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🌱 Help Grow Organic in the Mountains of Italy 🇮🇹🏔️

The experience

🌿 About the Project

Homestay in the Italian mountains (Marche region), living close to nature with an organic lifestyle. We grow fruit, vegetables, and mushrooms, and conserve much of our food.

🛠️ Help & Exchange

Help with housekeeping, farming, food preserving, and small construction projects.
In exchange we offer dorm accommodation, meals, laundry, internet, solar electricity, free tours, and social moments.

🤝 Who We’re Looking

What you offer

25 hours of help per week

Cleaning: Help clean the kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms and common areas.

Kitchen Hand: Help prepare, finish and serve meals.

Farming: Plant crops, sow seeds and help in outside tasks.

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

Additional fee required

Amount: € 5 Per day

Fee pays for: Benefits for travelers and Materials for volunteer activities

Description: The fees are mainly contribution to groceries for meals and gas to drive you around.

What you get

1 day off per week

Shared Dorm: You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other travelers.

Tent: You will sleep in a tent at a camping site.

Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.

Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.

Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.

Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.

Free Events: Get free entrance for the best events in town.

Basic Internet Access: Basic speed internet for you to work remotely

Requirements

Beginner Italian or Beginner English

Between 18 and 80 years old

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

I wish my volunteers to help me grow organic food and conserve it.
Welcome to a small-scale, off-grid, organic homestead where sustainability, learning, and shared work come together. Electricity on the land is produced by solar panels, and food is grown using organic and regenerative practices.

The property includes a young orchard that is continually expanding. Volunteers can take part in planting fruit trees, maintaining the orchard, and learning about tree care. A nursery on site allows for propagation, and there are opportunities to learn and practice grafting techniques.

Vegetable production happens both outdoors and in a greenhouse. The greenhouse allows seedlings to be started early in the season before being transplanted into garden beds or grown undercover. Volunteers will help with seeding, planting, maintenance, and harvesting throughout the growing season.

There is also an edible mushroom project using inoculated logs. Volunteers may assist with maintaining existing mushroom logs, producing new ones in the spring, and creating mushroom patches integrated into the garden.

As the garden, orchard, and mushroom projects begin to produce, food preservation becomes an important part of the work. Volunteers can learn traditional and practical methods of conserving vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms so they can be enjoyed year-round.

In addition to food production, help is needed with small natural and functional building projects around the property. These may include building a solar shower, a pizza oven, a shed, and other simple structures using practical, hands-on techniques.

This program is ideal for volunteers interested in renewable energy, organic growing, self-sufficiency, food preservation, and learning by doing in a peaceful, rural environment.

Activities & Shift

Tasks vary by season and weather. Volunteers help with a mix of the following:

Watering, planting, weeding, and harvesting in the garden
Greenhouse work: seeding, transplanting, and seedling care
Orchard care: planting trees, pruning, nursery work, and grafting (seasonal)
Maintaining and producing edible mushroom logs and garden patches
Food preservation when harvests begin (drying, fermenting, canning, freezing)
Helping build small structures (solar shower, pizza oven, shed, etc.)
General maintenance, tool care, and clean-up
Cooking, cleaning.

Shifts & Schedule

Work time: 4–5 hours per day, 5 days per week
Schedule: Mostly morning shifts, adjusted for season and weather

Structure:

Short morning briefing
Main work period with breaks
Light wrap-up and clean-up

Afternoons are usually free for rest or personal time. Tasks are adapted to ability, and volunteers learn by doing in a relaxed, supportive environment.