About Us
For almost 30 years, Wendy Carpenter has been tending to the land handed down by her grandfather, devoting herself to a love for growing food and enriching the soil. Over time, Christopher Farm has grown from a small market garden into a flourishing organic vegetable and cut flower operation, supplying the local community with both nourishment and education. In 2020, Wendy’s son, Adrian Hess, moved home to join her in stewarding the land and feeding the community, while also pursuing his own dreams of revitalizing this special piece of earth in East-Central Indiana.
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Christopher Farm became USDA Organic certified through OEFFA in 2017 and joined the Real Organic Project in 2019. But long before the labels, Wendy was committed to growing food without synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers. As the understanding of soil health has expanded, the farm has transitioned to no-till practices to produce higher-quality, more nutritious food. These practices also make the soil, and the farm as a whole, more resilient to climate change while helping sequester carbon. Wendy likes to think of soil as a community—diverse organisms living together, sharing resources, and strengthening one another. Just as human communities
thrive on diversity and cooperation, so does the soil, and Christopher Farm is committed to fostering that balance for the health of the land, the food, and the people it feeds.
