Dorchester NH--2024 Season
The Hummingbird Center is a wellness community that promotes ecological and spiritual health through land stewardship, organic cooking, yoga retreats, and outdoor recreation. We operate on multi-generational farmland in Dorchester, New Hampshire, practicing methods of permaculture to cultivate a vibrant, edible landscape.
In the spring of 2024, we will provide meals to the public and to our retreat guests in our ‘Farm to Table’ restaurant, crafting seasonal dishes to share the abundance of our gardens and food forests.
We are looking for a confident individual to join our community to ensure our gardens produce enough food to operate our restaurant, and to feed our residents. The garden manager will look after a multitude of perennial and annual plants spread over several acres of hilly terrain. As a Zone-5 farm serving food from May to November, successional planting and greenhouse growing skills are crucial.
We are looking for a full-season commitment from our gardener. Candidates with multi-year interest will be favored. The appropriate candidate will be reliable, driven, an efficient problem solver, and able to navigate the unique landscape of community living. Prior experience in a rural lifestyle will be a strong asset.
Goals and Objectives:
● Start and maintain seedlings (vegetable and flower) onsite use in the restaurant and community kitchen
● Plant and maintain gardens around the main building with flowers, salad greens, and herbs
● Grow vegetables in greenhouses and field space as necessary to supply HBC, meet community needs, and to stock farm store/outside sales
● Maintain and expand the perennial crops; fruit tree pruning, sheet mulching, weeding, harvesting as necessary
● Coordinate volunteers to complete all of the above goals
● Communicate plans, needs, and questions to fellow staff
● Assist with the hostel as necessary
Month by month tasks:
● February/March- onsite seed inventory, microgreens for house use and restaurant use, order seeds as necessary, make soil, begin seed starting, outdoor tree pruning.
● April- continue seed starting, continue pruning, continue microgreens, begin prepping indoor growing spaces as necessary.
● May- continue seed starting, begin outdoor bed prep/planting
● June- continue bed prep/planting
● July- maintain annual gardens, perennial maintenance, begin fruit/herb harvest & processing. Harvest garlic scapes.
● August-November- Harvest garlic, continue annual/perennial maintenance, harvesting/processing as necessary. Plant garlic in October.
Weekly work expectations:
● 40 hours/week garden specific work. Please be aware that farming in New England is not a year round job and the work fluctuates with the season. There will be weeks in the summer when it is necessary to work for more than 40 hours. Likewise, there are weeks in the winter when you will work less than 40 hours a week.
● 1-3 hours/week household chores and cleaning in community building
Compensation:
● Housing and meals provided
● Salary will be based on experience; ranging from $600 to $2000 per month.
If you are called to this work, please forward a letter of interest and resume to [email protected]. We will write back to schedule a follow-up interview; there is a travel stipend for serious candidates. We invite you to spend several days to a week onsite to understand the landscape of our farm and witness the day-to-day pace of activities.