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There's a lot of pride and satisfaction in starting with a seed that looks like nothing and then
eventually taking this beautiful eggplant to the market and having the customers go "OH!".
We started farming for our family about 20 years ago.
The reason we choose to do farmers market,
being able to have a flexible schedule to raise my children
at the same time that I'm making some money.
I wanted to be able to show the kids too that you could do something yourself and
they do help me put the seeds together and water the trays and
then they see the beautiful broccoli that we took to the market this Saturday.
And they realize that you start in February to sell something in June.
You have to market your stuff and you have to get your name out and get your product out.
I think farmers markets for the most part do that and that's where we started.
Farming is the second career for me.
I started 3 years ago so a little later in life than most would start an operation of this size.
I started reading and researching into farms that were out in Maine and Vermont
and upper New York that were growing vegetables all winter long.
The one farmer that I studied in particular is Elliott Coleman.
He's in Maine and he's growing 30 different types of crops in
high tunnels and out in the fields in low tunnels
and we can surely do that here in Southern Indiana.
I loved working with these flowers and we had a really large garden, mostly food.
But I had 2 young children, I didn't want to put them in daycare.
I needed an income.
The first farmers market I went to I had to collect a lot of just wild stuff
on the edges of highways and whatever to augment the small offerings I had.
And anytime anybody bought anything those first couple of markets,
I just wanted to kiss their feet.
A number of flowers needed to be dead-headed in the middle of the week,
so fortunately the city of Indianapolis started a Wednesday market
and that seemed like the answer to this waste thing I had going on.
And then we took on another market on Saturday morning, Brooad Ripple farmers market.
And then we also do the Indianapolis winter market in November and December during the holiday season,
and we also do the Bloomington winter farmers market all the way from
December through March when the Bloomington city market resumes.
I have been farming for probably a little over 15 years.
And this year with John I have started Sundry farm.
Our primary goal is to feed 20 people and to find out on our 11 acres
how much diversity of food can we provide for 20 people.
So yes, we are looking to build a closed loop farm.
We are looking at a little bit of many things as opposed to
a lot of a few things .
The farmer's market is sort of a test market too.
We have a little bit of something we can take and do you like it or do you not.
Then we get feedback again from our customers.
The market allows for a lot of things.
It allows for when we have a bumper crop to be able to take that and earn extra money.
It allows for social outlet.
It allows for us to go see and talk with other farmers and other community members.
It also allows for us to meet new customers that might be potential CSA members.
Just taking a few plants to farmers market led to this unexpected business.
I've been farming as Chili Woman for 21 years.
Like many people when you start to plant seeds, and I had this nice little green house to do it in,
I had way too many. I had hundreds.
So friends started to buy my extra plants and
somebody suggested I take them to farmers market to sell the extras.
So people would buy the plants and say
"Gee, I wish I could get this exotic chili plant next year but I wish you could ship."
HMMM, could be a business idea there.
Most of my business comes from plant shipping in May and June.
And then I bring fresh chilies and plants the rest of the year to markets.
But that's not where my business lies.
I go to market to see my customers.
I go there for the social aspect.
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