Permaculture Internships

Join our Permaculture Internship and experience everything that happens on a permaculture farm. Live off-grid with like-minded people, eat healthy food, immerse yourself in nature and enjoy optional yoga and meditation classes.

Keela Yoga Farm Winter vegtable garden
Our permaculture gardens during the end of the hot summer in 2019

Goto our events page and apply for an event

Internship dates

  • Winter 2022 6 week Permaculture & Food Forest internship
  • Spring Extended Permaculture Design Course
    • Recieve a PDC Certificate
    • have more time to put the theory into practice
    • 22nd March 2022 – 15th April 2022
    • Click here to book the permaculture design course

Video from Summer 2021 permaculture internship

What to know what it will be like? check out this 20 min video taken during the Summer 2021 internship. Of course, every internship is different but this gives you an idea.

What do we focus on during the internship?

There are opportunities for interns to work on one area if they desire. Otherwise, we will usually all work together and work on a different aspect each day.

  • 15% Growing Vegetables: Sunken Beds, Huglekulture, raised, wood chip beds
  • 15% Forest Management: Food Forests, Silvopasture, Reforestation, Forest Management
  • 15% Natural Building & Permaculture Systems
  • 15% Farm Tasks: Managing the nursery, chickens, pigs, sheep, greenhouse, building compost, worm farms, weeding.
  • 15% Community living – Cooking, cleaning, socialising
  • 30% free time (weekends & evenings)

Join us by completing our application form

What will you learn?

Learn how to process food from the garden.

Learn how to grow an abundance of food in our vegetable gardens and food forests. This is the biggest aspect of the internship.  Did you know food for us isn’t the only thing we grow! You can grow materials for clothes and dyes, food for animals, firewood, medicine, tea, spices, herbs, timber, rope. This list goes on. Each year we should be producing more than we did the last year.
Nursery Management
Learn nursery and greenhouse management. We will be planting seeds for vegetables, trees and shrubs. Some for the farm and some to sell or barter with the local community.
Learn and create new permaculture beds. Sunken beds, back to Eden wood chip beds, hugelkultur or larger planting for food for animals or grains.
Permaculture internships - Permaculture systems
Use and learn about our permaculture systems & build new permaculture systems.  Long drop vermiculture compost toilet/chicken compost system/food forest system/solar heating systems/greywater systems/flushing vermiculture toilet system/biochar systems/animal systems
Food Harvest and processing.
Learn specific seasonal skills. e.g Harvest olives in November and make olive oil and olive products. Harvest grapes in September to make wine. Harvest different fruits to make jams and chilli sauces.

 

Learn natural building. We have houses made of straw bale, cordwood and wattle and daub. Usually, we have some sort of building project for a new permaculture system on the go. We use natural materials so you will get a chance to learn about Natural Building. In the summer we also have a natural building focused internship.
Compost for food forest
Learn about composting. You need lots of compost to grow great plants. We have many compost systems including deep bedding in the chicken, sheep and pig systems. We also have a chicken powered compost system, a long drop vermiculture system, many worms farms and we also make a quick hot compost. We then make different homemade mixes for potting and planting.
Deep bedding in the pig house
Learn animal husbandry. We have chickens, sheep and pigs. All of our animals work for us clearing land and turning the weeds and grasses into food and manure and compost so we can grow vegetables organically. One of the daily tasks for the intern is to help with the animals.
Permaculture Internship - Earthworks
Learn about earthworks such as swales, roads, ponds, sunken beds and hugelkultur beds.
Work in one of our food forests. This is a big focus on the farm. This includes propagation, weeding, harvesting, pruning and planting.
Woodland management
Learn about forest management. Pruning trees, cutting firewood, harvesting wood for building, planting trees, clearing fire hazard and turning it into wood chips for the garden or charcoal to make biochar.
permaculture internship - bee keeping
Learn sustainable living through many avenues. How to make it yourself instead of buying it. Beekeeping is one of a huge list of things you can learn about. We also make our own soap, preserves, cleaning products, wool insulation, cheese, housing and structures and more.
permaculture internship - chickens
Learn how our chicken compost systems and chicken food forest work. Each intern has a daily task and one of them is to help look after the chickens.
permaculture internship fermenting
Learn and practice preserving food. Growing food is one thing. But we also need to preserve them. We make jams, fermentations, sauces and chutneys depending on what is in season. Working and creating in the kitchen is one of the most common skills people take home with them.
Trees for reforestation
Every winter a big focus goes to tree planting and reforestation. You can learn about this all year by either helping us maintain in the summer or planting in the winter.

