Fresh vegetables for our pickers

Whenever Jaco goes to the permaculture garden on our South African farm Rooihoogte, he feels his heart race. He completely looks forward to the plants, the fruit and vegetables, the herbs and of course the cock Alphonso. Every day he comes by, watering, harvesting, feeding the cock and looking after things. A year ago, he learned everything about gardening in a permaculture garden in a workshop and then enthusiastically started to cultivate the beds on our farm.

Today Jaco is especially happy, because he’s getting a visitor. His colleague Griet de Bruyn and her team of 30 pickers have announced a visit. They would like to know what a Permaculture garden is. Jaco leads the group through the garden, which means that he actually jumps from one bed to another and encourages his visitors to grasp the garden with all their senses: smell herbs, hold fruits in their hand, listen to the bees humming. Jaco’s passion for nature is immediately carried over to the group. There’s really no one who doesn’t walk through the garden with an appreciative smile.

But what is a permaculture garden, anyway? Permaculture means working with nature and not against it.

The processes that take place in nature create an ecosystem that is stable, self-sustaining, and in which the most delicious fruits grow and thrive.

Our permaculture garden in Rooihoogte was established in 2017 led by permaculture expert Kobus Kritzinger.

Since then, Jaco and other volunteers have been harvesting tasty fruit and vegetables there. And they first go into our kindergarten kitchen, so that the little ones get a healthy, nutritious lunch. The rest is sold at fair prices in a community shop.

But Jaco’s guests don’t have to pay for freshly harvested vegetables today. After their garden tour, there will be an intensively aromatic rainbow salad of crunchy white and red cabbage, carrots and red onions for them. Simply heavenly and really healthy. And one or the other visitor will certainly want to be allowed to grow vegetables in the permaculture garden.