border collies and other herding breeds, but she is open to other breeds as well. Working with the sheep not only physically exercises the dogs, but it also exercises them mentally.

Newhall spends one to two hours in a typical session with a dog and owner. Dogs do not need to have any herding experience before coming, but it is helpful if they know basic commands. In order to learn to herd, a dog must have a natural instinct for it. Newhall can quickly determine if a dog has the natural instinct though younger dogs may need a little more time to adjust to meeting sheep for the first time. Newhall aims to end each session with a positive experience.

Since each dog reacts differently, she adjusts accordingly.

Shady Creek Herding

2764 S. Bird dogs to continue the herd“It’s just dog by dog,” Sanctuary Road, ing experience. Ken Shuck she explains. “And every Connersville of Seymour has brought his time I do it, I do something (765) 960-5081, four border collies to Shady different, whatever works shadycreekherding.com Creek Herding several for that particular dog.” times over the past year and Nellie has grown into half. Two dogs — Gabby and Annie — the role of Newhall’s assistant in trainshowed little instinct for herding. He ing new dogs. She has learned to wait was surprised when his other dogs — and watch while the new dog learns to Clancy and Keely — showed a strong move the sheep. If the new dog makes instinct for it. a mistake and scatters the sheep, Nellie “It was very exciting to watch,” is ready to gather them back together.

Shuck says. “It almost would bring Newhall’s son, Justin, also helps by tears to your eyes to watch them do the taking photographs of the dogs and sheep things they were bred to do.” in action, later adding them to the comWhether farmers are acquiring a pany website and Facebook page. new flock of sheep or dog owners are “What I find interesting is each and looking for a new experience with every dog works sheep differently,” their dogs, Newhall encourages them Justin says. “Even their work ethics are to try herding. different. Like Nellie and Ruby work “It’s not hard,” she says. “But you the sheep very hard. They move them need to understand sheep, how sheep quickly, where other dogs move them work, and you need to understand real slow and methodically.” dogs and how they work.”

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In the Classroom Local FFA chapters

SUPPORT NETWORK Clinton Central’s FFA chapter helps guide students to new opportunities

By Catherine Whittier | Photography by Josh Marshall

Clinton

Central Junior and Senior High School is located a couple of miles outside Michigantown, along State Road 29 in Clinton County. The school is surrounded by fertile farm fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. Grand old trees and occasional buildings dot the vast landscape. Like clockwork, the crops make their transition from vibrant green to rustic amber before giving way to the men and machines that rumble in to gather the harvest.

38 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

The endless acres of turned dirt rest under the frost for the winter.

Agriculture teachers and FFA advisers to Clinton Central, Roger Carr and Megan Anderson say that strong tradition, rich history and ardent support have built and sustained the Clinton Central FFA chapter. The surrounding fields were farmed by some of the chapter’s earliest members, who continue their involvement with FFA as alumni.

Over 250 of Clinton Central Junior and Senior High School’s 458 students

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT | A checklist to grade meat. Teacher Roger Carr helps students judge meat. Students from Megan Anderson’s fundamentals of agricultural science & business class hold the FFA emblem at Clinton Central High School.

are currently taking agriculture classes — approximately 100 of them are FFA members. The majority of Clinton Central students take the required Fundamentals of Agriculture class during their seventh- or eighth-grade year.

Carr, co-FFA adviser, teacher and president of the Indiana Association of Agricultural Educators, insists that “every seventh-grader needs to know something about food production. They need to understand the tax system, the value of a farmer and the value of agriculture.”

Carr claims that while students may not have an initial interest, “in the end, they love taking agriculture class.”

Anderson, Carr’s teaching and advising counterpart, says that much productive recruiting happens in the Fundamentals of Agriculture class, as students learn how FFA and agriculture education can be relevant and applicable to everyone, even those with no farm connection.

Anderson remembers scratching her lesson plan one day to talk with a middle school class about how the study of agriculture and involvement in FFA is more about leadership potential, getting jobs and science than it is about the stereotypical ideas about farming. “I had 10 or 15 more students sign up that day, so it’s about showing them how FFA is applicable to their lives. ... We do have a lot of traditional farm kids, absolutely, and this community is very much a farming community, but many students are beginning to realize that the study of agriculture is not strictly for those with large farming operations,” she says.

Anderson teaches a lot of advanced and applied biology in her classes.

For instance, her horticulture class, which offers dual credit through Ivy Tech Community College, studies the digestive systems and structures of live insects so that students can better understand how to control pests in the greenhouse. Students enrolled in the Advanced Animal Biology and Physiology class are eligible to receive dual credit through Purdue University. The agriculture program exposes students to broad areas of potential interest and related career fields.

Participation in FFA activities can help students explore those interests,

Clinton Central’s Agricultural Shop

Students’ work shows the digestive system.

“Hall of Champions” case in the hallway.

as well as catapult their skills and competencies in a variety of areas.

Ninth-grade student Katie Faulkner, who has no farm connection, remembers that she really enjoyed taking the Fundamentals of Agriculture class and especially liked the science aspect. She entered her first FFA speech contest last year and will soon run the aquaculture tank, under Carr’s supervision, as part of a supervised agriculture experience at the school. Katie will study whether fish grow better in warm water or cold water, among other things. As a result of her exposure to agriculture education, she also decided to plant her first garden over the summer. She grew green beans, corn, tomatoes and cabbage, among other things, and while there wasn’t enough to sell, she says there was enough to feed her family. She is now involved in crop judging and plans to study to be a nutritionist at Purdue University.

Carr believes that traveling to compete in contests with FFA is one of the best experiences young people can have. Clinton Central FFA has had numerous teams advance to the national level in competition. He says that in his 31 years of teaching, he has had at least one team compete at the national level each year, and they have most consistently excelled at that level in the areas of livestock and meat judging, as well as in FFA leadership contests.

In the meat cuts contest, “FFA competitors must be able to identify 200 different meat cuts,” Carr boasts, “and my students know them all.

They know every cut, how to cook it and where it comes from. Does it come from the chuck, the loin or the rib? It takes a lot of practice.”

While meat, livestock and FFA leadership have brought a great deal of success at the national level, Carr especially enjoys encouraging students to participate in career development events (CDEs). He believes students are honored to be asked to explore opportunities, especially in areas where they show potential.

Carr says that one of his main objectives as an agriculture teacher and FFA adviser at Clinton Central is to “teach kids how to work hard, how to set high goals and to expect a lot of themselves.”

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 39

“...every seventh-grader needs to know something about food production. They need to understand the tax system, the value of a farmer and the value of agriculture.”

—ROGER CARR

Carly Sanders leads the class in a mock FFA chapter meeting.

40 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

He believes that if he can get students to do those three things, through demonstrations, livestock or meat judging, public speaking, community service or any other area they choose, he will have done something great.

