Grow Your Own Food with organic gardening.

Becoming a part of the Earth

2014-12-01T08:54:00.000+02:00

When the average Joe first becomes aware of permaculture, he or she usually decides that it's a good idea. I mean, gardens, healthy food, natural medicine, as long as you don't go and join a cult and live in a yurt it should be fun right?
Not everyone goes all the way. For me, permaculture has been a lifelong journey and it didn't stop in the garden. Permaculture became a part of my life, and then I realised that I had an obligation to become a part of permaculture's life. In other words, you haven't really started living if you have not yet started giving back to the system thatyou were born a part of.

Lately this idea has been carrying reaaly far, making inroads into how I live my life and what investments I choose to make. My house now has at least one geo thermally regulated area, using the soil around the walls to insulate the rooms. We have sluiced the run off in the street directly into a system of swales and channels that feeds the deep soil in our garden. We did this in an effort to be rid of the massive water bills an urban farm can run up.

Every aspect of my life is becoming integrated with the planet I live on and that just feels so good. It's difficult to know what will happen to me next, as my realisation of the life I feel is right continues. A constantly expanding positive cycle of my influence on the world around me. Everything is only part of everything else, it all fits together.

I love Permaculture.

Pretty Mayise and the Urban farming or food gardening project.

2014-10-02T07:45:00.000+02:00

Grow one farmer at a time project

Tinasonke, where we have been involved for quite some time now is one of those projects where the peope are so up beat and excited at the learning opportunities as well as the business potential that you just can't help but get excited about it right along with them.
Pretty is a good example. The gardening she has done over the years has gradually taken on a larger and larger role in her community as a source of food, and also as a source of the knowledge of how to produce food. Food gardening in Johannesburg is about more than just keeping up with your next door neighbour. These urban micro farms are becoming more responsible every day for producing high value meals for children.

Economically, many people are struggling with a little less than was available to them only a few years ago. Funding that was available for Pretty to farm more economically is not as easy to find as it once was. Pretty needs to start farming, on a larger scale, and we have seen how ready she and the other farmers on the land at Hluboku are. We are looking for donations to help her, if you follow the link through to her page, there you will see an itemised list of things the farms need, who has already contributed what equipment and how you can get involved. Just a few moments of your time, and a little money, could make a large difference to several families' incomes as well as making fresh produce available to YOURSELF TOO! If you live in the greater Johannesburg area you could take advantage of the opportunity to invest in Pretty, who will send you a portion of her harvest at reduced prices.

Pest Control with Bats

2014-08-18T17:14:00.000+02:00

Some bats need to consume more than their own bodyweight in insects during a night of hunting. For example, the Little Brown Bat (M. Lucifugus) weighs on average 7,4 grams and during a night of hunting biologists calculate it eats around 9.4 grams of insects. That's a hang of a lot of insects and it begins to become clear that bats are a massively important aspect of nature's.
The average mosquito weighs around 2.5 micro grams. So that's thousands of mosquitoes that could be eaten by a bat in a single night.
Interesting...ever counted the number of bugs killed by those awful 'bug zapper' electronic devices? You know the ones, they make a big bang every time a hapless little insect flies into the wires...

Well bats do about a hundred times better, each bat, than a bugzapper. So if you are still using crazy outdated technology to control insects think about those numbers.

I love it when nature is so clearly the winner. I mean, those numbers of mosquitoes potentially killed by bats mean that all of those crazy insect killing ideas on sale since the fifties like coils and sprays pale into insignificance next to the raw mosquitoe killing power of bats.
So what do we do? Well, we stop destroying viable habitat and we avoid poisons that might harm the bats AND (if we are smart) we release new populations of bats, even accommodating them in bat boxes ( special houses you can buy for bats to live in)

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We're not bats... we just know what we are doing when it comes to pest control.

Intelligent eco friendly landscaping here in Johannesburg.

2014-06-28T01:53:00.000+02:00

Thermodynamics and landscaping

Designing buildings for improved thermodynamics, like the wofati building design (click on the link for an explanation) which does not require heating or cooling is an important part of greening your way of living. My dream home and garden consists of many inter-related systems feeding into each other with no waste of water, heat, nutrients or organic material.
The old way of building and of land contouring for agricultural and other purposes has to go, and it has to go soon. We just can't afford to waste like this. Johannesburg can be a much better place, but first we have to rethink the urban landscape.

