Team Leader / Senior Gardener

Are you committed to delivering beautiful, healthy, and productive food gardens for Urban Harvest clients?

Are you willing and able to educate clients who wish to learn about food gardening?

Are you interested in mentoring assistant gardeners into skilled future team leaders?

Our client, a specialist edible-garden company, is looking for a Team Leader / Senior Food Gardener to join their team.  They design, install, and maintain beautiful, healthy, and productive food gardens for private and commercial clients, while also educating clients and developing assistant gardeners into skilled future team leaders.

The Team Leader / Senior Food Gardener is a highly competent, hands-on gardener responsible for delivering excellent, well-managed, and productive gardens.  This role involves mentoring assistants, teaching clients who wish to learn, making on-site decisions, and ensuring each garden improves in health, productivity, and structure over time.

You will work as part of a small team, typically one to two assistants, visiting an average of three gardens per day (occasionally up to five), balancing hands-on gardening with planning, teaching, and client engagement.

ESSENTIAL:  Hands-on experience managing a productive food garden with multiple crops.

ESSENTIAL:  2–3+ years of practical FOOD GARDENING experience, or equivalent demonstrated depth of learning and competence.

ADVANTAGEOUS:  Drivers’ licence

ADVANTAGEOUS:  Fruit tree pruning and long-term tree care experience.

ADVANTAGEOUS:  Knowledge of Korean Natural Farming or similar regenerative systems.

ADVANTAGEOUS:  Experience producing natural fertilisers, teas, or plant-based pest control.

ADVANTAGEOUS:  Experience mentoring or training less skilled gardeners.

ADVANTAGEOUS:  Experience working directly with clients.

Key Duties & Responsibilities:

• Independently assess each garden on arrival and identify priorities based on season, plant health, and client needs.
• Make real-time decisions on what must be done during each visit versus what should be planned for future visits.
• Solve garden-related problems on site using experience and sound judgement, escalating only when decisions involve significant cost or long-term implications.
• Deliver high-quality, hands-on food gardening across diverse gardens, including planting, harvesting, pruning, training, crop succession, and seasonal planning.
• Build and maintain healthy soil systems through mulching, compost use, feeding, and appropriate pest and disease management.
• Confidently educate and mentor clients who wish to learn, explaining how, why, and when gardening tasks are done, and guiding clients when expectations conflict with seasonal or horticultural best practice.
• Lead one or two assistant gardeners on site, allocating tasks clearly, setting the pace of work, and maintaining high standards of neatness, care, and professionalism.
• Actively mentor assistant gardeners by teaching techniques, systems, and reasoning while working, and by sharing knowledge gained through experience and self-directed learning.
• Manage compost systems and earthworm farms, identifying healthy versus failing systems and intervening appropriately.
• Where possible, develop and use on-site resources such as composts, natural fertilisers, teas, and plant-based pest control methods to reduce reliance on external inputs without compromising garden quality.
• Check irrigation systems during visits, identify obvious inefficiencies or faults, and adjust basic settings or escalate issues where required.
• Accurately complete site visit forms after each visit, recording work completed, observations, risks, and priorities.
• Plan ahead for upcoming visits by clearly documenting intended tasks and required plants, materials, or inputs, ensuring continuity even if another team steps in.
• Receive feedback from management regarding the profitability of individual gardens and adapt maintenance approaches to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary use of time or resources while maintaining excellent garden outcomes.
• Take responsibility for ongoing learning, researching unfamiliar crops or techniques independently, applying learning practically, and sharing new knowledge with assistant gardeners and, where appropriate, clients. 

Key Requirements:

• Detail-oriented with a high level of accuracy.
• Organised, reliable, and able to manage multiple tasks.
• Strong communication skills when dealing with clients and suppliers.
• Discreet and trustworthy, with the ability to handle sensitive information.
• Problem-solving mindset with a focus on efficiency and productivity.
• Good time management and follow-up skills.
• Positive, supportive team player.
• Clear evidence of:
  • Successful planting, maintenance, and harvesting
  • Seasonal understanding
  • Problem-solving in real gardens (not theory only)
  • Strong observational and decision-making skills.
  • Ability to work efficiently under time pressure.
  • Confidence in communicating with and educating clients.
  • Physical fitness for full-day outdoor work.
  • Reliability, consistency, and personal discipline.
  • A natural inclination to teach, explain, and mentor others.