Armenda Boyer, now a junior at Purdue, says that her participation in an agriculture communications career development event had a major impact on the choices she made for her future.

She remembers being very hesitant to join FFA. Boyer grew up on a farm where her brother and sister showed pigs. “I wanted nothing to do with that,” she says emphatically. Until a few months before she graduated from high school, Boyer planned to study to become a pharmacist and was considering Butler University. However, her positive experience at the agriculture communications CDE during

her senior year caused her to rethink her plan and make a switch. “My ag teacher and FFA adviser, Mr. Carr, encouraged me to participate in this contest,” she says. “Now, I’m majoring in agricultural communication, and I can attribute much of my current passion for agriculture to my experience in the Clinton Central FFA chapter.”

Carr asked Rachel Stowers, now a freshman at Purdue, to consider giving public speaking a try. “I was a timid child,” Stowers says. Public speaking would not have been a choice she would have made naturally without strong encouragement and support. She quickly developed a love for public speaking and explains that her participation in CDEs and other FFA activities shaped her choices with regard to higher education. Stowers chose to study agricultural economics, which she says is a broad major that offers many opportunities.

Carr also enjoys participating in livestock contests and believes that

working with livestock is beneficial to the classroom. For the past 11 years, Clinton Central has participated in the Stockman Livestock Judging contest.

This event, which Carr started and brought to Clinton Central with him, draws competitors from over 20 states.

This year, the Clinton Central FFA chapter was able to purchase six lambs to take to the judging competition.

The chapter also purchased all of the provisions necessary to care for the lambs. Having animals on site allows classes to take advantage of different opportunities through practical application. Some students prepared for the contest by learning how to care for and evaluate lambs for the quality of their meat by feeling for fat versus muscle, while other students learned how to do tests to check for parasites in the lambs. Carr says that he hopes to expand the study of agriculture at Clinton Central and there has been talk to one day build a livestock research facility for use in the classroom.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 41

By CJ Woodring Photography by Josh Marshall

A Blessing In Disguise An unexpected fire helps a local organic cooperative thrive

A

NGRY FLAMES SHOT into the air, licking the northeast Indiana night sky and rousing sleepy residents. Later, some townsfolk in the Amish community would say they’d heard explosions during the fire.

Ultimately, nine area fire departments — about 80 firefighters — converged on the small town of Wolcottville the night of April 30, 2013, hoping to contain the inferno that engulfed the century-old mill at Wolcottville Organic Livestock Feed (WOLF) Cooperative.

Efforts to save the iconic landmark were in vain. Within an hour, the structure was mere cinders, along with products stored inside and a feed truck parked nearby.

The mill was built in the late 1800s on a site adjacent to a railroad, mak-

42 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

ing it easy to ship grain throughout the region. Former mill owner and co-op general manager Lamar Bontrager says lost contents included a cob crusher, flour mill and two big wooden grain cleaners, “things you don’t find at feed mills anymore.”

The cause of the blaze, never verified, was suspected to be electrical in origin.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

May 1 was business as usual for Bontrager and his employees — admittedly still in shock — who sent feed to customers as if it were just another day.

“I looked out over the rubble and wondered to myself how we were going to make grain that day because, for me, it’s just what we’ve gotta do, is take care of our customers,” Bontrager recalls.

Serendipitously, perhaps, a tractor and portable grinder belonging to Dave Miller, now general manager of Topekabased Honeyville Feed & Farm Supply, were there and quickly put to use.

“His stuff was just sitting there, plus, the main ingredients had been stored in another place,” Bontrager says. “So we got them, and by 10 a.m., were setting up. We took care of all of our customers and, as far as I’m aware, didn’t miss a lick. It was far from efficient, but we made feed from May 1 to about the first of August, when we got the mixer installed and put it on a scale.”

ABOVE | Lamar Bontrager stands atop the newly built Wolcottville Organic Livestock Feed (WOLF) Cooperative.

LEFT | The original feed mill (submitted). INSET | The feed mill on fire on April 30, 2013 (submitted).

Experiencing a fire is always devastating. In addition to destroying property, the disaster also had the potential of threatening operations of the cooperative, which had been formed just two months earlier.

When board members met at 9 a.m.

May 1, the co-op’s future was uncertain. Did they want to stay and rebuild in Wolcottville? Did they want to

rebuild elsewhere? Did they want to just walk away?

“I’d gotten a feeling from the community, during the fire, that they wanted us to stay,” Bontrager says. “Many people asked me that night whether we were planning to rebuild, so that was what we decided to do. We also decided to visit other mills to get an idea of the type of mill we wanted.”

The resultant rebirth was a lesson in the rewards of perseverance, loyalty, hard work — and faith.

The first Saturday, employees and friends cut down trees. By May 13, a plan of action was adopted on how to rebuild; renovation began two days later, with a crew removing debris from the building. The empty structure was power washed within the following week, and two days later the first load of lumber arrived. Two days after that, the concrete had been poured and employees began moving in and setting up.

“In my mind, it didn’t go fast enough,” Bontrager admits, “but we got a lot of comments, over and over, about how efficient it was and how fast it went. I had a very loyal group of employees who stuck it out and hung with me. So even though we had a lot of long days, we managed and got it done.”

GOING ORGANIC

It was in July 2000 that Bontrager and his cousin, Lorne Hershberger, first bought Honeyville Feed & Farm Supply.

Bontrager, who grew up on a farm in Millersburg, a LaGrange County community about a stone’s throw from Wolcottville, had worked at the feed company in his teens. Furthermore, he had hoped to own it one day. Never in his wildest dreams, he says, had he thought that would happen.

But sometimes dreams — even wild ones — come true.

Honeyville is a niche market, specializing in organic and custom feeds.

Poultry, dairy and calf feed are primary sellers. And although most often detailing in retail sales, Honeyville has wholesale dealers in northern Indiana, western Ohio and Michigan.

In their first year of operation, the feed supply’s new owners began dealing with organic fertilizer; in 2005 they got involved in organic feed.

And, to Bontrager, expanding organic offerings only made sense.

In 2008 he not only bought out his cousin, who’d left on a mission trip, but also bought Wolcottville Grain from Homer and Norma Schultz, who had been operating it as a conventional feed mill.

ABOVE | The rubble and reconstruction of the Wolcottville Mill. TOP RIGHT | Bontrager fills an order. BELOW RIGHT | Pete Hochstetler, a local Wolcottville farmer, buys organic feed for his 2-month-old pigs.

“Within the first five years, it grew quite a bit,” he says. “The organic side alone was about a $1.6 million business.”

As Wolcottville Grain continued expansion, Bontrager became concerned about whether he could keep up with projected growth. During an advisory board meeting, he suggested encouraging about a half-dozen or so farmers to join the operation as partners. Ultimately, the idea of a co-op was suggested.

