November 26, 2024
Going green with permaculture
Having spent the week on the edge of an organic farming workshop, I now know how to make different kinds of compost teas to help my plants grow. I have learned that the noxious weed lantana camara can be made into a treatment against cutworms. I am ready to start a worm farm and produce ‘black gold’ to enrich the soil. Worms are apparently an organic gardener’s best friend.
The organic movement can be traced back to the 1920s when the nature of agriculture really changed, with the production of chemical fertilisers, hybrid seeds and increased mechanisation.
Soils in some areas are actually destroyed and plants can’t grow anymore on soil which has been chemically treated for years. The workshop leader gave us an example from Holland — one of the most intensively chemically farmed areas in Europe — where after 50 years of extreme production, the soil is dead and agricultural production now has to happen hydroponically. I find that really scary.
Closer to home, some farmers have gone natural out of necessity, as fertiliser became unavailable and then very expensive. But there are various centres which have actively promoted organic farming, natural farming and permaculture for years.
One of these is Kufunda Village, a Learning Centre on a farm just outside the city, which aims to demonstrate sustainable living solutions. It operates on permaculture principles and the centre of the village is a rich garden where fruits, flowers and vegetables flourish.
“Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments. The aim is to create systems that are ecologically sound and economically viable, which provide for their own needs, do not exploit or pollute, and are therefore sustainable in the long term,” explains Bill Mollison, the founding father of permaculture.
Kufunda is a venue for workshops and retreats and aims to show what is possible using resources readily available. The food and welcome is very much about village hospitality. Meals are substantial and served buffet style in the large thatched dining rondavel. There is almost always a choice of sadza or rice (or both for large appetites!) but sadza is made not only from maize meal, but also from traditional small grains. Imaginative salads are concocted for example, from soaked and lightly cooked sorghum.
The emphasis is on locally grown and traditional recipes. Dishes include tasty bean stew, vegetables from the garden and mixed salads with a variety of fresh herbs. Fish comes from a nearby dam and is served whole — crisply fried. Chickens are home raised and freshly slaughtered.
Another speciality is oyster mushrooms from the Kufunda mushroom house. But in this wet season a variety of wild mushrooms are gathered daily from the forest and on the day I was there they were served in a delicious peanut butter sauce.
Fizzy drinks and super refined white bread are avoided. Instead tea breaks offer traditional foods like cooked sweet potatoes, mapudzi or chibage depending on the season. Herbal teas from herbs grown in the garden are a refreshing change. I liked the lemon grass and ginger.
Often there is no electricity and cooking, even for a crowd, takes place on a clay stove called a jengeta huni (save wood). These stoves are part of what is demonstrated and shared by Kufunda and in the open kitchen there are two jengeta hunis — a three plate and a two plate — so cooking for crowds is easy.
An interesting place to visit, Kufunda offers reasonable rates and a down home rural feel just outside the city. (www.kufunda.org)
