Mountain Bounty is a 50 acre organic family farm located high on the forested contours of the San Juan Ridge near Nevada City, California. We currently cultivate 18 acres, and the rest of the land is a beautiful mosaic of forest and meadows. We are the oldest and largest CSA farm in Nevada County. The farm's founder, John Tecklin, has been farming since the early 1990's and started Mountain Bounty Farm in 1997. Since then Mountain Bounty has become an increasingly collaborative effort, with a team of farmers making decisions and working together. Through careful management we achieve surprising yields of exceptional quality produce. We grow an incredible diversity of vegetables, fruits and cut flowers for our year-round CSA program. We also sell to local stores and restaurants, and participate in the Nevada City farmers market on Saturday mornings from June through November.
Interns are a core element of our 12-14 person farm crew and they participate in all farm activities from greenhouse work to harvest, delivery, and farmer's markets. Interns work closely with the farm managers to maintain our complex and dynamic vegetable farm. This includes driving tractors, seeding, transplanting, lots of weeding and other crop care, irrigation, harvest, washing and packing produce, driving deliveries, working farmers markets, and other farm chores.
Interns work Monday through Friday, 8+ hours per day, and are also responsible for helping with one CSA delivery per week, two Saturday farmers markets per month, and occasional minor irrigation duties after-hours. We average a 40-hour work week over the season, with slightly shorter weeks in spring and fall, and slightly longer weeks at the height of summer.
Prior farm experience is preferred, but not a requirement. Successful candidates have experience with some type of outdoor labor and/or a strong athletic background. We are also looking for people who are serious about farming as a career.
The majority of the educational component comes through the experience of working directly on the farm; learning by doing. Over the years, we have developed a successful system that is also relatively simple and elegant. As an intern you reap the bounty of our many years of learning, passed along over the course of your internship. Interns are gradually given more and more responsibility, to the extent they are individually ready. We believe that being allowed to take charge of something important, and also being allowed to make mistakes, is one of the richest and most effective ways to learn. Additionally, each intern is responsible for a project of their own, like irrigating crops, greenhouse care, or leading all washing and packing of produce. Toward the end of the season, we occasionally take field trips to other farms in the area, and regularly throughout the season, we take time to sit down after work for intern-directed Q&A discussions (topics like "farm business management"). We love to teach and are stimulated by people who are excited about learning. Long hours in the field provide the perfect opportunity to see what works and what doesn't, as well as plenty of discussion about why.
Please visit our website to apply at https://mountainbountyfarm.com/internship