Permaculture Farm Bogata Šuma

You are welcome on our permaculture family homestead in the green hills of Croatia!
We are looking for nature lovers who want to learn all about setting up a sustainable and self sufficient life in the countryside. People that can stay for 4 weeks or longer, or even want to stay "forever" in a nice spot on our 12 hectares. We're growing a village!

Our vision is to grow our homestead into a community-village in an edible landscape. We are growing a village so that together we can live more self sufficient/independent, share tools, tasks, good meals and stories and celebrate the good life.

Your first week will be a practical permaculture and sustainable living course from permaculture teacher Barbara Scheltus. After this week you can stay for another 3-99 weeks as a volunteer, and go more in depth with the subjects that interest you the most.

On our homestead you can see permaculture in practice and learn how to implement permaculture thinking in life. You can learn about self sufficiency and how to setup a homestead. How to design a low maintenance garden, using animals for certain tasks, scything grass and making hay, wine making, fermenting, many ways of composting...
Our food forest (started in 2015) is almost mature, the food savanna is getting more and more diverse and the camp ground is turning into an edible landscape.

We live a simple but abundant, mostly self sufficient life off the land. We love to prepare delicious dishes with ingredients from the garden, the terrain and our stable. We like to make our own (sourdough) bread, crackers, cookies, wine, beer, jams, syrups, sauerkraut, yogurt, mayonnaise, kimchi & kefir. Our son Nol (21) is on his pathway to become a chef.
We collect various (medicinal) herbs for the kitchen, for tea, tinctures and oils. We make our own cosmetic products and cleaning products and we'll share with you how to do this.

We live with quite some animals: 4 cats (mouse & squirrel catchers), 2 dogs (for fun and to guard the other animals), various amounts of rabbits (manure producers and meat) and chickens (compost turners, bug hunters, for eggs & meat), bees (but we are newbie beekeepers). We had sheep for a while (and want them again when we're better prepared) and we want ducks and geese or turkeys.

You can help us (4-5 hours per day, 5 days a week, for at least 3 weeks after the introduction course) with construction work, furniture making, cooking (when you are a professional), the garden, making the camp site more beautiful and turning the terrain into an edible landscape according to our permaculture designs. The garden needs a fence, the paths need wood chips mulch, we can do some pruning, taking care of the (polyculture, no dig) garden, the forest garden or the food savanna, composting and mulching with various methods, and you can help us with everyday's tasks. Like taking care of the animals, making jam/juice/wine, collecting seeds/mushrooms, hunting bugs, collecting & chopping fire wood...

Special projects for this year are expanding the small pond between food forest and garden, setting up a polytunnel and marking hiking trails on and around our terrain. Let us know if one of these have your special interest.

Please write a personal message (to Peter and Barbara) about you, what you want to learn, why, what we can learn from you, your skills and your dream future, so we can setup a good stay for you.
We normally get more than 400 requests a year so you need to make it personal with your motivation.

We live a simple, healthy, holistic lifestyle as practical realists. We use permaculture principles to develop our terrain and our life. We care for the earth, for the people around us, for the future and we like to share our abundance with you. At the beginning of your stay we'll discuss our cultures and see how we can establish a culture of mutual respect and empowerment. Every Friday we close the week with an evaluation and celebration. We welcome you as you and we don't appreciate advocates for a battle that doesn't need to be fought here. Who you are matters for us; not what colours your skin has, what gender you identify with or who you prefer in your bed. That is not an issue here. We have hosted warriors who dominate the atmosphere with what others can or cannot say. We enjoy a light atmosphere and we might not be "politically correct" because we don't believe in politics. We believe in us all being humans and caring for the world. You need a certain amount of independence, curiosity, flexibility and fun and don't mind dirty hands and cats on your lap. If you eat vegan or you are afraid of nature (lots of insects and spiders here), please do not apply.