Urban Farming Takes Root in South Bend
Published: Friday, January 15, 2021
The intersection of Cottage Grove Avenue and Lindsey Street is one of the unlikeliest places for a Michiana farm you'll ever see.
But there Sunchoke Farms is, located on a corner lot in what decades ago would have been described as a "working class neighborhood," about a mile from downtown South Bend. The home shared by Susan and Ryan Greutman and their eight children is a fruitful example of what the USDA is promoting through its urban agriculture movement.
"I used to think we were a small farm," said Susan, whose hand is firmly on the operation's tiller. "But we qualify under very small farms."
A farm nonetheless in the eyes of Purdue University Extension and Safe Produce Indiana.
"It's our turn for inspection this coming year," Susan said. "We have to follow all the same rules that all the rest of the farms follow, even being urban. But, having a woman-owned farm is weird; having an urban farm is weird."
What started out as an economical way to nutritiously feed a growing (and growing) family has become central to the Greutmans' lifestyle and is the primary source of their livelihood.
In that respect, the half-acre operation has earned a place among Indiana's 56,648 other farming operations and is essentially the same as high-production farmers feeding the world.
However, the Greutmans' "exports" make it no farther than the Portage Food Stands located a few blocks down the street and the South Bend Farmers Market three miles away.
They made a commitment to full-time urban farming just over two years ago after reaching a quality-of-life conclusion that halted Ryan's career in environmental engineering.
"There's a big difference when you go from hobby farming to my-family's-depending-on-us farming," said Susan, who turns 40 this year. "We took a leap of faith, but it's worked out."
The Greutmans embraced the concept of urban farming even before the pandemic caused a big shift in consumer demand toward locally sourced food.
"I would say (urban farming) is happening because of food insecurity—a lot," said Susan. "And then there's just so much unused land in a lot of cities where we had a manufacturing boom. People came in for the manufacturing jobs and when the jobs went away the people went out and we're left with neighborhoods like this with all these empty holes."
The Greutmans have breathed new life into some of the open land created by the controversial "1,000 Houses in 1,000 Days" initiative launched by former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg in 2013. Of the 1,122 houses targeted as contributors to urban blight, most were demolished, leaving behind more than 670 vacant lots.
"The houses were a problem but the empty lots are blight, too, and they can really be put to good use for growing food," said Susan, pointing to the results of a 2012 study.
Converting 80 percent of every vacant lot in Cleveland to food production, according to a 2016 article that appeared in Anthropocenemagazine.org, "could supply about half of the produce, one-quarter of the poultry and eggs, and all of the honey consumed by the city's residents."
"It was just kind of an inspirational thing," Susan said. "People need to eat, there's fewer fossil fuels used and things are fresher and more nutritious if they're grown locally, so why not take advantage of this?"
The Greutmans' Near Northwest Neighbohood "farmland" consists of a total of five lots in three locations: a patch of ground, part of which is covered by a high tunnel, next to their house and two formerly vacant double lots, including one created by the Mayor Pete administration.
"Yeah, we have one of those," Susan said. "Everything we do is within two blocks of our house. One of the other big inspirations for us is this area is a major food desert in South Bend. We have all these people living here without access to fresh food.
"The nearest grocery store is about three miles away and there's people who have disabilities, or are elderly who don't have transportation. They either have to take the bus or find someone to take them shopping to get food they need."
Urban farming is a niche the community-conscious Greutmans are more than willing to fill.
"I kind of feel like it's a basic human right to be able to eat good food," Susan said. "People shouldn't be condemned to going to the gas station for something to eat, and a lot of people are because there isn't a grocery store nearby.
"I can stand at Portage Farm Stands and I can point to over there and say, 'That's where your food is grown.' I think that's pretty cool."
The Greutmans named their farm after one of their first crops, the sunchoke (also known as a Jerusalem artichoke), a prolific root crop whose above-ground growth can reach 10 feet.
"We started with about six or seven and now we get like a thousand a year," Ryan said shortly after delivering a supply of sunchokes to a local restaurant.
The Greutmans had arrangements to supply produce to eight local restaurants, but that business has all but dried up due to pandemic-related shutdowns, restrictions and closings. Their new community-supported agriculture (CSA) sales program, which they call Vegetable Share, is ready for sign-up on the couple's website, which also includes a podcast and a blog filled with farm stories, recipes and other information.
"We're diversifying further with the Vegetable Share, which was spurred on by some pandemic things," Susan said. "A lot more people wanted to buy local from us, but we had only so much to offer. But then we couldn't depend on restaurant sales anymore so we said let's start feeding people, feeding families, giving them the fresh, nutrient-dense food they need."
Preparations are underway for the upcoming season. Susan will start almost everything from seed, germinated in a basement grow room starting in February. Lettuce, spinach and other greens are growing ever-so-slowly under cover in the high tunnel and they also have a few laying chickens for personal use.
Most of their growing methods are conventional—dig a hole and drop in a seed or seeding—but consist of the seasonal rotation of crops growing on intensely packed areas of limited space. A binder contains precise drawings showing where and when each variety of vegetables will be grown in successession.
"Seasonality's a great thing," Susan said.
You name it, the Greutmans probably grow it. Last year, they produced 500 heads of garlic and this season they plan to add sweet corn for their CSA. Susan occasionally supplements the inventory with baked goods, jams and jellies sold on Saturday mornings in-season at the South Bend Farmers Market and the Portage Food Stands, a loosely organized group of four vendors marketed with a Facebook page.
So far, keeping up with demand has been a challenge.
"We'll sell 80-some percent of what we bring to the market and then we barter a little over half of what we have left," Ryan said. "We'll bring home a little for ourselves and then donate some to shelters and food pantries. Sometimes we don't have enough left to give away."
While the Greutmans draw a modest income from their operation, it works because their overhead is so low. They live where factory workers in the long defunct Studebaker automobile and, ironically, the Oliver Plow farm implement plants used to reside.
"We have wonderful neighbors—from professionals working downtown to Notre Dame professors and graduate school families to Section 8 rentals (assisted housing)," Susan said. "Families with kids, single people, some older people; it's a really colorful mix.
"One of the benefits of being here is the cost of living is less, so we don't have to worry about high land prices. It's about efficiency, really. We can put five rows of something in a spot where a farmer working with a tractor might only put three. We make a lot of compost."
In addition to eating what they grow, they have paid off the mortgage for the house and they heat it with a very large wood stove. They have no car payments or other outstanding debt for things like farm implements. They mulch as much as possible to keep irrigation payments for municipal water in check.
They rent one of their lots from a friend for $48 a year.
"The difference between urban farming versus conventional farming is we're definitely doing things a lot more on a human scale," Susan said. "We don't use any big equipment and most of our harvesting is done by hand. Our rows are closer together than they would be if we were using tractors or other things.
"We're able to fit more food per acre because we're growing intensely. We do 30-inch rows, with 18-inch pathways so we produce a lot in a really small place with all of our crop rotations. We're not certified organic but we follow organic methods because we think it's the right thing to do."
For a couple of city slickers, the Greutmans are proud to be contributing members of the region's world-removed farm scene.
"Indiana does have this great agriculture, it's in the Corn Belt and we're kind of different," Susan said. "We're not big and we're not rural, (but) I take joy in knowing we can help out people who need help and support our family at the same time."
Return to Top of Page