Providing Families locally grown, nutrient-dense produce in South Indianapolis

Commodities

• Agronomic: potatoes
• Additional Plants: ginger, turmeric

Practices

• Crop Production: greenhouses
• Education and Training: workshop
• Sustainable Communities: community services, food access and security, public participation, urban agriculture

If you were to search Indianapolis on the USDA Research Atlas interactive guide, you would see about 40% of Indianapolis bathed in green. The green represents residents who live more than 1 mile from the nearest supermarket. Imagine the struggle for families to find locally grown, nutrient-dense produce. 

In the agricultural world, there is a lack of crop variety. 

The core issue I’d like to address is the lack of supply of locally grown, nutrient-dense produce in Indianapolis. Along with this, I’d like to address the lack of variety in crops and food system education in Indianapolis.

My solution is a combined research and education project. The crops that I would like to grow for this research project include sweet potatoes, turmeric and ginger, all heat-loving crops. These 3 crops are widely used and are crops you do not tend to see at farmer’s markets in Indianapolis. This research project will incorporate the use of growing the three mentioned crops in raised beds, raised beds with a plastic hoop attachment and a polytunnel to find the most practical way of growing each crop. I will use 6 raised beds in total with 3 of the raised beds having the hoop attachment along with a 20 x 10 ft polytunnel divided into 3 rows (20x2.5ft). In the first season of growing, each crop will grow in 2 raised beds (1 with hoop attachment, 1 without)  and (1)  20 x 2.5 ft row in the polytunnel. Throughout the growing season, I will measure each crop's progress in each setting by documenting the crops yields, the time it takes to produce a mature fruit and provide pictures each week of its progress. The purpose of finding the best growing practice for these crops is to share with people these sustainable practices and empower them to replicate these practices at home. 

With the education piece of this project, I plan to invite families to visit my farm with three different field days. The first field day will be at the beginning of the season where I will demonstrate how to build raised beds along with the hoop attachment and build the polytunnel with the volunteers. After that, I will demonstrate how to plant each crop and how to care for it throughout the season. Once the infrastructure is built and the crops are planted, we will have an informative luncheon where I will talk about my mission of the farm, describe the project and why supporting local food systems is important. Then, everyone will leave with handouts of how to build their own beds and polytunnel, where to source materials and where to place them in their home or backyard, informational care on each crop and where to source seeds/slips. In the middle of the season, I will invite the same and new volunteers back to the farm to check on each crop’s progress, have a discussion luncheon of what I have encountered with each growing technique and demonstrate mid-season care techniques for each crop. At the time of harvest for each crop, the last field day will occur and I will demonstrate how to harvest, cure and store the crops for volunteers and they will get a chance to harvest produce themselves and take some home along with a handout of how to cure and store the crops in their home. Then a discussion luncheonof which growing technique was most successful for each crop will occur along with a conversation of how to cook the crops. 

In the second growing season, I will repeat this research method and education techniques with different varieties of the sweet potato, ginger and turmeric. 

Objectives: 

• Examine the effectiveness of growing in raised beds, raised beds with hoop attachments and a polytunnel for 3 different root vegetables plus 2 different varieties of each. 
• Increase food supply
• Empower people to grow their own food and explore self-sufficiency 
• Educate  families on careers in agriculture
• Grow variety of crops available in the local food system of Indianapolis 
• Increase people’s participation in the local food system