A Dream Garden

My dream garden consists of intelligent eco-friendly building design in conjunction with storm water contouring to provide the best possible environment for plant and food growth. Permaculture permeates everything in the end, which is why we even end up talking about the design of your house and what happens to the water that flows out of it. Shaping the earth, for drainage, irrigation and temperature control is wise, Wallipini greenhouses, energy efficient dwellings in the earth and drainage contouring can make your lifestyle totally sustainable while reducing your need for money. I hope the tips and links I can offer are helpful and please do remember to visit www.positivecycle.co.za if you have not already done so.

Practical tips on building a Wallipini Greenhouse.

Faces to the north in the Southern Hemisphere.

Space between a double layer of plastic, above and below the roof structure allows the sun’s rays to penetrate while providing thermal insulation. Creating a warm, stable environment for plant growth.

PVC pipe can even be fashioned into a structure if the greenhouse is not too large.

Saving Seeds in Autumn in Gauteng as an urban organic gardener

2014-04-29T16:15:00.000+02:00

Here are some general pointers to help you on your way to successfully saving seeds this Autumn. There are several basic types of seeds, those found in fleshy fruits, and those found in dry husks on grass stems, held up into the wind for dispersal are two examples. Origanum does this.

Pictured above are the seeds of origanum vulgare.

These types of seeds are ready to be harvested when they easily shake loose from the stalk.

It's a fairly simple matter to go into the field collecting wind blown seeds with a brown paper packet held over the seed stalks to collect the seeds loosened by just a little shake of the stalk.

Just remember to label what you collect.

Fruits are a little different, generally requiring that you wait until the fruits are properly 'seed ripe' before you harvest them. That means more ripe than when you would ordinarily be comfortable picking and eating a fruit.

Some fruits can be tricky. Very hot peppers for instance, they can require careful handling. Anyone who has ever rubbed their eyes (or picked their nose ahem) can tell you this.

So we put the fruits into some water and let them soak until it becomes easier to separate the seeds from the fruit.

Saving seeds is of particular benefit to the urban organic gardener if attention is paid to selecting the best plants to harvests from, plants that did particularly well in the local environment. In this way, by a process of selection, the seeds you save from your garden will begin to produce plants most especially suited to your own particular local environment.

Snazzy huh?

Gardens and water wisdom:Hydro ecologically sound gardens in Gauteng.

2014-03-29T18:01:00.000+02:00

The idea of sustainability is sometimes obscured by all of the rhetoric one encounters on a journey to stop hurting the earth and start helping it. That's what we all want to do after all right? We want to learn how to not do any harm and start fixing what we messed up. Well charity begins at home as the saying goes.

If you grew up in the city, your water has been arriving in a pipe, and leaving in a pipe after you have used it. One pipe for 'grey' water and one for 'black' water. Grey water refers to the water a household produces that has been mixed with soap and soiled by dishes, clothing and human washing. Black water refers to the water used in the toilet to carry away effluent. Both types account for a massive water wastage. That water does not need to be transported away, and if it isn't, it can be used to water food gardens. Obviously this is more than simply a matter of unplugging the drains and letting them start flowing into the soil around your home. That will make a mess to say the least. Doing the necessary preparation of the soil and the shape and lay of the land as well as the life present, both microbial and macro biological life like plants is essential. If you do your homework, it quickly becomes clear that cleaning water with natural systems is not only desirable, but perfectly possible as well.

There is an excellent illustration of the principles involved in cleaning water with biological resources in use at the Johannesburg Zoo, where soiled water from the streets of Johannesburg enters the system on one side of the zoo, is run through a system of natural filtration including but not limited to the reed beds which add oxygen and start cleaning the water at the cellular level.Our own effort is pictured below.

The Cube Tasting Kitchen, Parktown Girls and a really great little food production system.

2014-03-11T08:10:00.000+02:00

Parktown Girls is a really great school. This is a well known fact if you are an old Johanessburger (to be held distinct from old Johannians, who of course are keener on St Johns, another fine old Johannesburg school.

And Because they are one of Johannesburgs finest old educational institutions they are of course right on top of the task of keeping up to date with modern environmental concerns.

They're keen on showing the girls attending their school just what is involved in growing food the healthy way. The project goes further than that though, since this particular school veggie garden has some swanky connections. They're going to be supplying their produce to the Cube Tasting Kitchen in Parktown North. So a lesson in microeconomics then too. Actually I mustn't sound patronising, these days microeconomic enterprises of this nature are turning into what an old school entrepreneur might have called 'a regular little cash cow'.

