The Earth Keepers Position

Are you ready to get your hands in the soil?

About the position

As a member of the Suderbyn garden team, you will join the daily work in the garden. Working in the garden domain consists of a diverse range of physical and mental tasks, from sowing, transplanting, caring for plants, harvesting, preparing beds, and making compost, to tasks such as planning, organizing weekly workloads, managing volunteers and giving harvest tours to community members (and many more missions!).

You will first receive guidance and instructions from the garden team, and get a proper introduction into the domain, and then become more independent and get more space for initiative and managing your own projects. You will be working with a team, with already existing methods, structures and ways of doing and it is central that you are willing to work with these existing parameters from the beginning, so that we can work together effectively and provide a positive learning environment.

During this year, you will have the opportunity to learn both about the annual garden and  the perennial systems that we are currently working with. This implies a wide diversity of topics to explore, such as seed saving, good soil husbandry, fertility management, integrated pest management, plant health, appropriate use of tools, design, latrine compost management, seasonal planning etc. You will have the occasion to learn from our successes, past experiences, as well as from our failures and technical issues.Being a garden team volunteer implies that you will dedicate most or all your working hours to garden work, which includes weekly garden meetings. This still leaves you with many opportunities to experience the diversity of experiences that ecovillage life has to offer. The garden is a part of the community, and working in the garden domain also gives you opportunities to learn about the interconnections to other aspects of the ecovillage, and to create beneficial relationships with the other domains.

Taking care of the garden can imply working in the evening, on the weekends (mostly just watering), sometimes working in rainy, windy, very cold, or very warm weather, and sometimes doing extra hours in summer.

Volunteer profile

You are interested in gardening, permaculture, sustainable food production and agroecology, and you enjoy being outside and working with Nature. You are strongly motivated to learn and contribute to our garden and to get your hands dirty. Note that motivation and dedication are the most important, prior knowledge and experience can be useful but are not a central criteria for us. You like to work with other people, and are willing to lead new volunteers through tasks by explaining the “what” and the “why” of each task. You are responsible, reliable and open for feedback.

Curious to learn more?
Click on the button below to find the garden team’s favourite books and videos full of inspiration and knowledge.

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