Good Heart Farm Internships

 Good Heart Farm™

Internships 2015

Fantastic Learning Opportunity!

We have intern positions available on our farm for the autumn season.

We are looking for genuine, enthusiastic and creative people who are interested in learning about self-sufficiency and organic farming.

Be on the leading edge of knowledge, experience living on an organic farm and learn about the heart of self-sufficiency by joining us on our farm.

Good Heart Farm™ is located in the North West of Tasmania, on the edge of the Tarkine Wilderness.


We run the Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ and Lapoinya Food Plant Sanctuary™ on our farm.  We are committed to teaching, promoting and preserving the Art of Self-Sufficiency as well as Saving Food Plant Biodiversity for the future.

Internships are for 6 to 8 weeks, starting March 2015. Accommodation is provided.
The internship is an exchange of our teaching for your help with work on the farm. This is a unique experience!  

Topics that you will learn about during your time with us include:

Organic Food Growing (including Organic vegetables, herbs, nuts, raising animals for meat and Organic Orcharding)   Herb Lore    Foraging & Wildcrafting   Food Preserving    Traditional Cooking    Building    Seed Saving   Recycling    Ethics and Philosophy of Self- Sufficiency    Saving Food Plant Biodiversity    Upcycling   Appropriate Technology   Traditional Arts and Crafts...  and more.

Come and join us and help us change the world!

Magic circle garden 29 Jan 2013 built earlier in the year

Welcome to the farm!

Hope you enjoy your visit here

Going into full Harvest

In February our harvest really starts to get heavier.

This is the sort of fare we can expect.

Gluten-free salmon patties with steamed NZ spinach and lettuce

The tiger lily is very edible and delicious too. Potatoes from our BC garden and greens from our Magic Circle garden.

The Road back to Nature

A wise man, Masanobu Fukuoka, wrote a book called "The Road back to Nature" in which he urges humankind to reject the agribusiness world that has been created and return to a more natural way of living. At the heart of what he was saying is spirituality. That nature is sacred. I agree with him. Nature should be seen as sacred and for too long have we been treating her badly. Too little value do we place in the things she provides for us and too little respect do we give her. Nature is by far our best teacher. I tried out some of Mr Fukuokas ideas on Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm and they worked well. If only we take the time to listen to what nature is telling us we can grow food without as much effort. We can grow food better and more naturally. Fukuoka was a great observer of nature - his books are well worth seeking out and studying.

 I have in the past tried a great many different growers methods. John Seymour (Self-Sufficiency), Bill Mollison (Permaculture), W. E. Shewell-Cooper, Elliot Coleman, Jackie French, Peter Cundall, Jon Jeavons (Biointensive) and many others. Rather than stick with one way I have used what works for me and have developed my own way. This can only really happen over time and feel blessed that I have been given the chance to pursue my love for over 45 years.

 My advice to any would-be grower...

 Follow your heart....

 and trust in Nature...

"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her" - Wordsworth.

...and so the journey continues for me.
The road back to nature continues.

Here's the road outside our farm. My road to nature. 

January pumpkin patch

The pumpkins are coming up in the BC garden.

They look very healthy.

Fast food and herbs

My version of fast food is food that I can grow quickly before I starve to death - that's most likely to happen in late spring, the so-called hungry gap. Just as well I made another garden and planted those potatoes before we went to Arizona (actually, these are the second earlies - I had already pulled the earlies in November). The garden looks like it's been there for most of last century because I use a lot of recycled materials.

Black currants are our second fruit crop at the moment, coming after the red currants.
The reason we had to go to Arizona is because Lisa had a herb conference in Mormon Lakes - she's Australia's first Community Herbalist and she looks like a herbalist here

Middle Earth and lavender magic

This is the gate to the Middle Earth orchard - the whole place here reminds me of that imaginary land of gentle hobbit folk. Tolkien used as his basis of the Shire, good farmland in England, my guess - Land in Good Heart. That's what we have here.

Lavender near the gate to Middle Earth orchard

 

There is a magic in this land and on this farm. A magic beyond the reach of cities and the evil in men's hearts. A magic that empowers us to do good and protect. That magic is called love. Love of nature and one another.

 Please - if you visit - don't bring the city here. Leave the city behind.