Fact is, people pay high prices for quality organic produce and anyone prepared to do the research, learnhow and then plan and execute a food growing project can actually become self sustaining at least, if not really very profitable, quite rapidly. It is all about having just the right know how at your fingertips and that last sentence is what Positive Cycle is all about. In a nutshell: Positive Cycle strives to ensure access to quality bio dynamic know how. In a world full of GMO, unlikely corporate promises and growing global food insecurity, knowing how to get the earth to produce a varied and healthy crop is becoming more valuable each and every day.

Hotels and Restaurants and their food waste in Johannesburg

2014-02-12T12:18:00.000+02:00

In other areas of this blog we have looked at food waste, without addressing the tremendous volumes of wet waste produced in commercial kitchens, like those in guest houses, restaurants and hotels. Although Johannesburg restaurant kitchens may set out to waste as little as possible, in order to maximise profit by minimising wastage, there is nonetheless always a large amount of waste, and historically that waste has been among the worst managed.

We are collecting bins of anaerobicallyfermenting wet waste from businesses, hotels and restaurants. We've had to price our offering low enough to make the whole exercise make sense to a profit driven business owner but we are able to say that this is one little biodynamic training company that is putting a hang of a lot of food waste back into the soil, and in some of the areas that need it the most too, like Hammanskraal and Soweto. Bare soil and sandy roadways can easily be replaced with paradise, if more and more people learn to build the soil back up out of all the organic material we ordinarily waste and allow to be processed in ways that are not really acceptable from an environmental point of view.

The Quest for Unscarred Organic Produce.

2014-01-11T12:37:00.005+02:00

How many times have we heard it repeated that producing perfect looking and tasting vegetables and fruits with organic or biodynamic methods is impossible and that we have to accept a certain amount of damage if we want to avoid using chemical or poisonous interventions? It has been repeated so often that we now all tend to accept this information as a confirmed fact.

Positive Cycle, ever keen to push the limits of our methods, would like to prove otherwise. We know that with the right investment in time and energy spent creating optimal soil health it is not only possible, but also cost effective, to produce perfect produce in an organic garden or farm setting. In the early years of Positive Cycle we all tended to assume that absolute perfection was not really natural. We no longer believe that, having seen such amazing results in gardens older than three years, where organic, bio diverse practises have produced a perfect environment. It's been quite an eye opener not just for our clients, sponsored beneficiaries and learners, but for us too. To be quite frank, you haven't lived until you have eaten perfect organic produce, grown in 100% optimal conditions. It gives you a new definition of just what food is.

Feeling doubtful? If you haven't seen it for yourself, you will, but it can be done. We are not saying that it is easy, just that it can be done. We feel it is important to make people aware that unscarred organic produce can be grown by farmenrs and home gardeners alike. Many people shy away from the idea of organic agriculture because they are accustomed to looking at unblemished harvests from industrialised chemically orientated farms. Proving that perfect fruit and veg is possible without chemical intervention could change the game. Changing perceptions that are currently limiting the growth of biodynamic gardening and agriculture is our goal and perfect fruit and vegetables will go a long way to achieving that.
Like to find out how? Come and learn with us, follow the link to see our workshop schedule.

Good Living Soil

2013-11-24T12:24:00.000+02:00

Planting 'digger' plants which grow roots and leave air cavities behind them when the roots die is part of how we achieve a stable and constant balance of soil water and air. This kind of idea gives us really rich and living soil in the end, because the longer you leave soil organisms undisturbed in a perfectly aerated soil with enough water and organic material, the richer and more fertile your soil becomes. Just keep feeding from the top and if you planned well enough for drainage, and your original soil make up of clay like and sandy particles is well balanced, the soil in your beds will become a living cornucopia of every kind of nutrient and useful molecule that a whole range of plants will need. A properly living soil, as opposed to the periodically reactivated soil on an industrialised monoculture farm, is the ultimate goal of a biodynamic farming system. All products of the growing and harvesting of plants and animals of all kinds can be used to feed the soil. Using Bokashi bins (anaerobic fermentation) and compost heaps and worm farms being fed bokashi processed solid waste we can turn any organic material back into soil. Easily. So it is easy to see that the creation of good soil is ultimately a cycle. We like to think ofit as a Positive Cycle. Feeding soil that has been allowed to develop naturally. Reaping the bumper harvests that result from growing crops in living soil. Returning what we don't use to the soil to be used again as a new harvest. That's how we survived all these millions of years.

