Position: Organic Seed Farm Worker
Type: paid position, May to mid-Sept. (no on-site housing)
Organization: The Co
ttage Gardener Heirloom Seedhouse
Website: http://www.cottagegardener.com
Locationocation: Newtonville, east of Oshawa, GTA, Ontario
The Cottage Gardener Heirloom Seedhouse is looking for someone to work
with us this summer in our commercial seed production gardens. This
position will work alongside us in all aspects of seed saving and seed
crop production, including seeding, transplanting, planting, weeding,
roguing, harvesting, cleaning and processing.
About Us
The Cottage Gardener Heirloom Seedhouse is a family-owned, organic
heirloom seed company located in Crooked Creek, just north of
Newtonville, Ontario. We have been saving seeds for over 20 years and
are passionate about preserving open-pollinated varieties of
vegetables, herbs & flowers. We grow seeds on our own beautiful
10-acre property and rented land from the next-door farm. Currently,
we have 3.5 acres in seed cultivation and may be adding an additional
2 acres. We are a Certified Organic farm and Certified Bee-Friendly.
About You
Ideally, you have experience working on a farm and are skilled in the
use of hand-held farming equipment – yes, most of your work will be
done manually; Dan insists on driving the tractor. You are able to
work outdoors in all types of weather, for prolonged periods of time,
often doing repetitious work like weeding and you can handle
bugs/heat/cold/wet. We depend on and encourage pollinators and have
many nests of native bees around the property that you will work
around and with.
Here at The Cottage Gardener, we set very high standards to ensure the
highest quality seed is produced that is true to type. It is
absolutely critical that you are detail-oriented , able to follow
instructions and rigorous in ensuring quality standards are met in
everything you do. You can work with minimal supervision and like to
see a job well done.
Experience in seed-saving is not required, as we’ll mentor you in all
stages of the process – you’ll learn about commercial isolation
requirements and methods, pollination, population sizes, roguing,
harvesting for best-quality seed, cleaning & processing methods – all
exciting stuff if you’re into seeds, which we hope you are!
Additional Information
This is a paid position, earning $11.00/hour for 30 hours a week + 4%
vacation pay. Normally, this will be Monday – Thursday but you can
expect variations due to weather or the work that needs to be done.
Hours will usually be 7:30 – 3:30 with a half-hour unpaid lunch and
two paid 15-minute breaks. Start and end times are again flexible.
There is no accommodation on-site but there is a break room with all
the coffee/tea you want and washroom facilities (which you’ll need
after all that coffee/tea!).
Having your own transportation is a necessity; if it rains and we have
to stop work early or a seed crop needs harvesting and we have to work
late, you need to have that flexibility.
The position runs from the beginning of May until the middle of September.
Please respond by emailing a resume and cover letter indicating why
you’re interested in this position to:
heirlooms@cottagegardener.com
with the subject line “Job Posting”. We thank all applicants but will
be contacting only those invited to an interview.