FROM ASHES TO ASSETS

In March 2011, the Wolcottville Organic Livestock Feed (WOLF) Cooperative was organized from the initial vision of more than 80 producers. (At that time, about 60 northeast Indiana farmers sold organic milk, a figure that has since nearly doubled, Bontrager says.)

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 43

RIGHT | The new computer system installed after the fire allows Bontrager to control the mill from one room.

OPPOSITE PAGE | The new Wolcottville Organic Livestock Feed (WOLF) Cooperative became operational in August 2013.

It wasn’t until February of 2013 that member investors bought the Noble County company, forming an official co-op. Bontrager made a 10-year commitment to serve as general manager.

Although operated as a business, WOLF co-op is a family-type operation: Employees’ birthdays are routinely posted on Facebook, and Customer Appreciation Day is celebrated 365 days of the year.

44 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

Owners are primarily, but not exclusively, milk producers, Bontrager says. “Because poultry is a valid part of making this business successful, by-laws were changed so that members don’t have to be milk producers. Any grower involved in organics in one way or another can join.”

Pete Lehman, a Middlebury dairy farmer and president of WOLF Co-op, considers it an initiative that benefits

the entire community as “everyone pulls together for everyone’s benefit.”

Topeka dairy farmer Willard Yoder is a member of WOLF co-op. Yoder says without access to a local mill, which many organic farms don’t have, they’d be lost. “You can’t just go to a conventional mill and get your feed, and this mill is here to work for us, get in our supplies, get the grinding done and the feed out,” he explains.

Within the past year, the company has tripled its volume through the use of the new state-of-the-art, automated mill, which was installed after the fire.

“It’s kind of amazing,” Bontrager says, adding that the venture has been personally satisfying.

“The rewarding thing for me is that I feel I’m involved in a business that’s sustainable,” he adds. “I know that because of how it’s made, the product I’m sending out is healthy and is going to make healthier people. And as they say, ‘We are what we eat.’”

As for the fire, now nearly two years

out, he views that also as serendipitous.

“The big thing now is that I see the growth we’ve had since then. It was a blessing in disguise. God’s got a good

“I know that because of how it’s made, the product I’m sending out is healthy and is going to make healthier people. And as they say, ‘We are what we eat.’”

—LAMAR BONTRAGER

sense of humor. He could see what we needed, and that the old mill couldn’t handle what we have now. I can see that, in looking back, but would never have chosen that route to get where I am now.”

For more information, visit facebook.com/WOLFCoop.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 45

The Reality of Farm Life

An interview with Paramount School of Excellence’s Andrew Hart | Story and Photos by Jim Poyser

Whenever I walk onto the grounds of Paramount School of Excellence, I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

When it comes to outdoor learning and sustainability, Paramount pretty much has everything: five wind turbines, a large vegetable garden, an herb garden, a chicken coop, bees, goats, an outdoor learning classroom and a water catchment system that can water the garden for a full month in a drought.

Paramount is a kindergarten through eighthgrade free public school located just southeast of downtown Indianapolis. In the spring, Paramount appointed a new director of environmental education, Andrew Hart. I’ve known him for many years and understood this appointment to be what they call a perfect fit. Paramount, already far along the path to sustainability, would now be stewarded by Hart, a versatile outdoor educator.

I spoke with Hart at a recent workshop on hoop houses at Paramount, hosted by Purdue Extension’s Emily Toner.

What inspired you to apply for the job at Paramount?

ANDREW HART: I have always enjoyed working to help people

connect with nature. Observing the changes in demeanor from toughened street kids from Detroit who laugh and shine while paddling down the Pine River, or a gang member in Chicago who shared, “Whenever I feel angry, I let my mind drift to our camping trips and I close my eyes and I’m out in the woods,” is a great experience. Working with young people provides me with hope, and so I reached out to Tommy Reddicks, principal of Paramount School, to find out what opportunities might exist at the school as I had planted trees with the school and was always impressed with what I saw happening there. We started talking about his ideas of an urban farm at the school, and I was hooked.

What was your impression when you first arrived?

HART: Tommy and his staff had done a great job of laying the

foundation to build the Paramount Farm School. They had a great gardening program, chickens and an amazing site. Paramount School of Excellence sits on 5 1/2 acres and is just a few minutes from downtown. While the neighborhood may be challenged socio-economically, there are streets with homes that are well taken care of and signs of revival springing up throughout the near eastside. The school overlooks Brookside Park, a 100-acre gem that is part of the Pogue’s Run greenway that extends all the way downtown and out to I-465, so just tons of potential.

What has been added since you arrived?

HART: We have a vision of connecting the students to the reality

of farm life. We’ve added an apiary with three bee hives and now have seven students who are apprentice beekeepers. The most exciting addition this summer has been adding dairy goats. We have students who are now part of the 4-H program, arriving to school an hour early to help milk the goats and learn how to take care of them. Our goal is to make a high quality goat cheese that we can market for the school.

Students are building a large hoop house so we can grow vegetables year-round, and the community can be provided with vegetable starts in the spring and ultimately come garden with us with their own garden plot.

One of our primary goals is for students to understand that we can raise our own food, from chickens, vegetables, berries and other sources readily available, and learn how to integrate this knowledge into our own backyards and community gardens.

What are you planning on adding over time?

HART: The Community Hoop House is a big endeavor that we are

Andrew Hart, Paramount School of Excellence’s director of environmental education.

looking forward to completing over the next few months.

Connecting with the surrounding neighborhood through community clean-ups and offering our site as a park will only deepen as we engage neighbors in our gardening efforts.

46 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

»Andrew Hart, at a glance Hart grew up in central Indiana along the White River, learning early on the wonders of the natural world. Living in Michigan while earning a degree at the University of Michigan, he directed summer camps for youths from Detroit in Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Teaching fourth grade in Vermont and living in a log cabin in the Green Mountains while earning his master of education, he decided to integrate his love for nature and for urban living and moved to Chicago, where he developed camping programs for young people living in housing projects and also directed a 50-acre nature preserve within the city. Most recently he spent nine years directing the NeighborWoods Tree Planting program for Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, planting over 20,000 trees with

Wind turbines outside the Paramount School of Excellence in Indianapolis.

volunteers around Indianapolis.

What are some examples of outdoor learning really turning a student on?

HART: We have a wide array of students at Paramount, and many

students come from the neighborhood, and also more are coming from areas all around Indy. To see this mix of young people working outdoors together growing a substantial vegetable garden this summer and then selling their produce at our farmers market has been really rewarding.

Watching participants in the beekeeping program suit up and go deep into the hives, checking for the queen, learning about the different roles the bees play and gaining an understanding how to keep bees has also been a highlight. Teaching second-graders the bee dance also makes for a fun time.

Paramount students in the garden.

We want to make the connection from food to table, so providing

“We have a vision of connecting the students to the reality of farm life.” —ANDREW HART

more opportunities to prepare the food that we grow will be enhanced through cooking classes, and hosting the Farm and Food Fair next September will also be a great opportunity for us.

