Upper Hamlet (for single men, male couples, mixed gender couples and gender non conforming friends ).
The Happy Farm Upper Hamlet of Plum Village is a small organic vegetable farm located on the monks’ grounds in Plum Village. It brings together farming and the mindfulness practice of Plum Village Upper Hamlet.
Upper Hamlet is situated about 3 km from Lower Hamlet and is the home of around 60 Buddhist monks, 10-20 long-term lay interns and various retreatants who come for one or two weeks to live and practise together with the community.
In 2013 the first Happy Farm was founded in Upper Hamlet. It is the realization of a long-held wish to produce local, seasonal, organic vegetables within Plum Village and go in the direction of sustainability and food security for the Plum Village community.
We have around one acre of land in cultivation comprising more than 65 beds 30m long and 1.2m wide and a large polytunnel greenhouse with 6 beds which are 27m long. These are used for our main annual crops, and in addition to those we have other plots for perennials: herbs, berries and asparagus. Each year we also plant some fruit and nut trees with the aim of eventually having a portion of food forest.
The project is currently in its tenth year. The farm continues to grow and flourish in beautiful and unexpected ways. Since the farm began we produce an average of around 10,000kg of organic produce each year, worth approximately €50/60, 000.
Every year the Upper Hamlet farm hosts about 300 children during the Summer Family retreat. It is a site for the hands-on earth loving of Plum Village's annual Wake Up Earth retreat, in which about 500 young adults get to get their hands mindfully dirty on the farm with us.
Lower Hamlet (for single women, female couples, mixed gender couples and gender non conforming friends).
The Happy Farm in Lower Hamlet is a small organic vegetable farm located on the nuns‘ grounds in Plum Village. It brings together farming and the mindfulness practice of Plum Village, Lower Hamlet.
Lower Hamlet is situated about 3 km from Upper Hamlet and is the home of around 60 nuns, 10-20 longterm layfriends and retreatants who come for one or two weeks to live and practice together with the community.
The Happy Farm in Lower Hamlet was started in 2016, based on the concept and experience of Happy Farm siblings from Upper Hamlet..
In 2016 we started to cultivate 14 beds and a small herb garden. The number of beds almost doubled the following year and now the Farm includes over forty beds and a large polytunnel. We grow a wide variety of vegetables, from peas and radishes through tomatoes and cucumbers to pumpkins. All of the food that we grow is offered to the Lower Hamlet Sangha.
A big part of our mission is to experiment with applying the teachings on the land. We explore this while hosting retreatants during service meditation times as well as during week-long Happy Farm retreats for 50+ participants.
Deer Park Happy Farm
In Spring 2025 the community in Deer Park Monastery in Southern California created their own Happy Farm project, inspired by the Happy Farms of Plum Village France. The vision of Deer Park Happy Farm is to cultivate a space where mindfulness intersects with sustainable agriculture, nourishing the well-being of individuals, society, and the planet. We hope not only to feed the monastery, but also to involve our neighbors and their families in helping with the farm, fostering a sense of community and shared purpose.
May this farm become a sacred place of practice, where each seed planted is a prayer, each harvest a song of gratitude.
For more information please visit:
https://deerparkmonastery.org/initiatives/deer-park-happy-farm/