Organic Garden Manager Assistant

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   Zsámboki Biokert started in 2011, founded on the experience of many years of organic farming and market gardening elsewhere.  Zsámboki Biokert is owned by a group of 4 friends, involved in the day-to-day running of the business with a team of staff producing volumes of high quality organic vegetables for our own box scheme.

 

About the position

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   Each year we take on a new full-time organic market gardener manager trainee.  The trainee will work together with the farm manager (mentor) and garden team over a structured two-year period.  The first year is about getting to know our system on the ground, becoming thoroughly immersed in the day-to-day tasks of growing high quality organic vegetables using the most regenerative methods of production we can manage.  The second year is a continuation of the first, but with incrementally greater responsibility both for managing team, planning and implementing the cropping plan, and problem-solving around the farm.

 

Year 1:

• Initial 3-month induction period learning core routines (daily tasks, weekly routines, weekend duty rota, animal care)

• getting to grips with the everyday basic market gardening tasks (soil and bed preparation, sowing, transplanting, hoeing, crop maintenance)

• Plant propagation (key responsibility)

• Plant health management and irrigation

• harvesting and pre-processing

• 4-season protected cropping system (high tunnels and catepillar tunnels)

• Season-to-season transitions

• understanding marketing channels (opportunity to help with deliveries and markets)

 

Year 2:

• continuation of hands-on practical market gardening work, with the addition of:

• mixed vegetable production planning (4-season)

• small team management and guiding task assignments

• Crop health management (key responsibility)

• fruit production (extensive not intensive)

• understanding financial and farm business management

 

   You will be working with a small team of full-time, part-time staff and volunteers/interns.  A lively interest in all aspects of regenerative farming and market gardening as well as an openness to a wide diversity of people is necessary.

   We have a draft horse and a small herd of sheep which you will get to know and work with.  You will be expected to take part in a weekend duty rota, as well as be ready to work long hours when necessary in the season.  We believe in paying our team fairly and treating everyone on the farm with respect and understanding.  In return we expect commitment and flexibility and steady, hard-work.

   Salary for the first year above the qualified minimum wage in Hungary and for the second year incrementally increasing with responsibility.  Statutory paid holiday, but flexibility is required to make sure we can cover duties on the farm.  We can offer help finding self-catering accomodation.

   We expect a two-year commitment to the position. We recognise that for many people (young people in particular) this is a serious commitment. Our experience is that two full years are necessary to learn all of the wide range of skills required for this position and to embed this knowledge.

 

Please send a full CV and motivation letter to:

 

 

We plan to take on a new market garden management trainee mid-late June 2021, though there is a bit of flexibility for the right candidate.