Trainee Job Opportunity – Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, Leeds – Closes Sunday 31st March 2024
Date Published: 15th March 2024
Text supplied by Meanwood Valley Urban Farm
We are now welcoming applications for a paid trainee grower to join our small team.
Are you interested in growing food as your work? Do you want to gain hands-on experience? Are you curious about the possibilities of urban food production? If so, the traineeship at the Market Garden at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm is for you! This paid role is an 8-month seasonal job that can teach you how a small-scale social enterprise uses organic and minimal tillage principles to run a successful CSA scheme.
The trainee will receive funding towards a formal qualification in horticulture or similar, and a small budget towards travel costs.
Professional experience is not required, so if you’re enthusiastic to learn how to become a grower we encourage you to apply.
You will learn:
Nursery propagation. Sowing of 40 different edible crops, recording and monitoring successful germination, potting on.
Nursery to field transplantation. Bed preparation, row gridding and hole preparation according to the different crop densities, field planting seedlings, direct field seeding of salad crops. Trellis preparation for climbing plants.
Field growing, harvesting and post-harvest processing. Weekly maintenance of field crops including hoeing, hand weeding, pruning, training up wire and removal of dead or diseased crops. Harvesting leaves, flowers and fruits of over 40 different crops, includes weighing, recording, washing, drying, quality control and use and maintenance of appropriate tools such as harvesting knives, scales and crates.
Crop planning. Learning about the different germination, pre-transplant, field growth and harvesting times for each crop. It also includes an introduction to organic rotations and recording, and analysing and adjusting crop timings according to successes/failures
Working with volunteers. This will include working alongside volunteers and adults with disabilities. You will be expected, over time, to offer guidance to new volunteers and to show basic market garden tools and techniques to new participants of the volunteer programme.
Application information
Applications for this role are via our website. Completed applications must be submitted via email (see below). We cannot accept CV’s.
To read more detailed information about the role and guidance on how to apply, head to our website: https://www.mvuf.org.uk/garden/jobs/
We welcome applications via video or voice recording. Please download the application pack from our website for instructions on how to do this. You will still need to complete some parts of the application form.
Please return completed applications to veg@mvuf.org.uk by midnight Sunday 31st March 2024.