Camphill Hermanus is looking for a skilled enthusiaatic person or couple to come and take over the management of our beautiful biodynamic Garden in South Africa!
The Camphill is the first ever founded in South Africa and is the oldest Biodynamic organic farm in the Western Cape, it is situated in the Hemel and Aarde valley 15 minutes from the local town of Hermanus which is one of the top toursit destinations for Whale watching. It is an Hour and a half from the city of Cape Town, and an hour from the heart of the Biodynamics in South Africa which is based in Stellenbosch.
The community comprises of about 80 adults with varying degrees of special needs and has people from all over the world and working to make the community and farm work as a holistic organism.
The garden itself is a hectre, specialising in the growth and distribution of biodynamic produce. There are about half an acre of fruit and nut tree orchards. there is a very heavy yielding berry patch producing raspberries, gooseberries as well as black berries. A tree nursery is in existance with a good stock of trees. The garden itself is set up to supply the farm community as well as the camphill school community, which comes to just under three hundred people, with fresh produce once a week. on top of this we take any excess to the farmers market every saturday, between the community and the market, the costs of the workshop running are covered!
Infrastructure: This is all done from an outstanding infrastructure consisting of the following: three raised bed fields, a set of seven terraces to grow your crops such as peas, beans tomatoes, artichokes etc. There is an outstanding propogation poly tunnel with sand bunkers for cuttings as well as tables for seedling trays. There are three poly tunnels to grow the more tropical varieties of fruits and vegetables. All of the tunnels are run on a central computerized irrigation system.
The farm and vegetable garden share a centralized biodynamic composting area, in which compost is made and sieved twice a week. as well as this there is a very well stocked tool shed, all the hand sewing machinery you would need as well as a light and heavy duty hand held rotivater, as well as a woodchipper for chippings to go onto paths or use as mulch.There are three earth worm farms to liquid manure the fields and seedlings. there is also a building behind the tool shed with office space as well as a fire place with a communal area and the facilities to process produce.
And its not just practical but absolutely beautiful!with grape vined walkways, woodchipped paths and beautiful landscaping comprising of perrenial flowers and herbs interspersed throughout the garden.
Garden as a workshop: At present there are two local helpers who are hired full time and have been working for Camphill for a few years and have great practical knowledge of the villagers as well as market garden production, we also have an intern who is here to specialfically learn market gardening for a few years. We also have between two and four young foreign volanteers working in the garden, specifically to look after the villagers and help with the production of the produce.
The Garden is a running workshop which is geared towards producing outstanding produce and thus creating great job opportunities for some of the villagers with special needs, some who have been working here for nearly ten years and are extremely well job couched.
Your job as the gardener would be to take over the production of the garden, ensure that the community gets ample produce to suite its needs as well as supply the farmers market. There are also amazing opportunities in Hermanus and Cape Town for produce distribution as South Africa has only just woken up to how wonderfull organic biodynamic produce is and there are not many people doing this in a market garden manner, it would be entirely up to you!
You would also be expected to ensure that the volanteers are taking proper care of the villagers and that they all have meaningfull work that lightens your load.
You would be asked to come for a year at least and all applications are welcome, familys, single young people, couples etc! The terms of living and pay are open to negotiation, of course being a community you would be housed and fed extremely well on farm and garden produce as well as having the use of vehicles and recieving a monetary payment. Off days are a guarantee as well as long weekends and hollidays, if you stay for two years or longer your hollidays will even be covered! Camphill will look into health insurance for you if you do not have a travel insurance.
Your participation in the community beyond the garden is totally negotiable, any skills that you have to offer such as arts or music are happily welcomed and what kind of living situation you or your family would prefer is totally open to conversation. The reason that i say this is if a family is looking at coming, Camphill is allways looking for new people to come and help out in different ways. Perhaps your spouse would love to fill one of those openings, we've even had couples co-manage the garden before.
And of course all of this in Beautiful sunny South Africa, a cultural experience that all foreigners who've experienced have wished for more!
So why not come to South Africa and broaden your knowledge of community life and market gardening to even wider horizons, and in return help a community that is here to help those with special needs.
Please Email Natasha Weddepohl if interested @
seedsofchange@live.com
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