For Rachel White, farm operations manager at Eskenazi Health, early summer is crunch time. It's always a rush to seed frost-sensitive vegetables like peppers, cucumbers and zucchini before Mother's Day, the traditional Hoosier planting deadline. Soon, those vegetables will need to be harvested and the next set seeded.

White manages about 100 beds at the Eskenazi Health Thomas & Arlene Grande Campus. She has roughly 7,500 square feet of ground to cover. White realizes that her career is not for everyone.

"It is a hot and sweaty job with lots of insects," she says. "I think that's great. I love it."

The vegetables she grows are largely used for nutritional programming for patients at various Eskenazi Health Center locations. She also provides some produce for the salad bar at Café Soleil at Eskenazi Health, located at the Eskenazi Health downtown campus.

White was hired more than a decade ago to manage the plants atop the Sandra Eskenazi Outpatient Care Center on the Eskenazi Health downtown campus, first as a vendor, then as a full-time employee. Most of the farm operations at Eskenazi Health have now moved to the new eastside campus at 6002 E. 38th St. She spends just one day a week at the downtown campus's rooftop to tend to six large planters, which will soon be filled with basil, dill, cilantro, marigolds and zinnias. The eastside farm is "bigger and needs more attention," she explains.

She is charmed by her new space at the Eskenazi Health Thomas & Arlene Grande Campus. Last year "it felt like I was walking through a butterfly garden, there were so many swallowtails and monarchs. It was so beautiful," she says. "It's a very sweet, perfect place for something like this."

The Eskenazi Health farmer's year is routine. In February she begins seeding inside, and by late March she's outside seeding plants that can withstand cooler weather.

“Pretty much anything that goes in your salad bowl can handle some of the light frost,” she says. After her May rush, White harvests early-summer vegetables for future nutritional programming while seeding a new set of plants that need warmth, such as okra and beans. In late summer she seeds the plants she did in the spring again for fall harvesting. By early winter she’s assessing the soil to determine the next year’s planting and programming. “February comes really fast,” she says, “and I’m starting it all over again.

White visits multiple health centers to assist the dietitians and other health team members with their nutritional group programming in addition to supplying the produce for their sessions. At Eskenazi Health Center Grande, these visits are monthly. She gives farm updates, provides a sample herb or vegetable and explains what’s being planted next. By describing the rhythm of planting, she encourages patients to eat vegetables in season to improve taste and reduce grocery costs. She enjoys getting input on what to plant, as when she switched to a cabbage good for kimchi after a patient's request. Although she rarely encounters patients at the farm itself, she welcomes them wandering there.

Weekly she gathers flowers she's planted and turns them into bouquets for inpatients at Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital, entrusting Bishop Rob Lyons, manager of the Eskenazi Health Center for Spiritual Care & Education, and his team to determine which of their patients most need cheer.

"Zinnias are a huge hit for us," she says, flowers that are "summer through and through. They are giving off this wonderful color without having too much of a smell, and the bees and the butterflies love them," she says. "So, I am bringing in the insects that I need for the farm to maintain pollination and helping with some of the bad insects."

The farm at Eskenazi Health Thomas & Arlene Grande Campus is “the right size for me to make a difference within the community,” White says. She’s excited by its proximity to eastside residents and by the joys of witnessing those in group sessions "exploring their own curiosity" with the questions they ask about the produce she provides.

"This is why I'm here," she says.