Full Hand Farm – Paid Farm Crew

Last Updated On: January 10th, 2024 at 08:25AM MST

Contact information

Farm Address:
3844 Indiana 13
Noblesville, Indiana, 46060

Primary Contact: Genesis McKiernan-Allen
Primary Phone:
    Type: Cell
    Number: 5038071842
    Email: genesisanna@gmail.com

Website: https://www.fullhandfarm.com

Internship information

General Farm Description: Full Hand Farm is a four-season organic farm in Central Indiana, about 40 minutes northeast of downtown Indianapolis. We farm five acres of vegetables using a mix of mechanical and hand scale production techniques. We grow 40 different crops throughout the year and specialize in a consistent supply of salad greens. We are a year-round anchor vendor at the Broad Ripple Farmers Market and deliver to about 20 restaurants during the main season. 2024 will be our 13th year. We are committed to building and maintaining a farm business that treats both the land and the people growing the food we sell with care and respect. That means we use cover crops, crop rotation, organic seeds and fertilizers, beneficial insects, lots of row cover, and tractor and hand scale cultivation to steward and improve our soils. We value the wildness of the woods and the unmown patches of tall grass within our farm and along our roadside as valuable space and habitat for the wider eco system around us. We depend on that eco system to keep our farm and our spirits balanced! Treating our team with care and respect means we are strict about keeping work hours regular and reasonable, pay overtime, offer accrual based PTO, provide lunch from time to time, and truly care about the personal and professional development of our crew. We are proud to have had a core team of people working with us for many years. Although this isn’t a formal internship/apprenticeship program, there are ample opportunities to learn production methods and business strategy on the job, especially for self-starters interested in managing and/or owning a farm someday. We love to answer questions, explain the ins and outs of why we use one seeder over another and how we decide which implement to use in the field. The strength of the organic farming community is built on open and transparent information sharing between farmers and we are enthusiastic supporters of that – we’ll talk farming til the proverbial cows come home if you’re interested and ask questions. Visit our website (www.fullhandfarm.com) and social media accounts (Instagram and Facebook) for more information and lots of pictures. We are honored to have been among the guests on Chris Blanchard’s Farmer to Farmer podcast in 2018 and a little more about us and our background can be heard on that episode: https://www.farmertofarmerpodcast.com/episodes/fullhand We were also featured in a 2022 Heartland Film Festival Honorable Mention Documentary called More Than Corn, available at www.morethancorn.tv

CRAFT Member Farm? No

Internship Starts: Mid-April is ideal but we are happy to work with a school schedule for the right candidate.
Internship Ends: : Flexible - sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas is ideal. Winter hours are available based on crew seniority.
Number of Internship Available: 2
Application Deadline: March 1
Minimum Length of Stay: full season

Internship Details:

We strive for a work environment that is challenging but not grueling. It is highly physical work and primary duties will change some over the course of the season. In the spring you’ll be applying compost to greenhouse beds, seeding, transplanting, and hand-weeding. These positions will also be focused on keeping up with tomato and cucumber trellising in the high tunnels throughout the season.

By mid-season new hires will focus almost exclusively on harvesting, washing and packing produce for our restaurant accounts and weekly farmer’s market. Harvest requires fast, efficient, repetitive motions while bending, squatting, kneeling and lifting in all kinds of weather conditions. Washing and packing requires standing for long periods and lifting 50 pounds. Just about everything we do on the farm requires the ability to move quickly and efficiently while maintaining attention to detail and quality standards.

New hires will be worked into the Saturday morning market staff rotation. Duties at the market include helping with set up, restocking produce, making fast and friendly transactions, answering questions about veggies, and helping with end of market inventory and tear down. Market hours are 6am – 1pm, and are usually flexed for regular hours at the farm. As a market farm, we find working the market once in a while really helps inform the pace and process of work on the farm during the week.
Regular work hours are Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm with a 45-minute paid lunch break. During heavy harvest days in July, August and September we work 7 am – 4pm. We will occasionally ask for extra hours if there is significant weather on the way.

Farming is both incredibly rewarding and incredibly challenging. It is skilled labor that is highly physical and requires repetitive motions and tasks, getting dirty, spending lots of time bent over, consistently lifting 50 pounds, and working outside in weather that is hot, cold, wet, windy, humid, as well as those beautiful blue bird days we all love! Expect your body to take about 3 weeks to physically adjust to the demands of the job.

About you: The ideal candidate is comfortable in their own skin and is not afraid to ask questions. You walk beside us between tasks, not behind us. You are fast moving, efficient, detail oriented and hard-working while being pleasant and good humored. You have experience in some kind of physical work – landscaping, restaurants, etc. You are curious about food and food systems, whether it’s organic production methods, food policy, or just how to be a better cook with better ingredients. You love being outside. You are able to work for long stretches both independently and with a crew. You are forward thinking and able to ask for help and clarification when you need it. You are good natured and curious. You are not offended when corrected and are able to receive and respond to constructive feedback.
We are a small and tight knit team and finding the right personalities to join our crew is important. We work hard and we work fast, but we laugh a lot along the way. We’ll teach you how to bunch kale like a boss and sling radishes at market, but we can’t teach curiosity and a sense of humor. Those we need you to bring.

Compensation: Starting at $13/hour. Pay increase after a 30-day trial period based on experience and performance. Accrual based paid time off after 30 day trial period, up to 8 days a year for full timers. Generous end of the year bonus for finishing the season. Full access to any vegetables the farm is producing. Annual IRA matching program available in 2nd year of employment.

Educational Opportunities: Many! See above job description.

Skills Desired: No

Meals: No

Stipend: Yes

Housing: No

Preferred method of Contact: email