Why is hands-on outdoor learning important for education?

As an educator, what is particularly rewarding to you in this position?

HART: Watching students take pride in their work and valuing

work that we do with our hands, getting young people comfortable working with soil, observing free-range chickens

HART: When you see learning happening in a very natural way,

sharing their playground and seeing the joy in faces as

that has been handed down through centuries and is so global,

connections with the earth are made. Students have watered our

say, the milking of goats, which happens around the world every

orchard every week with buckets of water, weeded the gardens

day, we feel connected to that experience. Young people learn

and are caring for animals. And every day more students want to

patience and respect for life and the value of hard work. It’s not

be involved. It’s a real joy to be a part of this interaction between

easy for participants in the dairy goat program to arrive an hour

people and the natural world.

before school to feed, milk and exercise the goats, but the skills and values they gain are transferable, and, I believe, long-lasting.

So much can be learned from tending animals, raising food in our garden, planting an orchard and berry patch, keeping bees.

For more information on Paramount, visit paramountindy.org.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 47

sap to syrup — FROM —

48 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

A

By Shawndra Miller Photography by Josh Marshall

THE STOUT FAMILY REVIVES AN OLD FAMILY TRADITION

A COUPLE OF GENERATIONS AGO, it was possible to find sorghum syrup used as a primary sweetener, alongside honey and maple syrup, on most rural Indiana households’ tables. Lifelong Owen County resident Arthur Bailey, now in his late 60s, grew up using the homegrown sweetener and remembers five or six fellows who ran a sorghum mill in that county alone. His father was among the farmers who grew sorghum and processed it into the sweetener, which goes by various names: sorghum molasses, cane sorghum, sweet sorghum or just plain sorghum.

When his daughter, Linda Stout, was in high school, she hit on the idea of making the syrup for an FFA project. The whole family revived the tradition, and it continues now every fall at Stout’s Melody Acres, the Franklin farm where she and her husband, Randy Stout, grow vegetables and develop their Taste of Summer sauces.

On a clear autumn morning, several family members gather at the Johnson County farm for the first day of sorghummaking. It’s a big production, and the more the merrier. In addition to Bailey, the Owen County kin in attendance are Linda’s sister, Rachael, and their uncle, Michael Creager. In the chilly sunshine, Bailey and Creager feed sorghum stalks into an ancient multi-geared machine hooked up to a small tractor.

“I’m an antique, but that’s more of an antique than me,” jokes Bailey over the grumble of tractor engine and squeak of belts.

The 1920s-era press came from a long-ago farm sale and is one of many antiques he’s amassed over the years. But unlike his old-time washing machine, corn sheller and an even older horse-drawn press, this machine still sees use. The rumbling contrapCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT tion takes a handful of stalks at a Linda Stout and son, Rance, time through its rollers, and greenish push sorghum through a fluid runs steadily from its spout. A press that extracts the juice. sieve-topped funnel covers a foodSorghum juice exits the tractorgrade bucket set to catch the sap. powered press into a bucket.

But that’s far from the first step Randy Stout collects sorghum to check the consistency. in producing this sweetener, which A wood fire heats the sorghum tastes milder than molasses but still throughout the day. full-bodied. First, of course, comes the INSET | Linda and Randy Stout growing season, which ideally starts of Stout’s Melody Acres. around May 1. Bailey, who grows the crop on his land, says this spring’s cold and wet conditions delayed planting till July 17, and for a time they weren’t sure they’d get much yield. (He’s grown varieties from Rox Orange to Sugar Drip to Umbrella over the years.)

The plant grows similarly to corn, only with a cluster of seeds at the top instead of a tassel. About 120 days after planting, the seeds reach “dough stage” — meaning a certain toughness. (By

contrast, sweet corn is harvested at “milk stage.”) At dough stage, the seed heads are cut off because they have high levels of tannins, which would give an off flavor to the final product.

After this “heading” but before a hard frost, it’s time to take machetes to the field to harvest the stalks. Piled on trailers, the sorghum dries for several days to allow the moisture to evaporate from the stalks. This saves some time on the cooking end.

Uncured stalks yield a sap that will cook down to syrup at a rate of 10 to 1 gallons, versus 8 to 1 gallons with drier stalks.

Finally, the press gets revved up for the first of several all-day cook-downs. Bailey and Creager lift bundles of stalks from the trailer and feed them between the rollers, while Rachael stands ready to clear bits of cane from the netting topping the funnel. Every so often, someone must stab a pitchfork into a slimy pile of pressed canes that collects from the discharge chute and fling the canes into another wagon.

Across the yard is the cooking station, where the transformation from plant to food will continue throughout the day. Once

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 49

Linda empties the first pail of sap into the 6-foot stainless sink, straining it through a cotton cloth, Randy stokes a fire in the firebox below. Bailey made the firebox from house trailer parts. He sized it to match the flatbottom sink, which has had its drain welded shut and a spigot WHERE TO FIND IT: added to the far corner, for Bloomington Farmers Market draining the finished product. bloomingtonwinterfarmersmarket.com Now the two-steps-forward, Indy Winter Farmers Market one-step-back game comindywinterfarmersmarket.org mences. The sink gradually Stout’s Melody Acres fills with green sap over the 1169 N. State Road 135, Franklin course of an hour or two of steady pressing. Each new bucketful sets the temperature rise back a little bit. Randy periodically puts a thermometer in to check the status, though it’s an exercise in frustration for much of the day. “We’re up to 110,” he’ll say. Or “That bucket took us down to a hundred.”

This “batch pan” method works well for the small amount of sorghum being processed here, but Randy speaks longingly of continuous flow evaporator pans. These are divided into sections by baffles that form a sort of ladder for the fluid, making the cook-down process much more efficient. Such a setup would at least quadruple the potential daily output, and someday Randy hopes to try one out.

In the meantime, it’s small batch sorghum for the Stouts.

When the sink won’t hold much more, Randy and Linda sig-

50 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

nal the crew over on the press to stop milling after the next bucket. Soon the rumble quiets, and the last sap of the day gets poured through its homemade cotton sieve.

“Soup’s on, get your spoon and crackers,” jokes Creager, peering over the edge of the sink. An algae-like film has formed on top of the green juice, decidedly unappetizing, but Linda has a different association.

“I smell it,” she says, breathing deeply and smiling. “It smells like home to me.”

While the juice heats, a scum continues to coat the surface as the imperfections boil to the top. Randy will skim this off with a fine mesh strainer. “If we’re doing 50 gallons (of sap),” he says, “we probably skim at least a gallon or maybe 2 gallons of crud off the top.”

Many hours of cooking later, the syrup will have thickened considerably, to about an eighth of what it started out. Though he tends the fire fairly closely the whole day, never going more than 10 minutes without checking it, Randy says that last hour is trickiest. Without regular stirring, the thickened syrup will scorch.

