The constant in my life has been love of nature and as an adult have always grown my own vegetables. Throughout my career in the film and television industry I constantly maintained selfstudy and practice within the nature field.
In the 80's at Pretoria Zoo I did a short course on Ecology. In the 90's I did a course in Permaculture, in the 2000's I attended a course on Organic Vegetable Gardening with two South African leaders in the field; Steven Barrow and Thomas Linders. When American John Jevons visited South Africa, I was one of the participants on his Grow Biointensive course.
Gardening became my full time occupation in 2009, mentored by Thomas Linders. I have assisted with his DWAF contracts, mentoring farmers in the Britz area. We teach the Grow Biointensive method of organic farming which has been called the only truly sustainable farming in the world. We also employ Permaculture principles and use Effective Microorganisms.
I taught agricultural gardening to grades 4 to 7 at the Village Waldorf School and regularly teach gardeners to make food gardens. Recently I started a Permaculture Food Forest in the Groot Mariko Valley, which I will be documenting for the next 15 years.
A note on Grow Biointensive : we employ a method called double-digging which is deep preparation of the soil, with minimal disturbance of the natural soil layers. Planting is dense and beds are many, only as large as a person can reach. The method has proved extremely successful in creating micro climates, requiring a third of the water normal planting requires. In my home garden I have experimented for years on various methods and found this to produce the most abundant yield.
I am passionate about food security and love to teach the simple ways anybody can achieve it. The climate changes we are experiencing do not need to be feared, we just need to understand and work with nature to achieve what nature intended; to feed body and soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment