Avoid Compaction: Plant Garlic Into Your Cover Crop!

Are you looking to optimize your on-farm cover cropping systems and identify opportunities to decrease the compaction of your soil? Planting garlic or a variety of other foods into your cover crop is a great way to optimize your fields, decrease the compaction levels of your soil, and increase the nutrient availability.

During this event, Chuck Currie of Freedom Food Farm will walk us through this process, and demonstrate how to minimize compaction, which is often propelled by tillage and frequent tractor passes. We’ll tour their fields and get a look at the variety of equipment they use to enhance their no-till farming practices, such as: a water wheel transplanter with a no-till coulter, a no-till drill to plant cover crop, and mulch transferring equipment.

Learn about and discuss which methods may work best for your farm, and identify opportunities for improving your own systems for healthier soil and increased productivity– right before garlic-planting season!

Throughout the day we’ll:

• Learn about Freedom Food Farm’s no-till practices
• Review a variety of tools that can help when working with cover cropping
• Learn about how garlic is well suited for being planted into cover crops
• Discuss different methods and their pros and cons
• Explore Certified Organic practices on the farm
• Network with other low/no-till farmers

Schedule/Agenda:

1:00 pm - Arrival, check-ins

1:30 pm - Tour and demo

3:00 pm - Discussion, Q&A

4:00 pm -  Wrap up

Cost:

Sliding scale $30/50/70

Full Scholarships available: Apply here

About

Freedom Food Farm is a certified organic farm on 88 acres in Raynham, MA. They started in 2012 and focus on growing a sustainable, full diet on a year-round basis for their community. The farm is operated by a small team of dedicated farmers.

About the Instructor:

Chuck Currie manages the Freedom Food Farm’s grain & compost production as well as the livestock. He has farmed for over 15 years and has taught many workshops on organic, regenerative farming in New England.

Chuck studied biochemistry and chemistry for two years at UMass Amherst before taking a sustainable agriculture course, visiting a small farm run by someone not much older than him, and instantly realizing he had wanted to be a farmer his entire life. After completing a B.S. in Plant, Soil, and Insect Science in 2005, he worked at Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA for three years before starting his own farm in Vermont. After four years farming in Vermont, Chuck moved back to southeastern Massachusetts with the goal of providing equal access to good food in more urban communities, and to be closer to family and friends. He started Freedom Food Farm in 2012 on leased land in Johnston, RI and began leasing land to farm in Raynham, MA in 2014.

About the Project:

This event is supported by Specialty Crop Block Grant Program funds from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) to help mitigate the impacts of soil compaction, through increasing farmer awareness of compaction and soil structure evaluation methods. These include the ability to recognize quantifiable indicators of soil density, hardness, and structure in farmers’ own fields, and the ability to understand the impact of different practices and operations on soil density, hardness, and structure over time.

Accessibility:

The farm is flat and fairly accessible. The bathroom is up a flight of stairs

More Information:

We want to make sure your accessibility needs are met during the event. Please share with us your needs regarding (but not limited to): physical accessibility, allergies, noise, scent, gender, intellectual accessibility, and any instructions or tips to help you fully participate.

Refund/Inclement Weather Policy:

For information on our refund and inclement weather policy, click here.

Questions?

Contact Hannah McDonald, NOFA/Mass Events Manager, at events@nofamass.org