At about 226 degrees, just enough water will have boiled off, leaving the remainder at about 78 percent sugar. At that point, when Randy inserts a butter knife and lifts it above the sink, the syrup should “drip off in big tear drops,” he says.

When it’s finally ready, they’ll pull the fire and coals out of the firebox and tilt the scorching hot sink up, propping one end on a block to drain the product into stainless steel kettles. While Linda

takes the kettles inside to bottle the hot syrup in glass jars sterilized in the dishwasher, Randy and the outside crew will finish the cleanup — stoking the fire again to boil water in the film-coated sink. The final scrub-down might not even happen until after dark.

By that time, everyone is sticky and covered with ashes. At the end of the day “you’ve got enough syrup and dirt on your britches that you can lean them up in the corner and they’d stand there by themselves,” says Randy.

He confesses he won’t eat any sorghum for a good three weeks after all this is done. After constantly tasting the sap as it cooks down, his taste buds are tired of it. (“I’d hate to guess how many calories I eat during the weeks we’re making this sorghum,” he says.)

But come wintertime, nothing beats the syrup on buckwheat pancakes or biscuits, he says, and it’s a perfect match for baked beans, too.

Melody Acres customers agree. Amy Countryman of Bloomington, who purchases the syrup at the Stouts’ Bloomington Farmers Market booth, has found it a versatile sweetener. “The main reason I started buying it is I’m trying to eat as much food as possible that comes from close by,” she says. “So that was my original reason for checking it out … and I just really like it.”

Sweet, but not too sweet, is how she describes it. She uses it all the time, and not just in baking. She loves it as an ingredient in sauces, such as in Asian noodle dishes that have a salty-sweet tang.

Thanks to Stout’s Melody Acres, more people can update their taste buds with sorghum’s old-time flavor.

Pie recipe INGREDIENTS

DIRECTIONS

1 cup sorghum syrup ½ cup sugar 1 tablespoon butter Pinch salt 2 tablespoons flour 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla ¼ cup half-and-half

Pour into a standard 9-inch pie shell and bake at 325 F for about 1 hour until the pie sets.

SUBSTITUTION TIPS

Substituting sorghum syrup for sugar: Use a third more sorghum than the amount of sugar called for in the recipe; decrease the liquids by a third.

Substituting sorghum syrup for molasses: Use an equal amount of sorghum but reduce sugar, since sorghum is sweeter than molasses.

SOURCE: FARMFLAVOR.COM

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Sales Hours: M-F 8-5, Sat 8-12 Service Hours: M-F 6:30-10, Sat 7-4 FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 51

Dana and Dan Dunbar inside the Dunbar Heritage Farms hydroponic greenhouse.

side in the 1830s. Over the years the family made a good living dairy farming, raising livestock and harvesting traditional grains.

For her part, Dana grew up in rural Madison County. Her dad worked in the automotive industry, but, as Dana tells it: “Most of the kids I grew up with were farm kids.” She loved being close to farming, but gravitated toward the world of business — restaurants, in particular — until she and Dan married.

Dunbar Heritage Farms 4500 S. Road 500W, Lebanon, (765) 918-6733

growing UNDER COVER The future of agriculture, according to Dan and Dana Dunbar

By David Hoppe Photography by Josh Marshall 52 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

O

ON A CRISP FALL AFTERNOON, near Lebanon, Dan Dunbar is checking the progress of his butterhead lettuce crop. The leaves are green and tender. Brilliant sunlight shines down … through the roof.

He is standing in Dunbar Heritage Farms’ new hydroponic greenhouse in Boone County. Dan and his wife of 17 years, Dana, acquired the facility just months ago; their first seeding took place in September. Now, as he strolls through the bright, balmy indoor air, there are, in addition to those lettuces, rows of kale and arugula, parsley and cilantro, along with an array of herbs.

Members of Dan’s family have been working the land in Indiana for over six generations, “or more,” he says, “if you go back to North Carolina.”

Dan’s mother’s family arrived in the Hoosier state in the 1820s; the Dunbar

“That was my green light to get out and do a massive garden,” she says. The Dunbars were raising five kids, and “we were both strong-valued for the traditional family sitting down together, eating healthy food,” says Dana. “We thought there ought to be a way we can share this.”

This led to the Dunbars’ first foray into the emerging Indianapolis farmers market scene in 2002.

Dan and Dana fit right in. They became known for their heirloom produce, offering 50 varieties of tomatoes and 35 varieties of peppers. Some of the city’s more creative independent chefs made a point of checking in.

“There was a lot of interesting stuff on the Web about the value of traditional seed stock and what that can provide healthwise,” says Dana. She and Dan became increasingly committed to growing food that could benefit people both in terms of long-term health and great flavor.

“People embraced us,” Dana recalls. But the scene had yet to reach critical mass. “It wasn’t enough to be financially stable.”

Mainstream agriculture in Indiana presented its own set of challenges. The Dunbars had a significant amount of land dedicated to traditional farming practice, just not enough to be profitable. And the high cost of machine acquisition and maintenance was proving to be unaffordable.

Dan was looking for ways to do more with less or, as he puts it: “I didn’t want to get big, but I didn’t want to get out.”

He started experimenting with ways to diversify. Meanwhile, Dana took a job as a restaurant manager — a line of work she hadn’t been involved with for 20 years.

That’s when their breakthrough happened.

A nearby farmer called Dan and told him a hydroponic facility was for sale.

Dana put her business background to work, analyzing the prior owner’s financials. She liked what she saw. “I said, ‘We can do this,’” she recalls. According to her calculations, hydroponic farming could not only be profitable, it had the potential for growth. “That was a turning point for us,” she says. “The aha! moment.”

All Under the Roof

“I call it true no-till,” Dan says of hydroponic farming. He chuckles as he says it, but this is an experienced farmer, a member of Boone County’s Soil and Water Board, talking.

“The big advantage is there’s less water resources used,” Dan explains. “You’re recycling the water, and the plants are taking up only what they need. We can use less nutrient solution because you don’t have leaching into the water table.”

Dan says he’s still learning about hydroponic technology, but it makes sense to him. “I’m looking at hydroponics kind of like I would confined livestock. It’s all under the roof. You have a little more control versus the pasture.”

Hydroponic farming also has put Dan back in touch with a sense of agricultural community that he had begun to think was lost. “One of the farms that borders one of our properties — I have no idea who has farmed it for 10 years,” he says. “When I was a kid, you knew who was out there.”

Dan can remember a time when all the farmers in a particular region went to the same church and socialized together.

“This is similar,” he says. “We’re going to meet our customers and have an exchange, versus I harvest a crop, it goes in a semi and I don’t know what happens to it. That’s making an income. What we’re doing is …” “… Making an impact,” says Dana, completing his thought.