Good quality soil

2013-10-31T18:18:00.002+02:00

Soil is a mixture of clay like and sand like particles. These serve as a substrate in which the life processes of microbes take place. These tiny creatures 'eat' or 'process' organic material, changing its molecular state. The resultant material in the soil is what plant roots are able to absorb. So having the right amounts of air, organic material and water in your soil, with the best mixture of sand and clay like particles is ultimately what gives your soil the capacity to grow. It is what determines how much growth takes place, how vibrant and active the whole system of your garden is or can become. The life of planet earth is in the soil. Making and building soil is something every person on the planet should take some level of responsibility for. You can start with a compost heap and add the proceeds of a bokashi bin and a worm farm to your soil as well. This sounds gross to the uninitiated but is really not. What's gross is the level of food waste that humanity indulges in without ever considering the obvious consequences.

It is important that we look after this life. Too few people understand how bacteria 'fix' nitrogen in soil, how Oxygen, water, nitrogen and living creatures are all involved in an endless cycle and the more material we remove from this cycle by not reintroducing it to the soil the more tenuous life on planet earth is going to become.

To keep a variety of healthy microbes in soil it is necessary to feed them with as wide a variety of organic materials as possible, further than that, if your planting arrangement, the pattern in which you have companion planted your crops, herbs and barrier plants, is diverse and varied, your soil health and structure will stabilise into an optimal condition, resulting in growth and health that is unsurpassed. Adding manure to trigger nitrifying reactions in the soil is a common practice, it is however advisable to allow time to prevent contamination by manures.

Vertical Planters and Urban Greening

2013-10-21T18:47:00.001+02:00

Much has been said about the necessity of feeding the world. In fact, it's even the favourite refrain of our mortal enemy, the GMO giant, Monsanto. We need to feed the world, they reason, so we will have to design a new type of corn that grows in the desert. Ja Great thanks. Then we have to fetch the corn and take it to a processing plant after which it goes through various sytems interspersed with transportation between the different palces in which the processijng and packaging of corn based products takes place. That kind of agriculture is going to drive our carbon emissions through the roof, and for no reason whatsoever.
The truth is that there is plenty of food being grown, it just isn't always profitable to take it to the people who need it.

The answer to this seemingly dreadful and insurmountable truth is so elegantly simple that the corporations tend to use that very simplicity to scoff at bio dynamics and urban agriculture. Telling themselves and those they are hoodwinking that anything suspect about their creepy products is a necessry evil and a triviality.

The Urban environment is full of vertical spaces. With a little shift in thinking and a small investment, it is perfectly possible to have a large quantity of fresh produce available literally at your front doorstep. The tests have all been done. Successful gardeners and farmers already know how to grow food up walls. Years ago we tried ideas like bags on walls and perfected them. Transforming ideas like hanging planters and bags of soil into the very advanced vertical pocket system, fully irrigated and set to last twenty five years. That's a significant achievement. Having a wall of soil pockets, all watered by an irrigation system means that almost anyone can grow large amounts of food. Just picture the surface area of the walls in a city. Of course, the wall needs light, but that is the only real limitation and there are plants that can be grown in the shade too, like chervil.

2013-10-15T14:07:00.001+02:00

So much has been written to try and answer the question: what exactly is permaculture? We can say that permaculture is the use and reuse of all aspects of an organic garden. The way it all fits together, uh. Well maybe it's best if we describe something that permaculture aspires to. You take one of the oldest life forms on earth and examine how it operates. look at trees. If we could get our man made systems to work with a quarter of the efficiency demonstrated by a tree we would be doing very well indeed.

Trees manage to transport their water from below the surface of the soil high up into the air by capilliary action. Trees are able to resist attacks by predators by providing such a bountiful supply of food energy that feeding animals is rather a part of the tree's life cycle and not a loss suffered by the tree at all.

Permaculture, in essence, tries to operate a farm in the way that anatural system might operate. A tree is an unbelievealy efficient way of making material and energy out of sunlight and soil. So as you learn the ins and outs of permaculture. As you learn to work with compost and bokashi, with a diverse selection of plants that work together rather than against each other's purposes. Exchanging nutrients in natural balanced cycles of decomposition and regeneration. Look to the trees. You can't go wrong when you emulate the plants themselves in order to create, nurture and foster plant life.

