A compact tract of land managed intensively can sustain a family and yield marketable products. Porter Farms just west of Danville demonstrates how it can be done.
Small in scale, Porter Farms has vegetable gardens, raised growing beds, a high tunnel greenhouse, and it produces berries.
The family-owned operation established in 2019 also raises meat chickens and sheep, and has honeybees.
Awarded a three-year Clean Water Indiana grant to help fund conservation practices and educational workshops, the farm partners with the Indiana Farmer Veteran Coalition, Blue Yonder Organic Farm outside North Salem, and the Hendricks County Soil & Water Conservation District.
The enterprise was developed as a veterans’ training farm to show them how to farm using conservation practices.
Porter Farms hosts free workshops open to everyone every second Thursday from April through September. Plan now for April 14’s program dealing with cover crop termination, mulching and raised bed gardening.
Later topics: rotational grazing livestock, plant disease and management, rain garden pollinator habitat, landscaping with native plants, and livestock husbandry.
Contact the SWCD at (317) 745-2555, ext. 3, for more information.
