Gaining Ground Farm Tour: Maximize your Production with High Tunnels!
Join us for a tour of Gaining Ground Farm, focusing on the benefits and techniques of growing under cover. This workshop is designed to help farmers reduce production risks and increase the efficiency of their farming operations through the use of covered growing structures.
“Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm in Concord, Massachusetts, grows vegetables and fruit with the help of several thousand community volunteers and donates all of this fresh food to area meal programs and food pantries.”
To learn more about Gaining Ground visit: https://gainingground.org/
Key Topics and Activities:
Farm Tour: Explore Gaining Ground Farm’s innovative use of various covered growing structures, including five high tunnels (one of which is a rolling tunnel), ten caterpillar tunnels, two heated greenhouses, and row cover tunnels. See firsthand how these structures support year-round farming and enhance crop quality.
Risk Management Strategies: Kari Bender - Gaining Ground Farm Co- manager, will share her extensive experience with different plastic structures, including high tunnels, low tunnels, and caterpillar tunnels. Learn how these structures can mitigate production, financial, and marketing risks.
Pest and Weed Management: Susan Scheufele, production agriculture leader at UMass extension, will provide training on identifying and managing pests and weeds on your farm. Learn about effective pest exclusion netting and receive handouts on managing common winter pests.
About the Presenters:
Kari Bender. Farm Co-Manager: Kari (she/her) loves working in the soil and with plants in all of their forms. She enjoys crafting plants into teas, wreaths, salves, and dyes and bringing the harvest home in all of its diverse forms. Sharing this wonder and magic of plants and the outdoors energizes Kari and drives her belief that green spaces need to be more equitably accessible. Kari is grateful to be working alongside an amazing team, tending land, growing food, and working with partners towards a common vision of a just food system.
Susan Scheufele: Susan Scheufele is the Production Agriculture Leader at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she specializes in vegetable production. She has been deeply involved with UMass Extension's Vegetable Program, leading research and outreach efforts focused on integrated pest management (IPM), sustainable farming practices, and disease management in vegetable crops. She provides technical assistance and educational resources to farmers across Massachusetts, helping them implement best practices for vegetable farming and risk management.
Funding Aknowledgement
This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2023-70027-40447.