Corporate Social Responsibility

2013-09-28T22:53:00.001+02:00

The idea of growing food in poor periurban areas is not quite new, but making a commitment to a long termeffort is. Too many well intentioned gardens, efforts on the part of community members without sponsorship and proper strategy, management and supervision, fall apart before too long. That is why certain companies intent on making a charitable difference to people's lives choose to do so in a more orderly and businesslike fashion than you might have thought. Positive Cycle's philosophy is to respect the willingness to give that can be found in every human spirit by caring for and being responsible for the correct and therefore not wasteful management and application of donations of time, energy and money. We believe it is a tragedy to plants seeds than will never be harvested and that's why the follow through and the goal of sustainability are so important on all of the food growing schemes where we have had the privilege of teaching people what we know about growing plants for food and profit. By 'counting the beans' so to speak we make absolutely certain that every single cent donated to the schools and creches where we are helping people to grow crops makes the most difference it possibly can. We actually have spreadsheet already prepared that need only specifics of land area and available water and labour to be able to cost micro farm start ups and project their ultimate profitability.

So many plants... the value of diversity

2013-09-27T11:13:00.000+02:00

If you can imagine what might happen to a whole field of cabbages, growing as far as you can see all around you, should a pathogen to which that particular type of cabbage is particularly vulnerable happen to strike, then you will quickly be able to realise the value of a diverse field. When the cabbage has, say, origanum and spring onions as neighbours and the next large plant in the planting plan is a brinjal, rather than another cabbage, then there is a barrier between our first sick cabbage and all the others of its kind in the planting plan. This means that although a pathogen might find its way onto one of your cabbages, that is not to say that your entire cabbage crop will be affected. In fact it is quite possible that some of the companion plants around these hypothetical cabbages vulnerable to infection may destroy the pathogen. Certainly other aspects of the bio dynamic system will be destroying pathogens and reducing the likelihood of infections. Not only is bio dynamic soil full of the most diverse array of micro organisms possible but the earthworms and associated microbes at work throughout the soil will be progressively removing or destroying pathogens as healthy germs are added to the soil. This diverse approach, addressing both microbes and macrobes is what creates the rock solid stable agricultural system that is bio dynamics. Building soil rather than depleting soil.should be the goal and diversity is what makes it possible. A diverse garden orfield, to put it simply, is worth far far more than the sum of itsparts.

Using mulch

2013-09-26T17:37:00.000+02:00

When used properly mulch is one of the best natural ways to foster the growth of soil organisms and limit damage to plants from extremes of temperature in the soil as well as control weeds and break down into additional organic 'food' for the soil organisms kept so healthy by the stable temperature and slow moisture loss provided by the mulch. Mulch is really practically any organic matter laid on top of soil as a top layer. Usually at least a couple of inches thick. One problem with mulching can be the difficulty some experience in obtaining sufficient mulch. Mulch is of course for sale at co ops and nurseries but if you need to avoid spending money (as many of the community projects where Positive Cycle provide material assistance and training do) then organic material available on the land will need to be used. It may seem impossible to find enough mulch to create a blanket several inches thick covering your entire growing area but take a closer look and where organic material is in short supply Positive Cycle will place a substantial wager that there is someone nearby who burns organic material. In a misguided attempt to 'clean up' a great deal of extremely valuable organic material is wasted. (It is worth noting that ash from fires is also a valued soil additive but that is for another blog post.)

Maintaining the disciplines of vermiculture, anaerobic fermentation and also simple aerobic composting will assist you to create rich soil with more than ample supplies of dried leaves and other plant matter to use as mulch. Particularly as a barrier against moisture loss in this one of the water poor countries, mulch is a valuable lesson worth applying, whether you are a market gardener in a hot and dusty township or a hobbyist in the well watered greenery of northern Johannesburg.

Saving seeds

2013-09-25T15:50:00.000+02:00

If you have ever joined in with the rising chorus of voices accusing monsanto and the global agricultural community of exploitation and negligence then you will have to either been saving seeds for a long time or you have arrived on this blog page in an attempt to find out how to do so. Saving seeds is one major weapon we have in the fight to retain control of our own food supply. When crop strains are genetically modified, a legal precedent has been set for these strains to be patented and declared the property of the company responsible for the genetic corruption. I know, ridiculous isn't it. They destroy a plant and then tell us that they own our plants when their damaged DNA pollinates our own safe crops.

By harvesting seeds from your organically grown food plants you can ensure your own future health as well as making a contribution to worldwide efforts to maintain the integrity of the food supply.

