Island Grown Farm, a program of Island Grown Initiative, announces its first winter CSA. Shares contain enough salad to feed a family of four for a week.

A 33,000-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse is the centerpiece of the new Island Grown Farms, a planned campus-style educational farm under the Island Grown Initiative.

His passion is soil, but his career has been inside greenhouses.

Now, as the new manager of the former Thimble Farm property in Oak Bluffs, Keith Wilda will get to do both.

“I have the best of both worlds,” he said in a brief interview following a tour for Island farmers of the property owned by Island Grown Initiative.

Mr. Wilda moved to the Island full time two weeks ago with his wife and twin two-year old daughters to run Island Grown Farms.

A vocal gathering of Vineyard farmers heard about plans for a campus-style educational agricultural center during a tour of the former Thimble Farm property this week.

Sponsored by the Island Grown Initiative, which bought the 40-acre farm in the center of the Island last year, the tour sparked a lively discussion among some 30 growers about how best to encourage growth and also ensure survival for the burgeoning network of small farms on the Island that operate with little or no subsidy. Opinion was far from unanimous.