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Farming & Gardening @ Small Vancouver Island Community

5.0
(5 reviews)5

The experience

Live peacefully in large lovely home with host. Sleep well, eat well. Hike. Swim. Socialize. Cook. Work is varied: landscaping; gardening and farming (use of hand tools; raking, pruning, cleanup, building stuff, weeding, tilling soil, watering, harvesting, planting); Orchard (apples, pears, plums, grapes); Lavender & Garlic production on small scale. Carpentry skill is desired but not mandatory. Occasionally work requires heavy lifting.

What you offer

6 hours of help per day

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

Building & Repairing: Help with a wide range of repairs or building.

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

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

Additional fee required

Amount: US$ 115 Per week

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

Description: Volunteers contribute $115/week to cost of food, hydro, internet, and entertainment, gas and travel costs during their stay to help make hosting reasonably affordable. Volunteers are asked to pay for their own activities costs and restaurant meals. We go out for dinner occasionally for East Indian or Moroccan or west coast (seafood).

What you get

2 days off per week

Private Room: You will have a bed in a private room. In other words, a room just for you.

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 Hiking Tours: We’ll take you on excursions and hikes around town. For free!

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

Bikes at your disposal: You can use our bikes any time you want.

Pick Up: We will pick you up when you arrive, and take you to our property.

Language lessons: Take free language classes at our place.

Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.

Fast Internet Access: High-speed internet for you to work remotely

Dedicated Workspace: Specific space for you to work remotely

Requirements

Intermediate English or Fluent English

Between 19 and 55 years old

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

Academy Course How to become an outstanding Worldpacker

Travel insurance

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

Informal household in small Vancouver Island community needs help with two acre property with fruit orchard, gardens, vegetable and flower farm.

Volunteers are respected, welcomed, treated very well as guests in a friendly congenial atmosphere of cooperation. This is an opportunity to contribute and learn. You will contribute by improving, expanding, and maintaining the gardens, the orchard, and the small new enterprises of fruit & fruit products (jam, dried fruit, preserves), garlic (six varieties to plant, maintain, harvest, dry and clean), lavender (four varieties), flowers (for household), and vegetables (for household) on the farm.

Activities & Shift

Ready to work by about 8:00 a.m. unless otherwise discussed. This is an orchard and small scale lavender, garlic, and household flowers & vegetables farm. Lawn care. Watering the raised beds by hose/hand or design/build a watering system with on site supplies. Rake, hoe, weed, water, plant, mow, edge....Build useful stuff like fence, trellis, gate, garden boxes, greenhouse shelves... with wood if you have carpentry skills. Harvest and process FRUIT FROM ORCHARD (plums, pears, apples) in large quantities in August-September. Leaves raking. Mulching.

Rules

Be a respectful, mature, reasonable, contributing volunteer/guest and member of the household, indoors and outdoors.
No outdoor shoes or dirty socks/shoes/feet in the house or on the wool carpets.
Quiet after 10 p.m.
Keep your room and your own bathroom clean.
Clean and tidy up the communal areas we/you use: kitchen, hallway, living room, dining room.
Wash dishes or load dishwasher.
Be respectful of kitchen and the (beautiful) dinnerware and supplies: Do not burn pots or ruin pans when cooking. Keep the sink clean and free of dirty dishes. Put things away where they came from.
Communal cooking: we plan and share cooking and meals together.
Use the gas stove carefully and monitor cooking on stove & in oven at all times.
Make your own breakfast at about 7:30 a.m. and make your own lunch.
No drugs.
Minimal use of alcohol.
No pets.
Prefer non-smoking because of allergies, asthma and severe risk of fire in summer.
Departure: Thoroughly clean room and bathroom (mop, duster, vacuum, Windex, etc) and launder sheets, towels, and make bed.