Gaining Ground Farm NC

Last Updated On: January 12th, 2024 at 08:06AM MST

Contact information

Farm Address:
298 Sluder Branch Rd
Leicester, North Carolina, 28748

Primary Contact: Aaron Grier
Secondary Contact: Natalie Anne Gaines Grier

Primary Phone:
    Type: Cell
    Number: 8285452315
    Email: sluderbranch@yahoo.com

Secondary Phone
    Type: -----
    Number: 8285452362
    Email: gainesground@gmail.com

    Email: gainesground@gmail.com

Website: https://gaininggroundfarm-nc.com/

Website: https://www.instagram.com/gainesground/?hl=en

Internship information

General Farm Description: Gaining Ground Farm is located 15 minutes west of downtown Asheville. We are a farm that believes strongly in organic sustainable growing practices. Community connection and responsibility are paramount principles here. We specialize in growing vegetables in great diversity for sale to downtown restaurants, wholesale, and tailgate market customers. We actively work to make healthy local vegetables available to the needs community through partnerships with various non-profits. We currently grow vegetables on 12 acres of prime bottomland. We maintain a herd of Red Devon cattle on 35 acres of pasture, and have a flock of free range chickens. We have been selling at tailgate markets since 1998. We stand on the shoulders of everyone who has worked with, and committedly purchased from us through the years.

CRAFT Member Farm? Yes

Internship Starts: March-June 2024
Internship Ends: August-December 2024
Number of Internship Available: 4
Application Deadline: accepting applications until positions filled
Minimum Length of Stay: 2 months

Internship Details:

Peak season work is 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. with 2 one hour breaks MTWFri, 6am-12 on Thursday and Saturdays. The schedule tapers in spring and fall. Hourly position Tuesday and Fridays available as well working in the packing house. We work rain or shine in all temps. Work includes transplanting, cultivating, harvesting, market, cattle duties, chicken duties (watering, feeding, collecting eggs, washing and packing eggs), mowing, and seeding. Workers rotate selling at the Saturday markets each week. We very much work as a team to grow, harvest, and deliver fresh healthy food to our community.

Educational Opportunities: Learn what it takes to run a farm with the money the farm is actually earning, spend time with livestock, and learn the planting schedule from seeding to harvesting for a multitude of vegetables, fruit trees, bee hives. See the power of many hands within a community. Equipment we use include: Kubota 75 hp tractor, John Deere 90 hp tractor, John Deere 75hp tractor, Farmall C cultivating tractor, hot water heated benches, wash line, overhead and drip irrigation, water wheel transplanter, mulch layer, rotovator, basket weeder, finger weeder, mist sprayer, jang seeder, BCS, hoop houses.

Skills Desired: Ability to work in a group, being able to work efficiently with others and alone, and being able to live considerately within the community. This internship is most enjoyable and effective for individuals who are hoping to own and work their own farm, or who believe in and want to participate in the local food movement. We have found that individuals who enjoy cooking have been the happiest here oddly enough.

Meals: no

Stipend: $1500 W-2 per month starting. Housing. More depending on experience. Performance bonuses. Week paid vacation. Beef, pork, eggs, staples, and produce. Laughter during foggy mornings and sunny afternoons.

Housing: Yes on farm housing is available. Insulated loft spaces and school buses with shared kitchen. The intern bathroom and laundry is in the basement of our house with its own separate entrance.

Preferred method of Contact: email