Community Living

Interns cook and clean in our large straw bale community house on a rotation.
  • Food is cooked on rotation with the other guests (Can’t cook? don’t worry you will have support from our in house chef, so you will leave us a competent cook, one of the best take-home skills of being here)
  • Once per month as part of our community outreach, we visit a local farm to help them out for a morning
  • Friday afternoons are a deep clean afternoon so we can enjoy a clean environment for the week ahead. During this time we may need to prepare accommodation for future guests or make some repairs or upgrades to the farm.

Goto our events page and apply for an event

The usual day of an intern:

This changes throughout the year as we work with the sun. Usually, we work an average of 5 hours per day. On some days there will also be tours, workshops and lectures.

  • 7.30am Yoga Class (optional and 3-4 days per week)
  • 8.30am Breakfast (prepared together or on rotation)
  • 9.30am- 1.30pm Morning work
  • 11.00-11.30am mid-morning break
  • 1.30pm Lunch (cook together on rotation, starting at 11am)
  • 2.30pm – 4pm Afternoon work
  • 7.30pm dinner (cook together on rotation, starting at 530pm)
  • Weekends are free time

What can you do in your free time?

Take a walk into the village or explore around our farm, read a book from our library, use our unlimited wifi in the community house, or take a taxi with the group to a lake, river beach or one of the nearby mountains.
Yoga Classes
Join Yoga classes from an experienced yoga teacher
permaculture internship - wild life
Enjoy the wildlife including a huge amount of interesting birds, plants and insects. We are way out in nature and far from any road or town

 

Pizza party
We enjoy pizza parties or BBQs every month
Every month we do a community day to help a local farmer so you can see another project

Goto our events page and apply for an event

Frequently asked questions

Is it ok to join the internship on a different date than the start date? This is not possible as we have a welcome for new arrivals and then a one-day introduction to the farm which can not be missed.

Is this a permaculture course? No this is not a permaculture course. This is work experience on a permaculture farm. There will be lectures and tours each day but most of the time you will be working and gaining experience. Usually each day you work on a different aspect so you get to experience a variety of tasks. If you prefer a theory classroom-based course then we will be offering this from next year.

Will I get a PDC certificate from an internship? You will not get a PDC certificate. A PDC is a theory course on how to design a garden or a farm. You will work on our farm and see what it is like to live off-grid and manage a farm.

How many interns will there be? Usually, there is the maximum number of people which is 10 interns.

How many people live on your permaculture farm? Two people, Kimberly (yoga teacher and homesteader) and Laurence. (Permaculture/Agroforest and Natural Building practitioner and teacher).

Who will be learning the internship and any lessons/instructions? All instructions will be given by the owners Kimberly or Laurence. They will also be working alongside you on all the tasks so you can fire all your questions at them during this time. We do not let volunteers on interns teach so that the correct information is passed a long.

Will I be socialising and spending free time with the owners of Keela?  No. outside of intern hours they have a farm to run, markets to prepare for, friends to help and personal space to enjoy.  They usually will have one meal with you during working days but the rest of the time you will be living with the other interns. Occasionally they also organise things like BBQs or pizza parties for you to join. You have a big communal space to share and enjoy with the interns.

I am having some life troubles and want to find myself, is this is a good place for me to come? No this is not the place for you. However, you can consider one of our yoga retreats instead, where you will find time for relaxation, journaling and soul searching.

I have some injuries and am not able to do much physical work is it ok for me to just join the theory and not participate in the work? This is not possible for the internship as you will be expected to work. Living here requires lots of physical work which you must be capable of doing. However, you could join us for a farm stay instead and join some workshops at an extra cost.

Why are you charging us to work, can we not just volunteer somewhere else for free? Yes, you can volunteer somewhere for free. However, we are offering you a unique learning experience where we are providing you with an organised internship that allows you to work on all aspects of the farm over the duration of your stay. Here you will learn about our permaculture systems whilst enjoying a diversity of tasks in a group that all starts on the same day.

Goto our events page and apply for an event