Farm 119 June 11’
Our next forward farm experience begins on a small plot on the edge of the epic knysna forest. We find ourselves back tracking about 50 km’s to the George side of Knysna to an area known as Rheenendal, more specifically Bibby’s hook which has become home to our new host family. The Factor family, Kevin, Tanya, Mila and Luke moved from Johannesburg permanently in 2009 in search of a greener way of life beside the forest. Three years on roots and relationships are budding with the help of plenty Willing workers and enthusiasm.
The Factors are not so much farming as endeavouring to live lightly and with as little impact as possible on the earth. They are off the grid that’s electricity and water and sewage mains and use solar power to run systems in their home made partly of recycled materials. They are water wise and use rain water captured in rain tanks to drink, bath, wash dishes and water their plants. Fortunately two dams help out the plants in droughts but don’t serve for drinking purposes. So as you can imagine times of water crises have proved very challenging and the Factors value these often taken for granted resources even more so now that they’ve overcome the survival pioneer stage of habitation on farm 119. From the stories of the early days of the whole farm flooding out with mud baths up to knee deep everywhere and then droughts where you not sure if you can sacrifice your precious water for the luxury of a bath to nowadays where the flood water is channelled down a furrow into a big dam and with the extra few rain tanks in place and peace of mind during dry times makes living actually very comfortable. All in all it is a very good example of living lightly with all your creature comforts. So with most of the structural elements in place we could turn our efforts onto food production on their plot.
A short list of work done on 119Laying a path from front parking to the back stoepWell after all that and here we are slipping in mud and trying to build a clear path out of it. This involved setting in big sliced tree rounds and blocking out the mud with plastic, laying a border and filling in with stone for good drainage.
Clear, level and lay out path in fenced area around little damLots of digging to get a level playing field. Then searching the farm for worthwhile timber and hauling it back to site and laying the boundaries. Black builders plastic was cut and lain out to prevent weeds and finally suzi our baki got a ton of stone at the quarry and this was the topping for our garden path. The path also served as a boundary for the beds that we cleared between the path and the fence where juicy plants could be grown away from the ever munching mouths of the two oxen in the field. We cleared the kikuyu with a double dig system and also used a method of laying down cardboard on the grass and mulching thick on top with wood chip creating a haven for earth worms to multiply.
A thought for all wwoofers and their hosts… wwooof stands for willing workers on organic farms. Willling workers… who works just for food and accomodation? Someone who loves what they do and that doing may be organic farming. Organic farming… is it about not using chemicals; pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers? Yes, we don’t use them nasties but I think our focus should be on what we do do… and how? So this is where we put our foot down as wwoofers and stopped mucking about like labourers and said lets get growing!…
Raised garden bedsOur first real major wwoof job was to make use of a grow tunnel installed with the intention of growing vegetables and keeping them safe from the baboons. A very small circle space had been established to grow vegetables but apart from that the space was underused. Justin set about creating a design that would maximise the space inside the tunnel, while materials were gathered to create soil to fill the raised bed boxes. The earth in the area has a clay consistency not exactly ideal for propagation so a major objective of the job was to create the perfect soil consistency for the tunnel. This meant hauling in massive loads of river sand, mulch or really well composted pine chips (really well composted as pine is quite acidic and can create un imbalance in the soil if not ‘cooked’ and composted for a while) and large amounts of horse manure. These elements mixed in correct ratios with the clay soil create a hummus rich, aerated and nutritious soil. Justin using scrap wood and imagination, puzzled together a well constructed design which would utilize the available space and be strong enough to hold the frames in place.
During the process we had three days of rain, which did little to help the process but also gave us the opportunity to observe how the water would flow through and out of the tunnel. It didn’t… Because of the high clay content of the soil the water does not drain away very easily and so would just sit in fat puddles in the pathways. A clever gutter system similar to a French drain was called for and so a gutter was dug below the paths, then covered with horse feed bags to keep the shape and covered with small stones for drainage so the water would flow out of the tunnel and into a mini pond dug on the backside. Above the small stones were laid a thick layer of fresh pine chips which made the path soft to walk on and also aesthetically pleasing. Boxes in, and path laid it was time to haul in the new soil for the plants. That process took plenty of muscle power and in the wet and rain, a sense of humour.
