We’re Hiring!

Volunteer opportunities available year round

The Hummingbird Center accepts volunteers, interns and apprentices. Please contact us through email if you have any interest. Work varies depending on the season.

Garden Manager - Full Time

We are looking for a confident individual to join our community to ensure our gardens produce enough food to operate our restaurant and feed our residents. As garden manager, you will look after a multitude of perennial and annual plants spread over several acres of hilly terrain. Our Zone-5 farm serves food from May to November, meaning successional planting and greenhouse growing skills are crucial. 

We are looking for a LONG TERM commitment from our gardener. The appropriate candidate will be reliable, driven, an efficient problem solver, and able to navigate the unique challenges of community living. Prior experience in a rural lifestyle will be a strong asset. 

Goals and Objectives: 

  • Start and maintain seedlings (vegetable and flower) for onsite use in the restaurant and community kitchen 

  • Plant and maintain flowers, salad greens, and herb gardens around the main building

  • Grow vegetables in greenhouses and field space as necessary to supply HBC, meet community needs, and stock farm store/outside sales 

  • Maintain and expand the perennial crops: fruit tree pruning, sheet mulching, weeding, harvesting as necessary 

  • Coordinate volunteers to complete all of the above goals 

  • Communicate plans, needs, and questions to fellow staff 

  • Assist with the hostel as necessary 

Month-by-month tasks: 

  • February/March - Onsite seed inventory and ordering as necessary, microgreens for house and restaurant use, build soil, start seeds, prune trees

  • April - Continue seed starting, continue pruning, continue microgreens, and begin prepping indoor growing spaces

  • May - Continue seed starting, begin outdoor bed prep/planting 

  • June - Continue bed prep/planting 

  • July - Maintain annual gardens, perennial maintenance, and begin fruit/herb harvest & processing. Harvest garlic scapes. 

  • August-November - Harvest garlic, continue annual/perennial maintenance, harvesting/processing. Plant garlic in October. 

Weekly work expectations: 

  • 40 hours/week of garden-specific work. Please be aware that farming in New England is not a year-round job and your work will fluctuate with the seasons. There will be weeks in the summer when it is necessary to work for more than 40 hours, and weeks in the winter when you will work less than 40 hours a week. 

  • 1-3 hours/week of household chores and cleaning in community building 

Compensation: 

  • Housing and meals provided 

  • Salary based on experience, ranging from $600 to $2000 per month. 

If you are called to this work, please forward a letter of interest and resume to thehummingbirdcenternh@gmail.com. We will write back to schedule a follow-up interview.

There is a travel stipend for serious candidates, and we invite you to spend several days to a week onsite to understand the landscape of our farm and observe the pace of day-to-day activities.