Interested in working for us? Then we’d like to meet you!

Our Fall Harvest Festival is coming up, and we need some good, reliable people to keep it running, so we’re having a Job Fair Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 18 and 19, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at both Waterman’s locations — 7010 E. Raymond Street and on Ind. 37 a half-mile south of the Johnson-Marion county line.

We’re looking for friendly self-starters who know the meaning of customer service and will go out of their way to see that our guests have a great time. We need people for jobs ranging from tractor drivers to activity supervisors, hayride guides to grounds maintenance. 

Applicants must be age 18 or older.

Waterman’s Fall Harvest Festival is the area’s premiere autumn event, with hayrides to the pumpkin patch, games, a petting zoo, music, food and much, much more. The festival will begin Sept. 29 and run daily through Halloween.

 

 

 

Home Grown Tomatoes

“Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” — Guy Clark, Homegrown Tomatoes

Actually, you CAN buy homegrown tomatoes — ours. They’re red, ripe and delicious and they’re in the market now.

You’re on your own for the true love, though.

 

Corny Times Are Here Again

You know summer’s here when you bite into your first ear of crunchy, delicious sweet corn! We’re picking our earliest variety now, so come on out to the market!

Why should you buy our corn instead of the stuff in the supermarket? Freshness. The moment an ear of corn comes off the stalk, all the sugars begin converting to starch. You want corn that “pops” with real corn flavor, and the only way to get that is to go to the source — us!

Corn in the store also has a thick and gummy hull, or pericarp. That’s because it has to hold up while being shipped long distances. Our corn has a thin hull that shatters when you bite into it. Try some and enjoy a true Indiana summertime treat!

Sunday afternoon Corn Roasts are coming soon!

Come out to visit YOUR family farm on Sunday afternoons beginning July 15 for our first-ever corn roasts.

It’ll be like an old-fashioned family picnic, church social or family reunion! We’ll have games and activities like hayrides, Water Wars (a water balloon fight — just the thing on these hot summer days!) and sack races. And we’ll be roasting corn and grilling brats and hot dogs.

 Admission will be free (you have to pay for your food, natch!). See you there!

New fields to cultivate

A few years ago, we were approached by a representative of a community of Karen people, a persecuted ethnic minority from Myanmar, with a proposition: Would be willing to provide these refugees, farmers in their homeland but now living in urban apartments, a parcel of land where they could grow some of their own crops?

The purpose was two-fold: As an incubator, it could help the Karen earn money, the better to ease their assimilation into their new home in Central Indiana, and as a small farm, it could reconnect them with the soul-satisfying joy of working the land.

We agreed and before long, we had a group of new friends raising crops you’re not likely to see on most Central Indiana produce farms – bitter melon, yard-long bean, and a host of others. We prepared the soil for them, but the work was theirs to do.

The Karen proved to be diligent farmers, raising enough produce for their own consumption and for sale to ethnic markets, and the project was deemed a wonderful success.

Now we move on to another chapter.

The Karen have planted more than just crops – they’ve planted themselves, too. They’re buying houses and becoming part of the fabric of our community … cultivating new fields, you might say.

And so our project with them comes to an end – but it’s a happy ending. Our Karen friends have moved on but there is another group of newcomers waiting to come out to the farm in 2013 to begin their own process of incubation, assimilation and connection. We don’t yet know who they are or where they’ll come from, but we do know that we can’t wait to welcome them to our farm family.

Agriculture and art

This wonderful mosaic ear of corn, created by Lisa Waterman, greets visitors at the market, 7010 E. Raymond Street.

So long to spring, hello to summer

All good things must come to an end and so it is with our spring crops, strawberries and peas. They’re all done for the year — no more in the field, none in the market … but that’s as it should be.Sure, you can buy supermarket strawberries all year long but look at what you get: Big, hard berries with white cores, no juice and no flavor. That’s an awful lot to give up for availability.

Our philosophy is to enjoy what we have in season and then, when the season ends, move on to the next offering, which in this case happens to be beets. They’re red, delicious and ready to be pulled. Come on out to YOUR family’s farm and get some!

We have berries in the market!

We have wonderful, delicious strawberries available in our market. They are a bit smaller than they were at the beginning of the season but they retain that marvelous flavor. There are essentially no more berries available for you to pick from our field.  We have planted a new berry patch at our Raymond Street farm and are confident that next year our strawberry fields will be back in the condition that we prefer and our customers deserve.

You may pick sugar snap peas.  This is a beautiful crop of tender, delicious, snappy crisp peas that are intended to be eaten with the pod—no shelling necessary.  They may be eaten raw, with a dip, stir-fried or cooked like a green bean.  The English pea, the ones you shell, are also available to pick, as are snow peas, the type that is often found in Asian dishes.

Our location on Highway 37 in Greenwood is now open with inconsistent hours.  We arrive there after the strawberries have been picked in the morning and remain until they are all sold.  This generally means that we are open from approximately 11 a.m. until approximately 5 p.m. 

For your convenience we are selling our strawberries under a tent near the highway so that you don’t have to drive down that long driveway.  This does mean, however, that we are unable to accept credit cards at this location.  For more information, please call 357-2989.