Head Gardener at Minam River Lodge in Joseph, Oregon

Biodynamics; Oregon (WI); On-site; USD 28,000 - 32,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site staff housing

Food provided

Access to outdoor activities

Job summary

A wilderness lodge in Oregon seeks a Head Gardener to manage a productive garden supporting a Farm to Table restaurant. The ideal candidate will oversee planting, harvesting, and guest interaction, ensuring a superb experience for visitors. This position comes with on-site housing and a salary range of $28,000-$32,000, plus employee tips.

Qualifications

• Experience managing a garden or farm.
• Ability to work independently and communicate effectively.
• Knowledge of cut-flower cultivation.

Responsibilities

• Grow produce for the lodge restaurant and staff.
• Maintain the garden and assist with guest tours.
• Manage composting and communicate with kitchen staff.

Skills

Resilience

Self-motivation

Organization

Interpersonal skills

Education

Experience in farming/gardening

Tools

Tractor

Cultivation tools

Job description

Head Gardener at Minam River Lodge in Joseph, Oregon

Company description

The Minam River Lodge is an intimate, off-grid resort located deep in Oregon's treasured Eagle Cap Wilderness on a historic property that overlooks the wild and scenic Minam River. Guests enjoy refined wilderness cuisine featuring the bounty of our own farm and greenhouse,and local farms and ranches. Lovingly hand-built log cabins and a beautiful modern Lodge provide accommodations for 36 people.A live-in staff provides a luxurious level of service with a cozy family feel. The Lodge has been named by various publications as a premiere backcountry lodge. We pride ourselves on providing a superb guest experience with personable, authentic, and professional service.

The Lodge Gardener grows a productive wilderness garden to support the Farm to Table cuisine of our wilderness lodge. Our capacity is 36 guests, averaging 30. About 20 staff live on property for the duration of guest season. The impressive greenhouse and beautiful garden serve as a focal point of the property and receive frequent visitors. The space consists of a well-fenced area of about twenty 45-ft rows and a ~40' x 50' greenhouse, at an elevation of around 3,600 ft. The position is one-part production, one part cut-flowers, and one part guest experience.

This is an amazing opportunity for a disciplined self-starter who wants to combine farming with hospitality and landscaping. The wilderness is a challenging place to grow, with unpredictable weather, all the normal pests, and lack of immediate access to resources. But it's an excellent challenge, a great place to sharpen your skills. Resilience, self-motivation, organization, awareness, kindness, and humility are highly desirable traits for this position.

Market garden: Your primary role is to provide produce for the lodge restaurant that feeds around thirty guests. Providing produce for the staff of about twenty is also a goal if resources allow. Responsibilities include seeding, growing, harvesting, washing, weighing, packaging, and storing. The deep rich soil and abundant groundwater has allowed for dry-farming the garden the past two years, yielding abundant results and increasing yields year over year. The previous gardener set up infrastructure and systems to increase yields and reduce drudgery, including bed prep, cultivation tools, deer and gopher fencing, insect netting, frost cloth, low-tunnels, germination mats, greenhouse climate control mechanisms, and a wash/pack tailored for roots/greens. Previous seasons' records on a Google Drive will bring you up to date on harvest weights, recommended varieties, and other notes/support materials. You'll have one dedicated staff who spends half of their work time in the garden, usually as a harvester helper. Expect to work with this person closely, and to likely train them.

Regular, clear communication with the chefs is essential to the position, which currently includes regular conversations, a weekly Fresh List email, and a daily group text telling them what's been harvested and put in the walk-in.

You'll also maintain the compost— emptying and cleaning buckets of kitchen scraps daily, mixing the compost with sawdust, and turning the compost with a tractor (groundskeeper can assist).

Guest Experience:Giving impromptu guest tours of the garden can be expected throughout the day— greeting them, touring them around the garden, explaining systems, connecting, listening, and thanking them for visiting. These tours can be repetitive, but personable and authentic conversation is appreciated by the guests and an important part of visiting the Lodge. You'll need to be organized enough to receive visitors and pick up where you left off.

Maintaining the garden grounds is another gardener responsibility— mowing, weed whacking, and/or scything the garden lawn; edging beds; plus trimming and cultivating the perennials, shrubs, and trees—many of them native plants— throughout the garden.

Cut-Flowers: You need to know how to grow and harvest a diversity of cut-flowers throughout the season for regular arrangements. Housekeeping staff does much of the harvesting with occasional help from the gardener. Communication is again essential, including teaching the staff where and how to harvest.

Pay is $900 weekly, plus a full tip share ($300-$900 extra per week during guest season). All staff work 6-day workweeks. Five PTO days are provided to staff who work an entire season. The gardener position starts in early April and ends in late October.

On-site staff housing and food are provided by the Lodge. Staff enjoy property amenities during off times, such as hiking and foraging along the endless trails in the surrounding Eagle Cap Wilderness, enjoying river time at the designated Wild and Scenic Minam River, or completing a few rounds of the hot sauna/cold river loop.

We work hard and take pride in the level of service and unique experience we provide our guests. Time and again, the guests report a fantastic staff as one of their favorite parts of their stay. We work as a true team and it shows. Living for months in the wilderness is not for everyone, but for those who "get it," a season spent at the Minam Lodge can be life-changing.

In its 9th year of full operation, the garden has been loved and cared for by only a few different hands and is in great shape. Are you an experienced farmer/gardener who is looking for a comprehensive opportunity to apply your skills and experience? The ideal candidate has planned and executed at least a couple of full growing seasons under their belt. Does the prospect overseeing a wilderness garden in the mountains from start to finish sound like an exciting challenge? If so, then we'd love to hear from you!

Compensation

this position is: salaried, varies DOE, $28,000.00 - $32,000.00