How to Save Seeds

First set aside the healthiest and most productive plant of your crop. You are selecting the best quality genes to plant next year. Sometimes plants in less than perfect condition may have damaged genetic material which could cause their seeds to fail to germinate. Different plant's seeds should be harvested at different times. It doesn't do to harvest seeds too early or too late. For most plants you will find that when the seeds are dry and easily removed, that is the appropriate time to harvest seeds. Lettuce seeds for example should be allowed to dry two to three weeks after flowering before harvesting the seeds. Practical experience is a winner when it comes to knowing how and when to save seeds, which is why this information is covered in educational and fun workshops run by Positive Cycle in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Food is medicine

2013-08-26T15:15:00.000+02:00

No, Positive Cycle has not gone ayurvedic, but we do have something to say about the condition your body is in at any point in your life, and how closely related that is to what you have been eating. For the baby boomers, it was an accepted reality that you ate meat and veg, sometimes fish, all thoroughly cooked. When you got sick, the doctor was able to supply you with all manner of chemicals that were supposed to make you get healthy.
Today it is becoming clear that this approach is not only flawed but indeed the cause of much of the discomfort and disease that even affluent people are all to easily afflicted with in what was supposed to be a better and brighter future.

Gardening, and especially food gardening, is such a wonderful way to learn about the value of diversity and also of natural relationships. How all the little bits of nature work together to create life that sustains itself. Diet works in very much the same way. Eating foods that complement each other, and that are in their natural and unprocessed state, is exactly what produces the diversity of beneficial microorganisms in the gut without which good health never even gains a toe hold. It follows perfectly logically that in order to gain control of anything going wrong in the body, we need to address the food that our bodies are trying to function on. If you are developing a tumour, it seems inescapable that your body must have been damaged by something it encountered. Something small even, but to which your body was unable to respond in a healthy way.

What this really means is that for true health, it is necessary to think preemptively. Treatment is possible using foods, we all know about thyme and sage with ginger for the sore throats and the wheezes for example, but if you eat your raw broccoli, sprouts, seeds, cauliflower crumbles (delicious) and you pick what you eat on the same day, from your local environment, you are providing your body with perfect food. Food that almost never triggers a damaging response like a tumour in your body.

Growing with Positive Cycle

2013-08-20T22:20:00.000+02:00

I thought I'd write a little about the psychology behind a food garden. It may take a little imagination, but envision with me, if you will, what life is like in a very poor place. I mean a poor, not so clean, hardly any green things growing, messy liquor store pavement kind of poor place. Everybody who works, gets up and out early in the day to go and earn the money they need. The rest? Hard to say. Many unemployed and poor people would even find it hard to describe life in a township with few or no services and even fewer opportunities so that someone from the wealthy suburbs could understand. We can start with some facts though. Time is money and spending half your early rising day travelling and more than half of the money you earn by travelling to work doen't seem to pay in the long run. It would be great if there was a way to earn money closer to home.

That is the opportunity that a successful and well tended food garden can provide for those who develop it. Don't think, ' oh its nice to grow a few extra mielies to eat'. Rather, be aware of the vast array of excellent foods that can be grown, particularly in the South African climate, and understand that a varied diet of whole organic produce is without a doubt the best way to both feed and medicate yourself. That is not all however. Growing a real diversity of crops, even on a relatively small piece of land, creates a significant small business opportunity for the grower. Having a surplus of mielies to sell is one thing, having a whole range of crops as well as the know how to make, for example, products like jams out of the crops you grow, products with a longer shelf life than the simple harvest itself and products which can be sold for far more than the simple harvested produce means the difference between living below the bread line and being a real small scale entrepreneur. Being a person who makes an unmissable contribution to their community, with more than just extra healthy food.

The language of healthy eating and GMO

2013-08-19T09:07:00.001+02:00

So why are genetically modified crops not such a hot idea?

You could say that the gene pairs that dictate how every living thing on this planet develops make up a whole language. It is quite literally that there is a code for every living thing and all of its characteristics. Genes, and their success or failure, are what form all of the complex interactions between adaptations and behaviours. The 'web of life' that is so much more than the sum of it's parts is a manifestation of this genetic language.

Now it is easy to imagine the effect of chopping and changing a language arbitrarily to suit the desired alteration of a specific iteration. Making a word better with a part of another word for example, might work for as long as we only consider the improved word. When we look at the sentence around that word, and the whole system of language around the new improved word, we would find that it does not fit in with the overall pattern and rhtythm of the whole code.

