Arbor Month

Arbor Month starts today, and isn’t it also the first day of spring?  In any case, you have a month to plant a tree and some of the larger supermarkets (Pick ‘n Pay, Woolworths, maybe others?) have made it really easy, selling young, indigenous trees in the flower aisle.

So no excuses, get planting

Permaculture food gardening guide for schools

The Imagine Durban project has recently published a permaculture guide for schools, freely available through the Municipality.  Written by Bev Ainslie, the book covers all aspects of permaculture gardening with information on soil, water and seeds.  There are also chapters on garden design, composting and natural pest control.

Hopefully it’ll soon be available in electronic format!

[...]

Green Movies at Encounters Documentary Film Festival

For our Cape Town and Jozi readers – bring the festival to Durban next year!

Buried in Earthskin

DIR: Helena Kingwill / SA / 2009 / 50min

Living at the end of the world, on the tip of Africa, very rarely do we feel threatened by nuclear contamination, yet this well-balanced, thoroughly researched and enlightening film brings the nuclear debate home; right into our houses. One night, journalist Kingwill has a frightening premonition. It impels her on a quest to uncover the truth about nuclear energy in South Africa. She hears the untold stories of the Namakhoi people and uncovers rumours on Koeberg itself, and then travels to a press briefing at Pelindaba. Determined to give a balanced view she weighs up the knowledge of nuclear analysts, economists, the government minister of minerals and energy, nuclear activists, and a wind farm owner. With the birth of her first child, the matter (and her road trip through our beautiful land) takes on a sense of urgency, especially as the South African government seems intent on ignoring renewable energy options and has commissioned pebble bed nuclear plants.

Courtesy of the Director

PRECEDED BY:
CARE TAKERS (x2)

DIR: Michael Raimondo / SA / 2010 / 2 x 14min

[...]

Chemical Free Farming

Mr Kanjanga is a farmer from Ntcheu District in Phambala, Malawi. In 1975, having seen the deteriorating effect that the application of chemical fertilisers was having on his crops, he decided to return to the composting techniques he had seen used by his father in the 1930s. His crops started to improve so significantly that he decided to set up the Lipangwe Organic Manure Demonstration Farm (LOMADEF) in 1980 so as to share his learning with fellow farmers. He decided that the most effective way to make sure that the learning reached as many people as possible would be to train community members to act as Agricultural Advisors in their communities. LOMADEF set about carefully selecting Agricultural Advisors on the basis of their innovative approach to farming, training them in sustainable farming techniques and in communication and facilitation skills so they can pass on their learning to fellow farmers.

[...]

Great new ideas for urban gardening

More than half of humanity now lives in cities, according to the United Nations Population Fund. This rapid and ongoing change presents a raft of new challenges, many of which create opportunities for resourceful entrepreneurs. Here are five concepts that target consumers’ increasing interest in growing their own food in the city:

1. REEL GARDENING — Simplifying the process of starting a domestic garden, South Africa’s Reel Gardening provides a strip of biodegradable paper carrying correctly spaced, pre-fertilised seeds. The strips are colour coded (e.g. red for tomatoes, purple for beetroot) and carry instructions for how deep they should be planted in your soil. Just add water!

2. THE WIKI GARDEN — Urban gardeners who haven’t even got a bed of soil may be interested in the Wiki Garden from Hawaii. It’s a metre-long “growing medium” (i.e. sack) containing compost, worm castings, bat guano and more, plus a built-in irrigation system with a hose attachment. The bags can be connected, allowing for an easily scalable system.

[...]