​What is Farmhands?

​Farmhands is a volunteering and training programme at Kelmarna Gardens, taking place one day a week from 9am to 3pm for 16 weeks.

Through a combination of training sessions and hands-on working, participants will learn regenerative organic food growing skills, and gain experience suitable for application to anything from productive home growing to small-scale market gardening or farming.
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Our next Farmhands programme will begin on Friday 13 May 2022. This will be a special edition of Farmhands, focused on the establishment and management of our new market garden. Read on to find out more!
​Why have we created this programme?

Kelmarna has typically run open volunteering sessions, where once registered, volunteers can attend whenever suits them.

The structure of the Farmhands programme enables us to confidently invest more time and effort into upfront training for the volunteers enrolled, in the knowledge that they are committed to participating for the duration of the programme. This more intensive training allows these volunteers to gain skills and experience much more quickly than through our open volunteer sessions.

Having a fixed group of committed volunteers each week also helps us to ensure the productivity of the gardens and continued supply of produce throughout the year.

The cohort nature of the programme, with the same group of volunteers learning and working together each week, provides opportunities to form lasting social connections and learn from peers in the programme.

We continue to host open volunteer sessions on Thursdays and Saturdays, for those who prefer a more flexible schedule, as we are keen to maintain low barriers to getting involved at Kelmarna.
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Who is this programme for?

​The programme is for anyone who is keen to fast-track their learning about regenerative organic food growing techniques, and happy to make some commitment in return.

You may be wanting to learn how to make your home garden more productive, thinking about a career in small scale market gardening or farming, or picking up skills for use in your future.

No previous gardening experience is required, though experienced gardeners are also welcome. It is more important that you are enthusiastic, willing to learn, and keen to get your hands dirty!
What will I learn and do?

While the content and format of this Market Garden edition will be similar to our normal Farmhands programme in many ways, participants in this cohort will have the unique opportunity to learn through the hands-on experience of creating a market garden operation from scratch.

You will learn skills and gain confidence in many of the aspects involved in running a small market garden operation or production-focused home garden, including:
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  • Soil health - the principles and practice of building healthy soils

  • Bed creation - no-till techniques for transforming pasture into vegetable beds

  • Propagation - seed sowing, watering, and pricking out

  • Planting - bed preparation, transplanting, and direct sowing

  • Weeding, and processing noxious weeds into future fertility

  • Harvesting all kinds of produce and preparation for sale

  • Composting - making hot compost from garden material and community food scraps, and an introduction to worm farming, and bokashi

  • Crop planning - creating seasonal plans for your garden, and planning multi-species guilds for polycropping
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  • Market Garden economics - an introduction to the business of small-scale vegetables, including sales methods and customer and community engagement

  • ​Preparing shared lunch from the gardens

  • & more!
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When does the programme run?

Our next programme will begin on Friday 13 May 2022, and run for 16 weeks, with the final session taking place on Friday 26 August 2022.

We are asking that participants commit to attending all or nearly all of the sessions. We appreciate that you may have a holiday booked, or unavoidable absences that might come up, but the expectation is that you would otherwise intend to come each week. If that doesn’t sound realistic for you, our open volunteer days may be more suitable for you.

We expect to be recruiting for the next edition of our regular Farmhands programme in June 2022, ready for the programme to begin in July.
What happens after the programme?

Many Farmhands graduates continue to be involved at Kelmarna after the 16 weeks are complete, with many potential roles open to you.

​This could be leading sub-groups of volunteers on our open volunteer days, supporting our staff on other days of the week, working alongside our therapeutic gardeners, volunteering with our education programme or Soil Factory, assisting with livestock care, or taking ownership of new or distinct projects.

Equally we hope that many graduates will take the skills learned here and spread them around by starting or joining projects elsewhere. We will be happy to provide references for Farmhands graduates to help you access your next opportunity.
​How do I apply?

Click here to fill out our short application form, to tell us something about yourself and why you’d like to take part in the programme.

If you haven’t volunteered with us previously, it would be a great idea to come and volunteer at one of our open gardening sessions (Thursdays/Saturdays) beforehand if you can, to give you a feel for Kelmarna and the kinds of things we get up to here. Check out the Volunteer page for more info.

Applications close at midnight on Monday 25 April 2022. We’ll be selecting our next cohort of participants based on who we think will be the best fit for the programme, and plan to be in touch as soon as possible after the closing date.
Any questions?

If you have any questions about the programme, get in touch at volunteer@kelmarnagardens.nz and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.