The New Hampshire Friday, February 7, 2014

NEWS
The New Hampshire
Friday, February 7, 2014
Catie Hall/Staff
Students take their lessons from the classroom and apply them in a real-world setting where the produce they grow is sold in UNHs Dairy Bar.
FARM
continued from page 1
but harvested vegetables are sold in UNHs

Dairy Bar.
We produce all of their salad greens,
their tomatoes when theyre in season, but
now were actually looking to produce more
for the dining halls, like Holloway, UNH
senior Spencer Montgomery said. Montgomery is currently enrolled in the spring
course.
Ogden said that UNHs Dining Director
Jon Plodzik was fundamental in getting the
program started.
We are very proud of our efforts to
source as much as possible from local growers and vendors, Plodzik said in an email.
Getting greens from campus is a great
initiative with our partner, [College of Life
Sciences and Agriculture], that benefits all of
us from an educational and product perspective.
In New Hampshire, people often dread
winter. It means blankets of snow, whistling
winds, bursting pipes and hypothermia.
Despite possible problems and freezing
temperatures, students still want to grow
vegetables.
We had students saying, Hey, were
getting good theory, but we want more
hands-on. We want to get our hands dirty,
Ogden said. So, problem: Here, the growing
season is primarily from May till September if youre just growing outdoors. So that
period is when students arent really here. In
order to get around all this, we decided to go
the route of using high tunnels.
The idea is far from cutting-edge.
Ogden said the idea came from Otho Wells,
a retired UNH plant biology professor, who
brought the idea over from Europe. According to the New Hampshire Farms Network
website, Wells pioneered high-tunnel
technology at UNH at the N.H. Agricultural
Experiment Stations Woodman Horticultural
Research Farm in Durham, beginning in the
late 1980s.
As Ogden explained, the high tunnels

are simplified greenhouses. They sit next to
UNHs dairy barn. Instead of an established
floor with benches for plants to flourish
on, the high tunnel grounds are soil. Enter
through the wooden door and see that red,
purple and green vegetables are harvested in
crafted soil columns in the ground.
Students enrolled this semester work in
both the heated and unheated high tunnels.
They push metal tools on top of the soil in
order to plant seeds. At different stations in
the heated tunnel, you can hear the sound of
hose water splashing soil and ground.
When it comes to reaching into the soil
to crush clumps of dirt, the students arent
shy. Montgomery pushes into the dirt and
extracts a carrot that he shares with other
students. The bite into the carrot is crunchy,
moist and flavorful.
All of this work produces food that
goes to the Dairy Bar. Any excess gets sent
to Holloway Commons. Out of the two high
tunnels, the heated tunnel is used to grow
salad mix and greens.
In our unheated tunnel we grow cold,
hearty crops like spinach, carrots, beets,
radishes, onions, Ogden said, and those we
keep growing throughout the winter without
extra heat.
Other universities like Cornell University in New York, Pennsylvania State
University and Kentucky State University
are studying the benefits of high tunnels.
However, there is no mention of student
involvement, just PowerPoints that project
the structures benefits.
Ogden sees something special in UNHs
practices.
One of the great advantages we have
here though is the proximity of the farm
land to the campus, Ogden said in his quiet
Spaulding office. It makes a huge difference
in terms of being able to schedule a course
within the regular course schedules and students can get on a bus and be there in five to
10 minutes. Not many other universities have
their farm land so close to campus.
Students seem to be aware of those so-
called advantages.
I havent heard of anywhere else that
has a program like this, UNH senior Megan
Letendre said.
UNH senior Chrissy Wolf said that class
was one of her favorites.
This class was extremely special to me
and was definitely one of my favorite classes
that I took during my four years at UNH,
she said.
Wolf took the course during its first year
and said she didnt mind experimenting with
what worked and what didnt.
I enjoyed being in the class the first
year it was offered because it gave us an opportunity to make the program into something of our own, Wolf said in an email
while she is away for the semester. It was
really exciting to be the pioneers of it and
make changes to things that didnt work,
as well as improve things we had success
with.
Montgomery works with UNHs Slow
Food chapter that promotes good, clean and
fair food growth, consumption and production. Now, Montgomery represents oncampus Slow Food chapters, working as the
National Coordinator for Slow Food Youth
Network in the U.S.
Obviously Ive done a lot of work with
food, Montgomery said, having returned
from an international Slow Food meeting in
Italy, but Ive never gotten my hands dirty.
Montgomery was interested in the class
as soon as he heard about it.
When I first heard about this class,
Montgomery said, I thought it was really
cool because I was going to be able to get my
hands dirty. Ive always been connected
to food, but Ive never grown food.
As of now, the class is not mandatory,
but Ogden hopes that the class will be a
cornerstone of the Sustainable Agriculture
major. He will even be teaching SAFS 405,
the prerequisite for The Food Production
Field Experience this summer with the high
tunnels.
With the flourishing of the local food
movement, Ogden said people want to have
a connection to where their food comes from.

Thats where his class comes in.
These students are hopefully going to
be ready to start operations, start businesses
and be ready to deal with that new demand,
Ogden said.
The business experience comes from the
hands-on exercises in the high tunnels. But
Ogden does not want to teach his students
solely about burgeoning vegetables.
It takes horticultural skills to grow the
vegetables, Ogden said, but there are a lot
of other skills that go into it. I teach them
how to keep good records, how to use things
like Excel to keep up with things like planting dates and seeding, harvesting also
making maps of our plots.
Among spreadsheets and maps, students also learn to utilize social media and
blogging to reach out to the community
Ogden said. The experiential course aims to
provide students with skills for the vegetable
market.
The first semester, I was not able to
take it, Letendre said, sidestepping a hose
in the high tunnels. I was excited that they
made arrangements so that Id still be able to
take both classes. I think its really good to
have the hands-on experience and actually
get to work with the plants.
Though the class is marked as a
600-level course, students are not expected to
be experts beforehand. Thats why Letendre
wanted to take the class.
Ive had some gardening experience
but I definitely wanted more, Letendre said.
Students have different reasons for
wanting to the take the class. Some want to
own and operate their own farms one day,
Ogden said. Letendre wanted more experience, and for Montgomery, just signing up
for the class granted a perspective as fresh as
the vegetables he grows.
When I finally registered and started
the class, then it really occurred to me what
we were actually doing, Montgomery said
while he took a break in the unheated tunnel. Were growing food for basically the
student body.

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NEWS

The New Hampshire

Friday, February 7, 2014

continued from page 1

but harvested vegetables are sold in UNHs

As Ogden explained, the high tunnels

a connection to where their food comes from.

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