Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Roots to Work is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Trainee Veg Growers

Growing Communities
Hackney, London

Posted: 13 Jan 2025

Deadline: 3 Feb 2025

Compensation: n/a

Living Wage employer

Unpaid Traineeship Part-time Fixed term / contract

Job description

Growing Communities is a non-profit social enterprise run by a small but committed team of local staff and volunteers. We run a weekly organic fruit and veg scheme, the Patchwork Farm in Hackney, Dagenham Farm, the farmers’ market in Stoke Newington and the wholesale Better Food Shed.  

We are recruiting four organic veg growing trainees who want to learn food-growing skills and improve their understanding of the food system. Learn all about growing vegetables - especially salad leaves - at our urban market gardens in Hackney (first 6 months) and our small farm in Dagenham (final 2 months). The free training runs one day a week, plus six evening tutorials. From March until the end of October.

We are looking for enthusiastic people who are keen to learn how to grow food in a sustainable way, enjoy working outdoors and working with others. This training is open to everyone, regardless of background.

The traineeships start in early March and run until the end of October. Trainees will learn all aspects of running our urban market gardens through:  

1. Practical work alongside the grower on site one day a week. Tasks include seed sowing, potting on, planting out, weeding, watering, harvesting, making compost, record keeping, and any other associated tasks in the garden.  
2. Working occasionally on other Growing Communities’ sites alongside other growers. 
3. Supporting and supervising volunteers.  
4. Learning deeper theory at 6 evening tutorials about organic food growing and the wider good food system. 
5. Meeting members of the office team to hear more about the ‘behind-the-scenes' elements of running a viable organic food business. 
6. Potential for gaining experience supervising the garden work day and harvest when the grower is absent, if of interest.  

Application information

For full application details, please visit https://growingcommunities.org/jobs

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs