Freedom Valley Farm

10/23/2026

Join us at market tomorrow for another beautiful crisp Fall morning! We'll have fresh Fall goodies like Kale, garlic kale, radishes, and plenty of salad greens! The lettuce is still producing like crazy in this gorgeous weather. We'll also have summer items still, like green bell peppers, and what miiiiight be the last of the tomatoes.

On the farm this week, we're officially past our first frost day (and 2nd, and 3rd, and 4th lol). Everything we covered last Friday remains beautiful and healthy. Meanwhile, the warm-season crops have finished their life cycle (bye bye basil and cucumbers). A lot of our attention has been turned to the greenhouse beds, as we nurse them along so they have the best shot at surviving the winter. Most of our harvests will still be outdoors though, until the end of November. We're planning to move 2 greenhouses next Monday, and we've started installing hoops over our winter carrot beds. We're still squeezing small plantings into the houses to take advantage of every inch of winter space we have. We're also prepping our garlic beds, to be planted out in the next couple of weeks.
This winter, we're hoping that the warmer, dryer forecast will allow us to embark on some big, much-needed projects. We're hoping to do a large portion of our mulching and composting, so we're not doing so much of that in the summer next year. We have our sights on re-structuring one of our biggest growing plots to allow for better drainage and less compaction. The plan is to turn those beds 90 degrees and add a big dose of organic matter to raise them up a bit. We're also planning out a permanent deer and critter fence. We face immense deer pressure on the farm, and it has only gotten worse over the years. We've tried just about every version of electric fencing, and unfortunately we learned this year that that just won't cut it for us any more. We're planning to install an 8ft high fence around the perimeter of of farm. It won't be cheap or easy, but it has proven critical, as we have lost several big plantings to deer this year. As I've said in past posts, this has been a tough year for us. Our goal is to come into 2027 as prepared as we can be for all of the problems we have faced in recent years.

We have just 2 outdoor markets left before we move indoors for the rest of the year. So come see us tomorrow and soak up the outdoor market atmosphere while you can! We'll see you there :)

Broad Ripple Farmers Market
Bloomington Community Farmers' Market

Our produce and mushrooms are also currently available on MarketWagon and at Bethel Lane Farm Stop in Bloomington.

10/20/2026

Bloomington folks! I made a delivery to Bethel Lane Farm Stop yesterday. I dropped off some beautiful rainbow chard bunches, spring lettuce mix, sweet pepper grab bags, shiitake mushrooms, and lots of arugula. Be sure to stop in this week!
And for our Indy folks, don't forget to get your MarketWagon orders in tonight! Plenty of greens and mushrooms listed on there as well.

10/16/2026

Well would you look at that? On Wednesday it was 90 degrees again, and today we covered up for our first frost! Seems to be how it goes these past few years. It made for quite an odd week on the farm. We did final harvests on all of our warm-season crops left in the field. We set up sandbags, frames, and covers on all of our cold-tolerant leafy veggies. And if we doubted ourselves through the week as we did all this prep work, today certainly showed us that frost is on it's way. From a balmy 90, down to 50 with a brisk northern wind and cold rain today. We're expecting a pretty solid frost tomorrow night. At the end of the day, we spent a little bit of time walking the farm and harvesting some last minute goodies for ourselves, and said goodbye to summer! Even after such a rough year, it's still bittersweet.

On our tables tomorrow, you'll see again that Fall has been kind to our salad greens, and we have a good supply of lettuce and arugula. We also have chard, some herbs, green tomatoes, the last of our green beans, and one last little round of zucchini that decided to fruit just days before frost. Our mushroom supply is quite heavy this week, so later customers should find plenty on the table still. We have all of that and plenty more, so bundle up and come enjoy a a crisp Fall morning with us! Markets open at 9:00 :)

Broad Ripple Farmers Market
Bloomington Community Farmers' Market

10/16/2026

We took a week off from MarketWagon but we're back! Order now for delivery to your door next Thursday. I just added spring lettuce mix, and we have 3 types of our mushrooms. I'll be listing a few more items later this evening.

Shop MarketWagon.com, Online Farmers Markets & Local Food Delivery

10/09/2026

Hello and happy Friday! Things are looking good down here on the farm. All field plantings are completed for the year (except garlic in November). The beds are looking properly full, for the first time since Spring. Salad greens are turning around as we've had much cooler nighttime temps lately. And, after 3 quad-axle truckloads of compost, all of our mainstay winter beds are prepped and seeded! 😌 Our big end-of-season sigh of relief has come about a week earlier than usual, and that was the plan. It's a big weight off of our shoulders to have all of our winter crops in the ground. Next we'll be preparing for frost and moving 2 of our greenhouses for the season.