This new soil was a treasure and pleasure to work with, we observed immediate results with the seeds we were germinating, and so we were super excited to get experimenting with growing our own micro-greens. These gourmet micro gardens in the kitchen are excellent sources of nutrients. For fresh salads, stir fry’s and dishes that require vegetables, micro greens are number one. It’s super simple too, all you need is germinating trays, a good potting mix (bought or made) and some seeds you would like to sprout. This process is different from simply sprouting seeds, as your micro-greens actually form minute roots and put out there first ‘true leaves’. These little gems are busting with nutrients and minerals all you basically get in a fully grown version of the plant, just in miniscule. It takes up practically no space at all on a sunny ledge, and depending on what you sprouting takes about a week to nine days to harvest. Harvesting is easy and a quick snip of the scissors gives you handful of fresh produce, also because the growing process is so brief you need not ever use any harmful chemicals or pesticides, making it organic and safe for eating. Kids also love the process, again because its so quick they can observe with fascination the growth that occurs from sprouting to true leaves. We found that sunflower seeds are really successful, they germinate really quickly and put out large and substantial sprouts. They need little attention and can be ready to eat in about nine days to two weeks. If you keen to give this fun and super nutritious project a try, have a look online at micro-green for some more details on starting your own.
Planting trees.Two yellow woods and a kuerboom were planted on the bank of the little dam. One day their shade will offer a wonderful picnic area.
Another 6 kuerboom were planted as a erosion control on the bank of the main furrow catching water for the big dam.
As the soil is so dense with clay the trees had to be planted out of the ground in wire baskets to prevent them from root rot and drowning. This all takes time and we were working well into the full moonlight. Theres a shot of us together just as we finished with a little grit on our face and big grins shining through!
In-between all these wonderful projects we found time to really enjoy the amazing and mysterious knysna forest which was literally on our front porch. Only a three or so km’s walk away was the brilliant Drupkelders, a fast flowing crystal clear waterfall and bubbling river that ran alongside ancient cliffs and cave systems. We too had the incredible opportunity to do the five day Outeniqa hike through the knysna forest, staying over in some great over night huts and hiking through pristine deep green forests. We had a close encounter one night with a troupe of the illusive Knysna elephants. We had miss calculated the length of our walk to the next hut and so found ourselves enveloped in the deep night, surrounded by forest and the freezing winter air. We were very happy to finally get to our over night spot and rest, only to be up again at seven to start the next section of the hike. We had much luck in coming upon some interesting Ganoderma Applanatus mushrooms which are an African cousin of the Chinese medicinal mushroom the Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum). These mushrooms are well known for their healing properties and have long been used in ancient Chinese medicine. The Ganoderma is known to be eaten by elephants and other jungle or forest dwelling species like the Silver Back Gorilla for self-medication purposes. These wise animals know which roots, fungi’s and plants to eat to heal themselves and maintain general well-being. We gave these little layered bark like mushrooms a go but avoided the fabled Fly Agarics that popped up in our path. A mushrooms appearance can sometimes be deceiving, so do be sure about which is what before cooking it up in the pot.
Fun guys growing fungi’sBack at farm 119 and Justin as usual had got Kevin really keen on growing some mushrooms. We managed to track down a source of spawn producers in the area and gathered up all the materials we would need for the project. This has to be one of Justin’s favourite things to do, growing mushrooms, even in the late hours of the icy evening, he’ll be there cooking up his substrate in a big oil drum under the stars like a crazy old shaman… hmmmm, for me something’s can wait till morning. We spent many happy hours stuffing little plastic bags full of substrate and spawn and making safe homes for the bags to be colonized. We left Kevin with a big supply and have packed the rest, along with a tray of sprouting sun flowers into the back of the bakkie.
It was fantastic spending time on Farm 119. It really gave us a chance to put into practice all the fun things we have learnt and share them with some folks who will benefit and continue to share with wwoofers to come. We again ate vegan style like kings, and enjoyed our time next to the magical forest. Baloo made some special four legged friends with Mushroom the Labrador and Fettuccini the small spotted number and also enjoyed playing amongst the forest folks.
We hope you enjoy the pictures we putting up. Some are contributions from Kevin, who really took some great shoots of us and what we did on the farm. I hope to set up a link to my face book so all the photo’s of the different farms can be viewed. We are now heading towards the Eastern Cape and the fantastic communities and forward farms around there.
Looking forward to your comments, questions and any contributions
Love, light and abundance
Gervaise and Justin
flowering