Dan is also attracted to the way hydroponics can compensate for increasingly depleted topsoil. “I see it,” he says. “The

soils just do not react the same as when I was a kid.”

Hydroponic farming, he says, enables the farmer to control the quality and amount of nutrients the crops receive.

“What’s amazing is the turnaround and how quickly the plants grow,” he says.

“They’re getting what they need.”

Growing Passion

Dan and Dana know that growing healthy, flavorful food is just half the battle. The other half involves being able to get their produce to consumers. Here, Dana’s experience in the restaurant trade has been paying dividends.

Relationships forged with chefs during the Dunbars’ farmers market days have grown as Dana has connected with Indianapolis organizations like Slow Food Indy and events like DigIN, the annual foodfest

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT | 1,000 watt bulbs provide the daylight on cloudy or short winter days.

Rows of Lollo Rossa lettuce sit in troughs that have constantly moving water inside. A view from under arugula plants. Various pipes cycle the water, filtering and then returning it to the plants. Mirrored hydroponics greenhouses provide 5,000 square feet of growing space.

that brings chefs and other purveyors from around Indiana to White River State Park.

“It’s amazing to see the passion growing in these people,” says Dana. “The older ones are saying, ‘It’s about time’ and the younger ones don’t know any different.”

Thanks to the controlled environment that hydroponics allows, the Dunbars will be able to provide these folks with produce 365 days a year. They are already supplying the Patachou group of restaurants, as FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 53

well as chef Neal Brown’s Pizzology locations. Talk that a consortium may be forming to help align Indianapolis chefs with local farmers is music to the Dunbars’ ears.

“I think building that relationship with Indianapolis and the growing grass-roots movement in restaurants will continue,” says Dana. “I don’t think it’s a fad. I think people are more aware now of the value.”

Hydroponics, she says, is an answer for the growing numbers of people who question where their food comes from. “Food safety is on everybody’s mind. Water sources can be tainted, an airplane can fly over a field of lettuce and contaminate it, and you don’t even realize it’s happened. If that food isn’t carefully washed, you have issues. This is really the only closed system out there.”

The Dunbars’ water comes from a well and goes through a reverse osmosis system.

As for the future, Dana would like to see Indiana’s Department of Agriculture take a more active role

54 // FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014

in building connections and sharing information between growers. “There aren’t enough ways to work together,” she says.

She’s been impressed with the way that Seedstock, a California venture dedicated to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in sustainable agriculture, has brought hydroponic and aquaponic producers together to create a broad-based network for sharing technical expertise and experience.

“The government needs to wake up and encourage this to happen,” says Dan. “So we’re not dealing with soil erosion. So we’re not dealing with processed things that come from someplace else.” Right now, he says, most of the research pushing hydroponics forward is taking place in countries where the demand for food is enormous: China, India and Japan.

“I think the majority of our food source will go under cover of some sort unless something changes in the world,” says Dana. “I think this is the future of agriculture.”

Spinach grows in troughs.

Current Trends

Supply & Demand Organic Dairy Producers Hope To Satisfy A Growing Clamor For Their Products

BY JON SHOULDERS

J

im Wedeberg can remember 35 years back to when he and his wife, Julie, decided to farm their 140 acres of land without synthetic pesticides, long before the term organic became a food industry buzzword. A fourth-generation dairy farmer based in Gays Mills, Wisconsin, Wedeberg’s decision stemmed from a simple desire to keep his family and customers healthy and safe. “I’m not even sure I knew the word organic necessarily back when I took over the farm,” he says. “It was just a matter of using limited inputs, and I felt like there were things I didn’t want to be involved with.”

As dairy pool director of Organic Valley, a product line supplied by a cooperative of organic farmers headquartered in La Farge, Wisconsin, Wedeberg has taken sharp notice of the rise in demand for organic milk and other dairy products throughout the U.S. since food labeled as organic began to appear on grocery shelves in the late 1990s. Organic food currently accounts for about 4 percent of total U.S. food sales, and according to the Organic Trade Association, that figure has steadily increased from 0.8 percent back in 1997 and 2.5 percent in 2005. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that the number of U.S. organic milk products sold in proportion to the total sales of U.S. milk products grew from 1.92 percent in 2006 to 4.38 percent in 2013.

While excited about how far the organic market has come since the days when he first decided to farm chemical free — decades before USDA national certification standards for the organic industry were fully implemented in 2002 — Wedeberg says the progress has in turn created additional challenges for producers. “There’s been a kind of perfect storm in recent years that has made it difficult to catch up with consumer demand,” he says. “We’re definitely in a growth market with the Costcos, the Wal-Marts and all the big box stores making organics part of their grocery line.

When you add the drought of 2012, it all has added up to a shortage of supply, and now as the mass market gets more and more

interested in organic products, it’s a huge draw on a limited supply base.”

There are currently 166 certified organic dairy farms in Indiana, and Denise Derrer, public information director at the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, says that number has grown steadily since 2008.

“There are 12 Indiana farms that switched to organic since September of this year alone, so it seems like a trend that will possibly continue at least into the near future,” she says, adding that the majority of Indiana’s organic dairy operations are owned by farmers who decided to transition from conventional to organic methods. Indiana ranks 14th in the nation in overall milk production, and the USDA reported 1,315 total registered dairy farms in Indiana in 2013.

Why the steady rise in consumer demand? Fritz Kunz, owner of Traders Point Creamery, a family-owned organic dairy farm and artisan creamery in Zionsville, says organic dairy tends to be a “gateway product. In other words, people who have not eaten organic before, like college students and 20-year-olds, suddenly change their tune when you bring a new infant into the world,” he says. “So organic baby food and then dairy are often the first organic products a young family might purchase.

And I think they do not want a lot of drugs and pesticides in their small child.

So organic dairy is very big and getting bigger because more and more families are making a commitment to organics for their newborns.”

In addition to synthetic pesticides, organic dairy farms are also prohibited from using recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), also known as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), a synthetic hormone approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1993 and used by conventional farmers to increase milk production. A 2007 USDA survey revealed that 17 percent of dairy cows in the U.S. were being injected with rBGH, and several studies conducted in the 1990s, including a 1998 report by the Canadian Veterinary

Medical Association Expert Panel on rBST, document adverse health effects of the synthetic hormone on cows. FDA officials have stated there is no evidence for harm to humans from rBGH, or from the increased use of antibiotics on cows that can result from an increase in rBGH-related health issues. Nevertheless, the prohibition of synthetic hormones under the USDA’s organic standards remains a selling point for wary consumers.

Wedeberg was one of seven organic dairy farmers responsible for founding Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools (CROPP) Cooperative in 1988. CROPP leaders created the Organic Valley label to market their products, and the group has grown over 26 years to include more than 1,800 farms across the U.S., currently marketing its milk, eggs, cheese and butter in all 50 states. Indiana accounts for 135 of those farms, and most of the remaining 31 organic dairy farms in the state currently supply WhiteWave Foods, manufacturer of Horizon Organic dairy products.