At market tomorrow, you'll see more greens on the table again. We have lettuce, lots of arugula, and spicy mix. We'll have swiss chard and celery. We have a nice round of 2 types of green beans--the Roma's are our favorite! The herbs are looking very nice this week--we have cilantro, dill, and basil. Tomatoes are slowing way down, but we do have a small amount heading to Broad Ripple. We may end up getting one more heavy flush before frost, but that's a gamble.

Come see us tomorrow, before you're cooped up inside for a rainy Sunday. The weather tomorrow looks perfect! Remember that both markets have switched to a 9:00 opening time instead of 8. We'll see you there!

Broad Ripple Farmers Market
Bloomington Community Farmers' Market

09/25/2026

Here we are, almost through the month of September, folks! This is our LAST Carmel market until next May! The Carmel winter market starts in mid-October, but we will not be attending this year. So come see me tomorrow! I'll have a little bit of chard, lots of tomatoes, basil, some dill, peppers, and more!
This is also the last week we'll have an 8:00 start time for Broad Ripple and Bloomington. Both markets start at 9:00 NEXT weekend. We'll be outdoors through the end of October, and then both markets move indoors starting November.
On the farm this week, we more than enjoyed the cool, suddenly-Fall temps! What a difference it made! I think we're all heading home a little less exhausted this week. We tore out 2 more greenhouses of cherry tomatoes in preparation to compost and seed them with winter greens next week. We found time to cultivate our Fall field beds. We seeded the last of our field greens and radishes.
The highlight of our week was welcoming the Christopher Farm team for a farm walk and potluck lunch. Though it's often hard to dedicate time for get-togethers like this, we love the opportunity to meet and talk with like-minded farmers. It was a refreshing pick-me-up after such a long hot summer. Wendy and her crew were an absolute delight to have on the farm. It's always fun to compare and learn how each farm approaches things differently. We hope to go for a field trip to their farm next summer! Be sure to check them out at the Broad Ripple market.
As always, we're packed and ready to go bright and early tomorrow morning! We'll see you all starting at 8:00 :)

Broad Ripple Farmers Market
Carmel Farmers Markets
Bloomington Community Farmers' Market

09/18/2026

Hello everyone! I'm happy to say that we will be at ALL 3 markets tomorrow, for the first time in a long time 🥳
We're excited to get back to Bloomington after a long Summer absence. Amber is looking forward to seeing you all! We have only 2 more Carmel Summer markets to go, so this is a good time to share our updated plans for winter. We will NOT be taking part in the Carmel winter market this year. We'll be at the Broad Ripple and Bloomington winter markets, but not Carmel. More details to follow in the coming weeks for winter going-ons!

This week we had a surprisingly abundant harvest! We have lettuce, and lots of arugula. We have fresh dill, and a whole lot of basil. Our plot of Fall tomatoes has also decided to arrive a little early so we'll have plenty of tomatoes at all 3 markets tomorrow. Don't skip on Fall tomatoes; they're by far the best-tasting tomatoes of the year! These are all field-grown at this time of year, and the plants know that winter is coming, so all of their energy goes to the fruits. They're usually smaller and a little uglier than early season tomatoes, but they're oh so tasty.

On the farm, we continue to trod along on winter plantings. We have our first 3 greenhouses completely turned over to winter kale. Next week we'll start ripping out cherry tomatoes to make space in 2 more houses for lettuce and spinach. It's hard to believe that our average first frost date is only 3 weeks away, but we're very ready for a change in season.

Come see us at ALL the markets tomorrow!

Broad Ripple Farmers Market
Bloomington Community Farmers' Market
Carmel Farmers Markets

09/11/2026

Hello and happy Friday! We will only be at Broad Ripple Farmers Market tomorrow. We should be back to Carmel Farmers Markets next weekend, and we're planning a return to Bloomington Community Farmers' Market in early October. Thank you again for your support as we navigate through this difficult season.

