INDY’S HARDEST WORKING cyclist isn’t spinning around Major Taylor Velodrome. He’s digging in the dirt. Ben Matthews, the founder of Warfleigh Cottage Garden, isn’t just the sole produce vendor at the SoBro Farmers Market—he’s also behind the business’s newly launched community supported agriculture boxes, which he delivers via his Surly Long Haul Trucker bike.
Matthews started his urban farm in 2021 with an aspiration to build a sustainable food system in the heart of Indianapolis. But the idea was seeded far earlier: Growing up in a nomadic Navy family, he watched his mother garden a plot at every temporary residence and applied his experience as he earned degrees in horticulture and business at Iowa State. “I wanted to grow something that fed people,” he says.
Today, his farm spans a patchwork of land across multiple sites, including his backyard. “Our front yard is a native habitat,” Matthews says of the home he shares with his partner. “He takes care of the front. The vegetables and back are my responsibility.”
Matthews keeps his garden green with the help of a couple of seasonal workers, then offers up its bounty at the Binford and SoBro markets. This past spring is the first time he offered a weekly CSA box, which included five to seven items per week delivered—by cargo bike—in neighborhoods from 49th Street to the Indianapolis Art Center. Preorders for the box sold out almost immediately and inspired him to add a fall offering, as well. “My goal is to grow nutrient-dense yet high-quality produce for the local community,” he says. “It’s not easy balancing the workload over several different locations, but the benefit of being in the city is that our customers are so close.”
