Rainy Day Kids’ Activity: Sowing winter veg

Piper and I have been sowing seeds for winter vegetables this afternoon. It’s fun to do with children of any age when outside is stormy and wet, and inside is a much nicer prospect. Northern hemisphere folks sow summer veg for a school holiday activity. Learning to grow vegetables is a valuable and important life …

Local is lekker, imported is bad for the planet

Mark Berger put into words a couple of weeks ago something that I’ve been thinking since being back in South Africa, and that is that South African’s appear to be suffering under “a massive countrywide inferiority complex.” One particular area that I’ve noticed this, and one that Mark didn’t include in his blog post, is …

EcoFood: Spicy Apple Sauce

Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce. – Natalie Goldberg It took me a while, but I finally get what our US brothers and sisters are always going on about …

Abalimi Bezekhaya: Cape Town’s urban organic farmers

One Tuesday a few weeks ago I accompanied Duncan Drennan (The Art of Engineering), Duncan’s beautifully pregnant wife Donne, Pia Taylor (Mother City Living), Stefan (a lecturer in applied mathematics at Stellenbosch) and Ruan (a helicopter pilot in training) on a tour of the Fezeka community garden in Gugulethu and the Harvest of Hope packing …