Daisychain Farm
Certified organic fruit farm in mid-coast Maine. You-Pick strawberries and raspberries, eating apples and hard cider apples sold to local farm stands and cider makers. Small family farm on 64 acres of woods and fields with 5-6 acres cultivated in mostly perennial crops. Our mission is to build soil and climate resilience, to feed our neighbors and connect the community to the farm. Biking/driving: 1.7mi from YMCA, 3.2mi from center of Belfast and its harbor.
Location
102 Tufts Rd, Belfast ME 04915
Hours and Work Season
30-40hrs/week. Flexible start and end date; work can begin as soon as May and end in August or extend through October depending on employee availability.
Job Description
Seeking 1-3 people. A team of 2 or 3 from Williams would work well for keeping each other company camping etc.
Qualifications
-Able to lift and carry 50lb and do physical work in hot or cold outdoor conditions for hours at a time (ex. shovel crushed stone from a wheelbarrow, weed on hands and knees, move silage tarps and sand bags, dig tree-planting holes, operate a weed wacker) keeping up an efficient pace and working ergonomically.
-Able to work alone or with a small team for hours at a time and be focused, with efficient pace and consistent output
-An excellent communicator who uses a cell phone to check in with farmer as questions come up, updates farmer during workday
-Able to take in detailed directions, achieves the right degree of precision with as much speed as possible
-Solve problems independently and then check with farmer before proceeding
-Experience with farm work and/or other physical fast-paced work or sports a plus
-Cheerful positive attitude
-Comfortable around big friendly dogs
-Can learn to identify birds, insects, native plants, crops and weeds
-Bonus:Can build a website, make good looking newsletters with mailchimp or similar.
Responsibilities
Start time varies seasonally. Sample Monday-Friday 35 hour schedule:
8am start,10am 15min break, 12pm 30min lunch break 3:30pm done. Some hot days afternoon work can be from 4-7 instead of 12:30-3:30 days divided between farm field work and non-manual labor projects.
Interns will work with the farmers on a combination of daily farm work and projects researching and implementing improvements to our regenerative agriculture practices. Interns will care for apples, peaches, raspberries, strawberries etc. Tasks include weeding by hand and with hand tools, shoveling mulch, harvesting produce, moving supplies, checking out customers during you-pick season, recording harvest based on sales data, inventorying supplies and farm seed, setting up, monitoring, and recording soil moisture meters, learning to identify and scout for beneficial and pest insects in orchard and berry plantings, managing the irrigation system, managing farm instagram account, surveying perennial natives in wildflower meadows to asses species make-up, cutting invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle shrubs, scouting for minor invasive species in woods, collecting soil samples from fields for lab testing. (all of the above skills can be learned).
Sample projects:
Replace farm website
Add pages to the farm website: 1)historic aerial photos of the farm sourced from local NRCS office, 2) a selection of recipes using farm produce.
Make interpretive guide for you-pick customers that explains regenerative aspects of farm and agro-ecology(composting, invasive spp removal,pollinator meadows, etc) guide could be a paper map, digital, who knows, but must be inexpensive to implement.
Make a plan to reduce erosion in a sloped wooded area near a stream where our compost pad has redirected rain water.
Make a plan for a site on the farm for a native sundial lupine patch and propagate them.
Make a plan for supporting endangered rusty patched bumble bees on the farm.
Research native bat species and how to attract them and improve their habitat to reduce the important apple pest codling moth.
Survey which birds are hunting caterpillar pests in orchards, research cost effective ways to attract them and improve their habitat.
Survey which plant spp are in pollinator meadows, which spp that aren’t planted are there, which planted spp are successful. Are parasitoid wasps and other caterpillar predators increased in meadow vs. hay field?
Where buckthorn was removed, what shrub and tree species are germinating? What ratios? How many buckthorn seedlings do we need to pull to let natives dominate? For how many years?
Benefits
Fruit and other produce to eat
Summer membership at YMCA (pool, hot tub, yoga classes, etc)
Negotiable schedule days and times
Opportunity to learn about growing crops that spend years to decades in the ground and have different needs from annual vegetables, perspective on the business and agroecology side of a small organic farm.
Peaceful and beautiful setting at the edge of a fun, bustling town on the ocean. Belfast was recently named the best place to live by Downeast Magazine. The are festivals, live music, restaurants and bars, rocky and sandy beaches, hikes, mountain bike trails, ponds and lakes for swimming and boating (if you have a vehicle with a rack you can borrow our canoe), contra dancing groups, a clay studio,a great library, a gig rowing group, art deco movie theater, farmers markets etc
We do not have employee housing but if you do not find housing in the area and are happy camping, we have space at the back of our fields under some pines where you can set up tents and cook on a camp stove. You will need to bring all your own camping and cooking supplies.
What to Expect from Us
We are happy to teach the how and the why of our farming. In addition to growing food we are actively restoring the natural habitats on our land through invasive species removal and promoting biodiversity with native wildflower meadows and more. We value communication and are available to help answer questions.
Who we are at Daisychain Farm: Daisy is the head farmer, class of Williams ‘03 Bio and Envi, thesis with Dr. Joan Edwards, MS at UVM in Plant Biology. Her other interests include learning Spanish and skiing. Her husband Angus is also Williams ‘03 Bio, thesis with Dr. Manuel Morales, now a doctor heading the Emergency Department in Belfast, loves road and mtn biking and backcountry skiing, head of farm construction and special projects. Their two kids are Phoebe, 12 loves field hockey, swimming and acting and Ian, 14, loves soccer, nordic skiing and dungeons and dragons.
Sharing the farmhouse are Angus’ parents Jon (Williams class of 70, retired labor lawyer) transports compost ingredients to farm and serves on town climate crisis committee and Jean (Umass Amherst, painter) harvests and puts up heroic quantities of produce each year and is a star in the Belfast Curling Club. Jean’s sister Sally Bennet has a PhD in ornithology and lived in Colombia 30 years as a conservation biologist, manages the compost operation and invasive spp removal on farm and runs our kitchen garden.
Application Details and Deadline
Send resume, two references from employers, teachers or coaches and cover letter to Daisy(she) at [email protected] Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
Website: www.daisychainfarm.com
Instagram: @daisychainfarm