Tag Archives: CUE Farm

Take Time To Stop and Smell the Bok Choi

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by Wesley Sexton

Farm Interns 2014This Summer I had the unique opportunity to intern at the CUE Farm, and as part of my job I was charged with a few of the meticulous and labor-intensive responsibilities involved in growing fresh food. On the CUE Farm I learned very quickly that cultivating healthful food takes a lot of time and a lot of attention. My work this summer forced me to slow down and devote my contemplative energies toward the foods that we eat.

Of course, as a result, I have been able to learn about urban agriculture; but I also found myself confronted with questions that had lain unformed in my brain before this experience. Questions like: “Where does my food come from?” and “Does quantity trump quality in the food world?” suddenly wriggled themselves into my mind.

I have by no means been able to find comprehensive answers to these questions or many of the others that formed during my time on the CUE Farm. But the fact that these questions found their way into my mind certainly exhibits a depth of awareness that I did not previously possess before this summer. I now find myself becoming skeptical of foods at the grocery store – peppers shipped from Mexico or raspberries fallen to mold during the long ride over from California.

Amidst the vague questions still floating around in my mind, two things about urban agriculture seem quite clear:

  1. Locally grown produce will inevitably be fresher and healthier than produce shipped halfway across the country; and
  2. Considering the number of people currently living in cities or other places where fresh produce is somewhat unavailable, innovative approaches to growing fresh food must be sought out.

And perhaps with the right social environment, urban farming can help people gain access to locally grown, quality produce.

Although the CUE Farm and other urban farms like it often operate on a very small scale, the argument may be made that cultivating a smaller yield in a responsible way is preferable to the opposite approach. Personally, I believe that fresh, organic produce is an investment that is well worth the extra time spent. If more time and attention are paid to the substances with which we choose to energize our lives, I do not think that time and energy will have been misplaced.

Wesley Sexton is an English and Music major at Butler University, Class of 2016. 

Anticipating Summer: An Update from the Farm

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by Tim Dorsey

cuebarnAfter a long harsh winter and an unpredictable spring, the heart of the growing season is certainly upon us at the CUE Farm. A few early, cold-hardy crops have come and gone, but mostly we’re in that sweet spot of having many of the spring crops available and the summer crops on their way. Our CSA and Thursday afternoon farm stand begin this week (June 5), and I know many other area farms have just begun or will soon. The wait is over!

Over the last few years we’ve been finding ways to utilize more and more of our available space at the farm. For us that includes new infrastructure and new crops.

Last year, we had completed a shade structure built from reclaimed and recycled materials, including a fabric roof repurposed from the RCA Dome and re-milled barnwood roofing members. Just before winter, a team of architecture students from Ball State University completed their design and implementation of a repurposed shipping container, transforming it on site into a classroom and resource center space, complete with furniture, a creative shade canopy, a rain-catchment system and a solar-powered fan to exhaust warm air from inside.

On the biological side, we’ve also planted some new perennial fruiting shrubs this spring with hopes of reaping their bounty in the years to come. Some folks will be familiar with Gooseberries. Many may not be so familiar with Seaberries, aka Sea Buckthorn. Both of these shrubs are a bit thorny but known for delicious fruit. Sea Buckthorn has recently been finding its way into North America from countries such as Russia, Germany and Norway as folks are becoming acquainted with its highly nutritious orange berries. Just as important, the plant is a legume and a soil-builder capable of fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere (through a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria) for its own use as well as other plants nearby. It’s also extremely cold-hardy, down to -40 or -50 degrees F, and without many pest problems. If we can figure out a way to efficiently harvest while negotiating the thorns, it should be one of the more nutritious hedges in town.

Tim Dorsey is the CUE Farm manager.

(Accidentally) Saving the American Chestnut

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by Tim Dorsey

Burrs of the American Chestnut

Burrs of the American Chestnut

Recently I had the chance to intervene and save what might be an extremely rare specimen of an almost completely decimated population. It wasn’t due to my forethought or activism, but a case of extremely fortuitous timing.

My wife and I had just moved into our new house and our next-door neighbor was casually mentioning that his other-side neighbor was going to have her chestnut tree cut down over the coming weekend and he was going to salvage it for firewood. Apparently, the falling burrs (which contain the nuts) had become a nuisance to our neighbor each autumn when they fall.

My first thought was indeed to protest and try to save the tree—but not for what would prove to be the most important reason. I was excited about the nuts as a source of locally available protein and deliciousness, and proposed to take over the duties of collecting them when they fell, and not-so-urgently asked my next-door neighbor to pass on the offer.

The very next day I was giving a tour of the CUE Farm to several visiting students on Butler’s campus for an undergraduate research conference. Two of them happened to mention work they were working with one of their professors at Hanover College to breed a strain of chestnut tree resistant to blight. Immediately I recalled that chestnut trees had been severely affected by disease over the last century. I noted the unbelievable timing and mentioned that my neighbor was planning to have one cut down and was met with a collective ghastly outcry! They insisted I needed to make sure, but that there was a 99% chance that the tree in question was the entirely different species Horse chestnut, which folks also commonly refer to as “chestnut”.

As it happens, the once mighty American chestnut—comprising perhaps 25% of our Eastern forests—had been decimated by chestnut blight introduced in the early 20th century following its introduction through the importation of an Asian chestnut species. The American chestnut just hadn’t developed a resistance to the disease. Over the course of a few decades nearly all the American chestnuts in its native range were killed, and by some estimates there may be less than 100 specimens remaining (out of perhaps 3 billion!) at a diameter of 24 inches. [The species is not extinct in the native range, even other than the handful of larger specimens left, due to the fact that the stumps of the killed trees continue to send up sprouts, but these never reach reproductive age before succumbing to blight.] The chestnuts sold around the Holidays are usually from a European cousin or possibly from successfully grown American chestnuts grown out West where the organism responsible for the blight doesn’t survive.

I did in fact confirm from an old fallen burr and some fallen leaves that this was indeed an American chestnut. How or why it has survived is unknown but it may be valuable in breeding efforts due to the fact that it obviously has shown resistance to the blight. I feel privileged to live in its neighborhood! And I’m still looking forward to collecting those “nuisance” nuts in the fall.

Tim Dorsey is the CUE Farm manager.