All internship positions are filled for 2010.  Thank you for your interest.  If you'd like to be put on a waiting list, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this page.

Riverhill Farm offers six internships each season to individuals wishing to learn the practical skills of farming.   We offer both a formal and an informal learning experience, with daily hands-on work, production meetings, discussion, and special projects to maximize each intern's learning experience. Special projects are crop-specific to encourage detailed learning about the cultural requirements of main crop and specialty vegetables and fruits to be grown successfully. Special projects are also environmental, either of an intern’s design or as part of ongoing environmental projects at the farm, to ensure that each intern gains a greater awareness of farming with sensitivity to the natural environment on which all farming depends.  Although we do emphasize the "how to" of farming, we also encourage focused learning in regard to "why farm."  For that, we supply required reading and, during common dinners every two weeks, discuss ecology, community, the basics of sustainability and human relationship to nature, and the pitfalls and promise of small farms as a response to industrial agriculture.

Riverhill Farm is highly diversified and grows intensively on ten acres. We sell our products both retail and wholesale through our CSA, at our farm’s farmstand, at local Farmers’ Markets, and to restaurants.  

Summers are hot but dry, and temperatures normally range from the mid-80’s to the 90’s, with one or two heat waves during which temperatures may exceed 100 degrees for a few days. At our elevation (2500’), nights are almost always cool and pleasant.  It almost never rains between May and October.

In 2009 we provided 160 shares through our CSA.  Although there are many paths to sustaining a small farm, CSA has proven for many farmers across the country to be the difference that makes their farms economically viable.  Yet, running a CSA requires a higher level of planning and organization and offers a few more challenges than most other forms of farming.  For everyone who works at Riverhill, you will learn the basics of starting and maintaining a CSA, including production planning and scheduling, planting calculations, budgeting, marketing the CSA, and creating and maintaining a subscriber base.

The term of an internship is the first week of April through the end of October. For anyone serious about farming, a shorter internship period will compromise the learning with regard to significant areas of farming. We do recognize, nevertheless, that some individuals may need to start slightly later due to college or other circumstances, and we will evaluate and accomodate each individual's needs on a case by case basis.  Preference will be given to individuals able to stay for the whole season.

The days are long but pleasurable.  Work starts at 7:30 a.m. An hour is provided for rest and lunch mid-day once the day's harvest is substantially completed.  The day ends for interns and employees at 4:30 p.m.   For employees and interns, the work week is Monday through Friday.  The only exception is for one intern to participate on a rotating basis each week in set up, sales and take down at Nevada City's Saturday Farmers' Market, where you will learn the basics of Farmers' Market organization and sales.

As a learning experience, the season is roughly divided into four periods during which the character of the work is dominated by certain tasks, even if the same tasks are repeated during other times of the season. The early season consists of fertilization and soil amending, tillage, care of transplants, seeding, planting, and cultivating. During this period you will also learn about irrigation set-up and requirements for successful drip and overhead irrigation. There are pole bean and cucumber trellises to construct. You will also help to care for cool season plants that were planted before your arrival at the farm. These include peas, salad crops, greens, fava beans, strawberries, and more.

The season then progresses into plant maintenance, fertilizer side-dressing or foliar feeding, mulching, monitoring for pests, extensive weeding and cultivation, trellising tomatoes, and some early picking of produce as our picking season gets underway. Our CSA gets underway and our farmstand opens in June, and you’ll get a very good sense of what’s involved in making a small farm economically viable from the standpoint of serving our subscribers and farmstand customers. We’ll still be planting and weeding and setting up more irrigation lines during this period, but we’ll usually be close to fully planted at this point.

Just when it seems that farming is wholly dominated by weeding and cultivating, the season shifts into mostly picking and packing, keeping up with hundreds of pounds of gorgeous produce, filling custom orders from restaurants, grocery stores and individual customers, going to Farmers’ Markets with an overfull load, and filling CSA boxes three times a week. We’ll also be drying and canning surplus produce. You’ll gain a broad appreciation for the requirements of a diversified marketing plan and strategies to ensure that the produce that is grown reaches its markets.  Mid-summer we plant cool season crops for Fall harvest.

By September, the days are noticeably shorter and cooler at night, and some of the plants are slowing down. Cool season plants start to perk up, and the mix of veggies starts to include more greens and salad again. Peppers are in their prime (we grow more than twenty varieties!), and we spend a great deal of time just gawking at the beauty of the place. Revived by the cooler temperatures, stamina returns and we’re comfortable in the pleasure of another successful season.

In order to successfully cover crop our fields for the coming winter, we have to start stripping the fields of most plants, trellising and irrigation equipment by the middle of October. Many of the plants are still loaded with produce, so we hold our annual Gleaning Day and invite our customers and the community to come pick their own. Payment for produce is by donation, and it’s a great event. We delight in watching families work their way down the rows and take great pleasure in giving back to the community that supports us. The conclusion of Gleaning Day signals the final push to clear the fields, and than we return to tillage and the seeding of the cover crop, ideally by the middle of October. Most work is done for the season by the end of October.

When you apply for an internship at Riverhill Farm, you should contact us with a letter by email and let us know your background, your interest in farming and spending the season at this farm, and what you would like to get out of the experience.  Please also provide a resume or other summary of your education and work history.   Preference will be given to individuals with some previous farming experience and to those who wish to continue working in agriculture after their internship.

After we’ve reviewed your application letter, we will want to talk to you over the phone as well. It is best if you can visit us at the farm, meet and talk with us to make sure that the experience will suit you, but we recognize that that may be difficult for someone coming from a distance.

We enjoy the experience of opening up our farm and work life to people who want to learn about sustainable agriculture and contribute to our community. We always appreciate a fresh and eager perspective and the good times that our interns bring, and find great satisfaction in the possibility that we’re contributing in some way to an experience that may cause one more person to dedicate themselves to a life in sustainable agriculture.