If that was a little confusing, what I am basically saying is, ' how can we tell what the long term effects of playing around with gene codes are going to be?

When you talk to people ebout the genetic modification issue they seem to be primarily concerned about possible direct effects. Getting sick from eating some slightly different fruit or veg doesn't seem very likely does it? Well thousands of scientists from around the world say it is. They say that genetic material is placed into the original plant species in a 'clumsy' manner that causes all manner of genetically based abnormalities to occur as a result of inadvertent damage to the genecode surrounding the new addition. You recall reading about the increased rates of allergic response to foods. It was never really a big issue, and then it became one. Well it's no coincidence that the release of genetically modified organisms onto the open market took place at around the time those reports of allergies started to become more common. There have been other issues causing increased allergic response, but a more refined understanding of genetics now makes it seem certain that genetically modified organisms have gone untested and the health implications could turn out to be quite severe.

So before we ever begin to consider the effect of genetic engineering on the natural environment we can see that 'danger is close' to borrow a military phrase. This is a war after all, or at least it should be if we know what's good for us.

Knowing what's good for us is what this blog is all about. Read this letter from the scientific community about GMO.

Circadian Rhythms, anything to do with what you eat?

2013-08-16T21:32:00.002+02:00

Perhaps you have heard of 'circadianrhythms'? The phrase describes your body (and therefore mind) interacting with the natural environment around you. To people who eat out of the shopping centre the idea seems alien, but when you eat fresh food from your garden on a regular basis, you inevitably have a closer connection to nature and will even notice that the food you are eating seems to be perfectly suited to your needs of the moment. The nutrients and food types that you require given the seasonal conditions around you.

Maybe the rhythms of your body work in synergy with the living world around you, WHEN YOU LET THEM. Rising and sleeping with the dawn and sunset, sleeping longer in winter, and possibly above all, eating the waxing and waning bounty of the living plants around you is how many people around the world have found new vitality and even beaten disease simply by becoming aware of the missing link between themselves and the natural environment: the food we eat.

Eat Seasonal food and reap the natural benefits you are supposed to.

2013-08-09T19:27:00.001+02:00

Think of yourself as an integral part of the nature around you. If you are growing your own food then that is pretty easy. As the seasons advance, and the weather changes, so does the food that will grow during each season. So? Well, during the cold season, you will find that the produce you are able to grow is exactly that kind of food you need just then. Your body is operating in cycles just like your garden. If you are growing your own food, and therefore quite naturally eating seasonal food, the rhythm of your body's health will start to echo and be influenced for the better by the day to day and season to season condition of your garden.
The fruits, vegetables and herbs you will be able to take advantage of this spring include

Globe artichoke, asparagus, beetroot, broad beans, beans, baby marrow, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, courgettes, cucumber, endive [limited], garlic, radishes, green beans, leeks, mushrooms, mielies, lettuce, new potato, onion, parsley, parsnips, peas, potato, pumpkin, rhubarb, spinach, Swiss Chard, carrots, squash, spring onion, sweet potatoes, turnips, waterblommetjies
fruit:
apricots, bananas, melons, grapefruit, guava, cherry, kumquats, kiwi, lemons, limes, mulberries, naartjies, oranges, paw paw, peaches, plums, rhubarb, spanspek, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelons, pineapple, avocados
herbs:
perrenial basil, bloody sorrel, fennel (bulb), cat mint, chives, dandelion, dill, fennel, French tarragon (limited), garden cress, garlic chives, lavender, lemongrass stems, marjoram, bay leaves, mint, mustard – green & red, nasturtiums, origanum, parsley, rocket, rosemary, sage, sorrel, thyme, winter savoury, calendula

And reading through this list, doesn't it just seem exactly like what you might like to eat in Spring? Eating these in Spring gives you the nutrients suitable for the environmental conditions around you. Remember this idea through the year, and when you're making butternut and pumpkin soups, isn't it exactly the right thing?

Getting back into a natural rhythm with nature is health insurance that actually makes you healthy, rather than just paying you out. Oh, but wait, if your food comes out of the ground around you, then that pretty much means you are getting a financial pay out as well, doesn't it?

Controlling the surroundings in which you grow food plants with shade net tunnels, frost blankets, mni hoop houses and Greenhouses

2013-07-29T19:49:00.001+02:00

A shade net tunnel, as above, can be effective in limiting the damage that can sometimes be the result of otherwise fairly harsh conditions. Sunny days can sometimes produce extremes of temperature that inhibit the growth of many species.n Shelter under even a blue twenty percent shade net can be ideal.

