Becoming self-sustainable in today’s changing and challenging times could well become a necessity rather than distant idea! One thing that is certain is that a radical life-style change is in order if a real and meaningful shift is to become a reality. I personally started walking down the path quite a few years ago, and it has been a wonderfully inspiring and also challenging one and not one step of the way have I regretted it.
More and more people are realising the importance of growing their own food. It’s not only about feeding the body and reducing one’s vulnerability to the whims of the market place. It’s also about building a strong immune system by eating fresh, safe, nutritious and tasty food grown on healthy soil that is packed full of life-giving minerals and cosmic vibrations.
One of the beauties of organic gardening is the following of natural seasons and patters of the earth and seasons to create healthy, living plants and foods. This intrinsic harmony between ourselves and our gardens enhances not only our mind/body relationship but also gives us deep insight into the emotional and spiritual wellbeing that comes with being connected to natural cycles.
It was almost dark when I came upon the bobcat, walking alone on a steep overgrown trail far above the Green Gulch valley. She had been dead for weeks, her black-rimmed lips pulled back in a snarl of protest, tiny soot flies scouring her empty eye sockets.
It’s Spring. The trees herald the change of season by bursting forth with their new foliage, many preceding the soft greens with breathtaking shows of delicate blossoms that produce the fruits and seeds which will be welcomed by man and beast alike in the summer that lies ahead.
Statistics published in recent editions of community newspapers make the mind balk at the incredible volumes of waste generated by Capetonians – enough, it was said, to cover four football pitches to a depth of one metre every single day.
The astronauts who first circled the Earth in their spacecraft likened our planet to a blue pearl in space. The living world, or biosphere, forms a fragile film over the planet, separating the surface from the vacuum of space, and the living soil forms the foundation of the biosphere.
Because gardens are often so water-intensive, it is important to look at the principles of water-wise gardening. Water-wise gardens are also lower maintenance than normal gardens.
Sheet mulching (or composting) is the simplest, and least labour intensive, method of building the fertility of most soil types and affords the gardener an easier option than back-breaking spade work for establishing a new garden.
Save water and increase production with a new way of gardening. I first read about ‘ecocircles’ (‘circles of cultivation’) in a Land magazine dating back to 1998. The article was written by Anthony Trowbridge of Applied Natural Sciences at Technikon SA.
Edible landscaping offers an alternative to conventional residential landscapes that are designed solely for ornamental purposes.
Most gardeners have long understood the value of this rich, dark, earthy material in improving the soil and creating a healthy environment for plants.
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