About Waterman's Family Farm!

Waterman's Family Farm is exactly what the name implies - the home where the Waterman family has practiced first-class agriculture and land stewardship for generations.

Bruce and Carol Waterman both come from farm backgrounds. Bruce was raised on the farm that is located diagonally across from today's Farm Market on E. Raymond Street (currently the location of Indy Acres Paintball) where he and his parents raised produce that they sold at the south side farmers' market at South and New Jersey Streets in Indianapolis.

Carol was raised on a conventional farm near South Whitley in northern Indiana. Her parents raised corn and soybeans, a few dairy cattle, a few beef cattle, pigs, and chickens. Her grandparents, who lived on an adjacent farm, raised sheep.

In 1978, Bruce - then a data consultant for Hook Drugs --- calculated how much produce would be required to feed 1,000 families. He ordered seeds and plants, bought a tractor and sprayer, worked the ground, planted the crops and Waterman's Farm Market was born.

The vision was that it would be a place where customers could pick their own produce and thereby be insured of the freshest product at a price that would exclude the cost of the labor for harvest, or buy the same high-quality fruits and vegetables, fresh-picked for you, at a friendly country market.

Over the years, we've earned a reputation for our wonderful strawberries, our flavorful tomatoes, and our amazing sweet corn, in addition to our other crops, all of them grown and harvested with the utmost care to ensure freshness, flavor and bountiful nutrition.

Of course, lots of folks know us for our famous Fall Harvest Festival. From a simple beginning with hayrides to the pumpkin patch and a teepee made of cornstalks, it has grown into a five week celebration and one of the highlights of autumn in Indianapolis complete with games, rides, music, food and all kinds of farm fun.

And now we've added a new flavor to the calendar with Jazz-a-Berry, our June celebration of strawberries, jazz and fun on the farm.

In 2009 we were approached about making land available to Karen refugees from Burma (Myanmar). Reflecting on what it must be like to be farmers uprooted from their home country, persecuted by their own government, forced to flee to another country, and then made to live in an apartment in the city, we quickly said "Yes, we can do this." We believe it is a human right to be able, whenever possible, to eat culturally familiar foods. It is our hope that his little piece of ground will be instrumental in empowering these displaced people so that they gain a sense of belonging in this country.

We are blessed to be in the position of sharing our part of the story of agriculture with our community. We make our living from the earth and believe that our "farm in the city" offers an ideal opportunity for the community to connect with the best that the earth has to offer.

To us, the farm is an entity for which Carol and Bruce, as owners, are responsible but which is really there for the community. That's why we call it Waterman's Family Farm . because it's there for your family, too.


 
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