The particular shade net tunnel pictured above is a Positive Cycle brainwave, it can be purchased in kit form now.

We also make mini hoop houses which are great for helping little seedlings to thrive before they are exposed to the harsher outside conditions. Just lift for watering and leave the unit propped partly open to allow air to flow once your plants have passed a certain size.

Aquaponics and moving water provide an opportunity to control temperature in a more advanced way. Tanks of water can be used to hold temperature and distribute it to other areas. Water of course is also how we move nutrients to their targets, the roots. So feeding fish and moving water around in ponds full of fish suddenly start making much more sense.

Compost heaps create heat, and this fact can be taken advantage of when considering the idiosyncracies of your own particular microclimate. You could take advantage of the heat from your compost heaps to create the warmth needed for say bean seedlings to grow.

Mini Hoop House. Like a mobile germination chamber.

The height of plants used as borders cn also greatly assist the air temperature in your beds, and a good layer of mulch will definitely help to stabilise the microclimate and keep the soil warmer than if it were bare.

It is perfectly possible to keep everything growing all year round. A simple greenhouse allows you to take control of the growth cycles of almost any plant.

What is a microclimate?

2013-07-29T11:57:00.002+02:00

To elaborate on what a microclimate is, not everyone realises that we are talking about something as small as one garden. Micro climatic conditions vary from one garden to the next. Describing a micro climate is a way of describing the weather as it is effected by factors like rows of trees (which may break the wind) large tarred surfaces (which allow wind chill to build up speed) the planting of tall grasses that slow down air movement near the earth's surface and even the colour of the soil and plants, since more reflective colours reflect more heat. How much water there is nearby and whether that water is flowing or not are factors that influence not only local temperature of a particular micro climate, but also moisture levels. How much moisture is present in both air and soil has a profound impact on soil life and which types of plants will thrive in the microclimate in question. So when we realise that a microclimate is in fact something very local, impacted on by the local geomorphology, but also by man made and very changeable factors: It becomes obvious that we can exert a degree of control over our microclimate. A greenhouse for example is perhaps the ultimate example of a controlled microclimate, but you can take control of issues like frost in your garden by spreading hay around vulnerable plants. You can add light to your garden by using a reflective mulch like peanut shell mulch. Flowing water reduces the air temperature around it and windbreaks prevent unstable temperature and freezing soil. So get to work creating the best possible micro climate in which you can grow all of your own food. It's easy once you get started.

Planting times and how they vary across the country

2013-07-21T17:40:00.000+02:00

A frequently asked question in Positive Cycle Training Company Workshops is 'when can we plant what'. Its a simple enough question, with a somewhat complex answer. While it is very true to say that during August we plant, for example, bush and climbing beans, beetroot, brinjal and carrot as well as strawberries, turnips, sweet peppers and of course tomatoes it is also true that some of these will struggle in certain parts of the country during August. Experienced growers develop a sense for what is going to work in their region and even within their own micro climate. An extreme example would be the difference between Sutherland (the coldest region in the country) and Northern Kwa Zulu Natal. Obviously we could expect tomatoes to thrive in the warm spring of the near tropical north of South Africa while they would almost certainly not survive the still freezing mountainous conditions of Sutherland.
A more subtle climatic variation though, would be the two degree difference in average temperature between the Johannesburg area and those farms found immediately north of Pretoria. The slightly warmer conditions north of the Witwatersrand watershed would allow for earlier planting of tomatoes than the micro climates found nearer to Johannesburg's peri urban areas.
So local experience, and of course planting on slopes that face the right direction, make a difference to all crop planting and harvest times.
Now here is where things get a little more interesting. Given the need to save seeds and sow them year upon year, we can reasonably conclude that seeds grown successfully within a particular micro climate will be 'hardened' or adapted to that particular set of climatic conditions. Meaning that if we were to harvest seed from the areas north of Pretoria after many successive generations and plant them South of the Rand, they may well fail since those seeds would not be adapted or ' naturally selected' to survive the slightly colder conditions.
So we see that planting seeds suitable to a particular area, as well as in the right time frame for the climatic conditions found in that area is necessary in order to facilitate successful organic crop performance.
Not only that, but we have to consider not just the timing, but the actual conditions being experienced in each particular micro climate. So it is not simply a matter of looking up what to plant on a calendar, but rather to be aware of what temperature, moisture and light ranges each particular crop or variety of crop needs in order to grow successfully.