Though I've been awfully quiet on here, we're busy at the farm getting our winter plantings in. Winter carrots are looking good, we finally got some beet beds to take, our winter kale and napa cabbages are in the ground, and next week we'll be starting to work on our greenhouse salad beds for winter. I'm keeping a close eye on some arugula that miiiiight be ready next week, and we might have a late round of green beans here soon. We have waited and waited for our peppers and eggplant to take off this year, but I'm really starting to think that this might just be a dud year for both of those, as they continue to just barely trickle in. We'll see if maybe they give us a last minute bounty before frost. We also have a late round of zucchini that we're hoping will produce soon. We continue to plant round after round of lettuce, but deer and army worms continue to be a big problem for our lettuce beds. I've planted our next round in a greenhouse to hopefully get some on the table again soon.
We have probably 2 more weeks before cherry tomatoes are off the menu, so be sure to be getting your fill. We'll be forced to tear them out soon to make way for winter plantings. Normal tomatoes should hopefully last a bit longer. Basil is very plentiful still, but will begin to dwindle soon as we replace some of those beds with winter plantings also. We'll see you bright and early in Broad Ripple tomorrow!

08/29/2026

Good evening everyone. We will be at Broad Ripple Farmers Market and Carmel Farmers Markets tomorrow. We'll have tomatoes, basil, mushrooms, and yes, some greens! While we're still struggling with lettuce, we harvested quite a bit of baby garlic-kale this week and some spicy greens mix. We also have radishes!

August has been quite the rough month for us, and quite honestly this entire Summer is one of the roughest ones in my memory on the farm. We're battling unprecedented pressure from pests, disease, and relentless humidity. Many times lately, I have felt like we're learning how to farm in a whole different climate this year. Pest cycles are all out of whack, our normal pest control methods are not working, and it's hard to fend off plant diseases when we've barely had a day that stayed below 80% humidity all summer. With all of these factors combined, it's been incredibly difficult to get new crops started; I can't even count how many times I've seeded and re-seeded lettuce and beets this month alone. Army worms and cucumber beetles get them the second they get put in the ground, something we've never had so much of an issue with before.
On top of all of this we're also facing staffing issues, which is why we weren't able to come to Carmel last week. August is a hard month to get through short-handed, but we're almost there! I'm counting down the number of Fall/Winter plots that must be prepped and planted before we can take a nice big sigh of relief. Despite the extra hardships this year, we still love what we do, and we are taking extra long notes about how to come into next year more prepared for these new growing conditions.
What all this means for us, is that we are failing to meet our demand by a long-shot this year. We appreciate all of the support and patience we've been shown, and we thank everyone who has bought everything we've been able to offer this year. Our goal is to get past this season and get back on track with a productive Winter season, and hopefully a much more fruitful 2027.

08/16/2026

Good evening everyone. I'm checking in to fill you all in on what has been a hectic 48 hours for us, and to direct you to where you can currently find our produce.
On Saturday, we unfortunately had to leave the farmers markets due to heavy storms and flash flooding in Broad Ripple and Carmel. In the 8 years that I have personally been at the farm, we've never had this happen. We had every bit of our harvests (aka our income) at those 2 markets this weekend, so it was a very difficult day to accept. We basically spent 3 hours driving to market and setting up, only to have to pack it all back up and leave. We had maybe an hour's worth of sales at Broad Ripple, where the weather didn't hit quite as hard right at opening. But at Carmel, we were hit before the market even opened, and so I made all of 3 sales before I had to pack up and leave.
This of course comes after we have already had SO many rainy markets this summer. Although we never close down just for rain, it obviously affects our sales. I do have to point out that we are still feeling incredibly lucky, however, since our farm hasn't faced any of the devastating flooding that has hit much of Indiana. We may be working through swamp weather these past several weeks, but at least our crops aren't underwater. We also have a lot of gratitude for the market volunteers who make these markets happen, rain or shine, and for our dedicated customers who show up to support us.

If you're missing out on your farm fresh produce and mushrooms this week, I've been scrambling to get them available to you. For our Broad Ripple and Carmel customers, I'm currently listing everything I can on MarketWagon. If you've never tried Market Wagon, this is a great opportunity to do so, and you'll even find some of your favorite meat, egg, and bread vendors on there too. Cutoff for orders is Tuesday night, and delivery (to your door!) is on Thursday. Make sure to select Thursday delivery to see our products.
For our Bloomington customers, I made a big delivery to Bethel Lane Farm Stop this morning. You can check out their website to see everything we have in stock there on any day you would like to visit. I dropped off LOTS of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers, and more. You can find an incredible deal of our chestnut mushrooms for $7/half pound, and our big basil bunches for $3, while they last.

Thank you so much to everyone who makes it possible for us to farm for our local communities. It means the world to us, especially when times get tough