In an effort to increase its membership pool, CROPP’s management team has offered monetary incentives since 2006 for dairy farmers interested in obtaining organic certification under the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) guidelines, which include managing all pasture and cropland organically for at least 36 months and providing cows with 100 percent organic feed and organic health care for at least 12 months. The co-op offers to supplement conventional feed prices by $2 per hundredweight for 12 months of the animal transition period for any farm that chooses to make the switch. “As we develop our budget for 2015, we’re in the process of deciding whether the board of directors will increase that,” Wedeberg says. “We’re also trying to develop a transition fee for land to make for more organic transition from conventional ag land. Corn, beans, hay, barley — any commodities that are produced conventionally right now, we’d like to find some way to incentivize producers to look at transitioning their land.”

Organic Valley hosts about 250 events annually throughout the U.S., including farm shows, networking events and local barn meetings in a continual effort to educate farmers on the benefits of organic methods. Wedeberg says although the company’s outreach efforts have led to a slow but steady increase in co-op participation in the

long term, the lengthy timeline between a farmer’s decision to convert and completion of land and animal transition is yet another factor keeping organic dairy production behind the demand curve.

“We have farmers come to our door, and it may have been six or seven years since the first meeting we had with them,” Wedeberg says. “They go home and think about it and ponder it with their families, and then after two or three years they start the process of transitioning. It’s a huge commitment because you’re making a calculated decision to change your model of production.”

Kunz, who typically keeps around 120 cows on more than 400 acres of pastureland, says the nature of organic dairy farming itself is not typically conducive to high-volume production. “We can’t get more milk from that same cow just because we have an increase in demand,” he says.

“It takes almost a year to increase production. Also, cows have more milk when the weather is cool and nice, like spring and fall, but people want milk products every day.”

From Wedeberg’s perspective, however, the continual game of catch-up that the organic dairy industry is currently playing in the face of increasing consumer demand is by no means a drawback. “The last thing we as an organic cooperative want to see are conventional farmers that aren’t profitable, because the organic market can’t possibly absorb all the production that’s out there,” he says. “We welcome successful conventional dairy markets, but the conventional side may start to have a struggle as their prices start to slide a little bit. There’s huge market potential for organic production, and I definitely see the market expanding in the coming years.”

Additional information on the USDA’s NOP certification requirements for organic dairy producers is available at: ams.usda. gov/nop.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 55

Local Food

the perfect ingredient Public Greens restaurant takes the farm-to-table concept to heart

By Jon Shoulders | Photography by Josh Marshall Patachou Inc. President Martha Hoover

S

ervers at Public Greens, the latest restaurant to open under the Indianapolisbased company Patachou Inc., will have no problem responding to customers who inquire as to where many of the restaurant’s menu ingredients come from. They can just point outside the nearest window.

The new eatery, named for its location amidst the scenic greenery of the Monon Trail between 64th and 65th streets in the Broad Ripple district of Indianapolis, takes the concept of a locally sourced dining establishment to a unique extent; a microfarm next to the restaurant, tucked on the opposite side of the walking trail, will supply a large portion of the produce featured on its cafeteria-style menu.

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Tyler Herald, executive chef at Patachou Inc., says the restaurant’s chalkboard menu will be “ever-evolving,” typically including salads, several meat options, beer and wine taps, coldpressed juices and desserts. “It will be very ingredient-driven based on what we have for that day or that week,” he says. “It’s very much an urban cafeteria with healthy options and what you might want if you were out on the trail.

We source from about 15 different farms for produce to supply our other restaurants, and we’ll probably have to use some of those, but we want to use as much as we possibly can from our microfarm.”

Joe Huff, a farmer with the nonprofit organization Growing Places Indy, says Patachou Inc. is “trying to make the

Joe Huff of Growing Places Indy.

Growing Places Indy helps oversee seven Indianapolis microfarms, including the one at Public Greens.

space really interactive and educational as well as extremely productive. It’s just about a perfect space for it, with so many people coming and going on the Monon Trail every day. While working, I probably talk to 20 curious people a day about what I’m doing.”

Patachou Inc., the company responsible for several popular Indianapolis eateries, including Café Patachou, Petit Chou Bistro and Napolese Pizzeria, partnered with Growing Places Indy, a group that promotes urban agriculture and currently oversees seven Indianapolis microfarms, to prep the Public Greens crops. Huff, who previously worked at Harvestland Farm in Anderson, was chosen to oversee the project, and in early July he began transitioning the pint-sized parcel of land from turf grass into a productive farming space.

“We source from about 15 different farms for produce to supply our other restaurants, and we’ll probably have to use some of those, but we want to use as much as we possibly can from our microfarm.” —TYLER HERALD

The results thus far? Turnips, broccoli, radishes, carrots, spinach, arugula and spicy mix lettuces — not bad for less than a quarter acre of land to work with. Huff hopes to seed additional veggies next spring. “The farm-to-table idea is really big right now,” he says.

“A lot of restaurants, if they had the resources, would do something like this, but I don’t know many restaurants that have that opportunity. It’s really exciting so far, and it’s only been two months FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 57

Huff waters the Public Greens garden along the Monon Trail.

“There are still a lot of people that don’t know where things come from, and it’s sad. But if we can do a little bit to improve that with things like our garden, and when kids walk by and see something that’s growing, then that’s a win-win.” — REGINA MEHALLICK

since I began the initial groundwork and starting building the beds. I think starting next spring we’ll really be able to develop things even more.”

During a trip to Los Angeles two years ago, Herald and Patachou Inc. President Martha Hoover took note of a small eatery that echoed their own vision for Public Greens, reaffirming their aspiration of bringing a fresh culinary concept to the heart of Indy. “It’s been a long time coming, but we don’t want to do anything unless we know for sure we have it the way we want it,” Herald stresses. “That’s the approach we’ve taken with each new location we’ve opened. It’s like the old saying that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” Patachou Inc. opened its first Café Patachou restaurant in 1989.

All profits from Public Greens will go directly to the Patachou Foundation, a Patachou Inc. program established in 2013 that delivers nutritious after-school meals on the company’s “Patatruck” mobile kitchen to local children affected by homelessness and food insecurity.

Any surplus produce grown at the microfarm will be used for the foundation and transported to Patachou Inc.’s other restaurants as needed.

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Huff hopes the on-site farming concept, which he says results in a variety of benefits for diners, will catch on with other restaurants in the city. “Even just a couple days of being stored away can dramatically decrease the nutrients within a vegetable,” he says. “So to be able to have it harvested essentially the day that it’s eaten is pretty awesome.

The produce is still extremely nutrient dense, not to mention that it’s fresh and organic. I wouldn’t imagine farming any other way.”

