Bogata Šuma was established in 2009 by the Scheltus family in the beautiful countryside of central Croatia to inspire people to make natural choices and live natural and simple life.
It’s a permaculture farm and camp ground in nature. The family also organises workshops and courses about permaculture, arts, crafts and country life skills. If you would like to live a fulfilling life in the countryside too but you don’t now where to start, this is the perfect place to discover the permacultural way of living.

About the volunteer and work exchange program

Please read the program description below by the host

“The family Bogata Šuma now is a permaculture family homestead on the top of a hill in the forests of Croatia. We lead a simple, healthy, mostly self sufficient life as practical realists. We like to create a sustainable habitat by following nature’s patterns.You are welcome on our permaculture family homestead in the green hills in the heart of Croatia!

We are looking for nature lovers who want to learn all about setting up a sustainable and self reliant 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.

Your first week will be a practical permaculture and sustainable living course. 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.

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.

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

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.

In this (Corona virus) period we are preparing for better times, by constructing fantastic gypsy wagons, and maybe also a well-designed wooden tiny house for (tourist) families.
Carpenters, wood workers and people with experience in construction are therefore very welcome!

Another line of our development is in the kitchen. Our teenage son Nol wants to be a chef so professional cooks are extra welcome! We will provide you with fantastic ingredients and a variety of tools. We like to cook a “peka” or a soup in a cauldron on an open fire, indoors we cook on a wood stove with a big oven, we like to ferment, bake, to smoke meat and fish, we have made our own sausages… Cooking here is fun, especially with Nol.

On our homestead you can learn about permaculture and how to implement practical permaculture solutions in life. You can learn about self sufficiency and a lot of skills to get on a self sufficient pathway. Like how to setup a low maintenance garden, using animals for certain tasks, scything grass and making hay, wine making, fermenting, composting in many ways…

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.

We collect various (medicinal) herbs for the kitchen, for tea, tinctures and oils. We make our own cosmetic products and cleaning products.

We live with quite some animals: 5 cats (mouse & squirrel catchers), 2 dogs (for fun and to guard the other animals), various amounts of rabbits (manure and meat producers) and chickens (compost turners, bug hunters, for eggs & meat), bees (but we are newbie beekeepers) and soon also ducks and sheep (terrain cleaners for milk, wool and meat). And Barbara wants a peacock.

You can help us (4-5 hours per day, 5 days a week, for at least 3 weeks) with construction work, furniture making, 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…

You need a certain amount of independence, curiosity, flexibility and fun and don’t mind dirty hands, curious cats and noisy kids :-).

If you eat vegan or your main motivation is consuming travelling and to have a cheap place to stay, please do not apply.

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!”

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Accomodation offer

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Flight offer

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