Regina Mehallick, owner of R Bistro restaurant on Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis, says that having a small herb and veggie garden right outside her establishment for the past five years has provided more than just an expedient way to procure menu ingredients.

“About once a week someone will come sit here on the bench in the garden to relax and check it out,” she says. “I want it to be that way — a pleasant little respite in the city. We have lots of farmers selling to us, but the garden space is a nice little source and definitely a selling point. It’s a good conversation piece.”

Like Patachou Inc., Mehallick enlisted Growing Places Indy to help with the initial cultivation of her garden in

2009 and now employs a gardener to maintain her carrots, tomatoes, lettuces and spices, including oregano, parsley, thyme and sage. “I’ve gotten lots of lettuces this year, and we used the herb beds like crazy. It pretty much all goes to the menu. Last year was my first year to have bees, and we planted some flowers so the bees could be happy and go to those. The honey is delicious.”

Mehallick says restaurant owners don’t need much extra space to begin growing their own ingredients, and she feels the benefits are worth the extra effort. “I think more people need to be exposed to the slow food method,” she says. “There are still a lot of people that don’t know where things come from, and it’s sad. But if we can do a little bit to improve that with things like our garden, and when kids walk by and see something that’s growing, then that’s a win-win.”

Public Greens CONCEPT:

Farm market-inspired cafeteria featuring salads, sandwiches, beer and wine, coldpressed juices and coffees, desserts and more.

LOCATION:

902 E. 64th St. in Indianapolis (on the west side of the Monon Trail between 64th and 65th streets) CONTACT:

(317) 202-0765, patachouinc.com

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 59

Local Food

REAL FOOD

BY CLINT SMITH

SoBro’s bison slider appetizer made with Circle L Farm bison and greens from Fortune Acres Farm (when available).

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SoBro Café

has a farm-to-table philosophy that, like its fare, is refreshing. The cafe is dedicated to procuring local food, while offering a menu that is both enticing to epicureans and average eaters. “Real food for all people,” goes one of SoBro’s slogans.

“I had envisioned an internationally inspired, healthieroptioned restaurant due to the dominance of fast-food culture,” says Helger Oomkes, owner. “At that time I knew an organicfocused chef named Jennifer Laughner, and Joseph Lehner, an experienced restaurant manager, and we felt there was a need for healthier dining options in Indianapolis.”

Within three months of agreeing to the venture of opening SoBro Café, the trio had created a menu, assembled a crew and set their sights on an opening date in late 2011. (SoBro just celebrated its third anniversary last month.)

The atmosphere at SoBro Café is casual and pleasantly disarming. Oomkes says that while there is an emphasis on art, the dining space is inviting, cozy and “not pretentious.”

Menu items include the popular peanut sauce temptation, a dish that features Fischer Farms’ chicken, brown rice and Indonesian peanut sauce. “For the real health experience, we have the superfood salad with greens, kale, carrot medley, quinoa, avocado,” Oomkes says. “And my own creation is our chai tea.

We sell it more than coffee.”

Time spent abroad has influenced Oomkes’ vision for the restaurant, as has the availability of fresh produce from local farmers markets. SoBro Café’s menu features a number of Indiana farms, including Circle L Bison, Fortune Acres Farm, Fischer Farms and Traders Point Creamery. “When I first opened SoBro Café,” he says, “I asked our different food distributors about local and natural farm-to-table connections, and they were not well connected, nor informed. Now three years later, we have been able to both establish our own connections as well as the distributors providing them.

“An organic consultant once told me Indiana is about 12 years behind in the natural and organic food movement versus the West Coast,” he adds. “Now, the time is here.” For more information, visit sobrocafe.com.

Valentine’s Day dinner at SoBro Café in Indianapolis.

Left, SoBro chef Luke Weber, with owner Helger Oomkes. Above, Fischer Farms chicken and linguini in cilantro pesto sauce.

FARM INDIANA // DECEMBER 2014 // 61

Local Food

Grilled Cranberry Marmalade Pork Chops with Couscous and Walnuts // SERVES 4 Grilled Pork Chops 4 pork chops Kosher salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

A True Joy

BY CLINT SMITH

After 10 years of what Tiercell William Schwartz, owner of TW Fable in Bluffton, calls the “hustle and bustle” of life in New York, he wanted to bring a destination restaurant back to his hometown. “And as I suspected,” says Schwartz, “It’s a true joy.” The “TW” is a reference to his first two initials, while the “Fable” is a nod to the restaurant’s farm-to-table ethos.

“We approach each season with a new menu, focusing on local growers, farmers markets and the freshest produce available,” says Schwartz. “From the asparagus farm down the road, local grass-fed beef, down to the flowers used in the decor,” he says, “These are the differences that make TW Fable a destination restaurant.”

Here, Schwartz shares a season-suiting recipe.

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Cranberry Marmalade 2 cups fresh cranberries 1 cup granulated sugar 1 fresh lemon, juiced Kosher salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

Couscous 1 cup couscous 1 cup water 1 tablespoon unsalted butter Kosher salt and cracked black pepper, to taste ¼ cup candied walnuts (recipe follows) ¼ cup dried cranberries

Candied Walnuts 4 tablespoons unsalted butter ¼ cup walnuts, rough chop 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 clove garlic, minced

» Preheat oven to 400 F. Cook pork chops on grill or grill pan. Reserve. » In a medium sauté pan, combine ingredients for marmalade, saute and reduce heat until mixture achieves a jellylike texture. Reserve. » Place couscous in a large, heat-resistant bowl; meanwhile bring water to a boil.

Pour water over couscous and cover. Stir when couscous is softened. Add butter, dried cranberries and season with salt and pepper. Reserve somewhere warm. » For walnuts: In a sauté pan, melt butter and coat remaining ingredients.

Sauté until nuts are toasted. Add walnuts to couscous. » Place reserved pork chops on sheet pan and place in preheated oven, spooning each with 3 tablespoons of cranberry marmalade. Bake for an additional 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from oven and serve with prepared couscous.

PREP TIP

SIMPLE DISHES

BY CLINT SMITH

» Chef Ian Phillips of Three Carrots — a vegetarian and vegan restaurant at the Indianapolis City Market — has a succinct tip about how to best utilize winter vegetables: “Roast those bad boys.”

He advises adding just a little olive oil, salt and pepper before sliding them into a 350-degree oven for (depending on the size of the veggies) about 15 to 30 minutes.

“We roast everything all the time at Three Carrots,” says Phillips. “Not only do roasted vegetables make an easy and awesome side (dish), we roast all

of our vegetables in any soups or sauces we make.”

And he is a big fan of winter produce. “I’ve always loved sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots,” he says. “And once I figured out how to cook them, beets and Brussels sprouts have become my favorite vegetables.”

For Phillips, during the winter months “nothing … is better than a cold day with a giant bowl of warm soup and an imperial stout.”

For more information, visit threecarrotsindy.com.

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