Rift Valley Reflections: Back to Eden... The Siyakhana Food Gardens

Thursday 13 October 2011

Back to Eden... The Siyakhana Food Gardens

The Siyakhana Food Gardens were established in Bezuidenhout Park in 2005 in a partnership between Wits University and 16 Early Childhood Development and Home-Based Care NGOs.
http://siyakhana-org.win24.wadns.net/WhatWeDo/FoodGarden.aspx

Mandla Tshabalala is the manager. A member of the Seventh Day Adventist Reformed Church and resident caretaker of the church property in 8^th Avenue, Bez Valley, Mandla began as a volunteer when the garden was still a dump site.

His knowledge and his love of gardening come from observing his gardener grandmother as a child; from his training at a permaculture school in the Free State and an eco-village in Germany; from the Bible; and from teachings contained in the book Back to Eden, claiming that everything that humankind needs for nutrition and healing is provided for naturally.

Quoting from Back to Eden and from the Bible, Mandla talks of a wide variety of herbs that can be used for the healing of boils; cancer, heart conditions, diabetes, stomach complaints, syphilis, blood ailments, sinusitis, and many other illnesses. Herbs grown in the Siyakhana Food Garden include White Clover, Yarrow, Comfrey, Borage, Feverfew, St. John’s Wort, Sage, Calendula, Roux, Peppermint, Fennel, Lemon grass, Oregano, Plantain, Sage and Marjoram.

The first trees were planted by Trees and Foods for Africa activists in 2005. Today the garden contains an orchard full of fruit bearing apricot, peach, pecan nut, plum, lemon, olive and apple trees, and a food garden that produces a wide variety of vegetables including beans, cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes and spinach. Produce is given to NGO partners in the inner city of Johannesburg.

Dried herbs and a variety of vegetable salts and creams are also on sale to visitors.

Siyakhana has a number of purposes. It is a research site for university students; a permaculture training centre; a site for pionering eco-buildings; and the propagation of plants is important. “Seeds are replanted… Some will be sold to food gardens or NGOs… The idea is to keep the cycle going so that skills are not lost and so we can reach out to others because we now have an abundance of herbs and trees and shrubs,” Mandla says.

There are many visitors to the garden. They come to observe, to learn, to be inspired, and to consult Mandla not only about permaculture gardening but also about healing remedies. A close neighbour who visits Mandla on a regular basis about growing vegetables and healing herbs, is the man who manages the cleaning of the Jukskei in the Park (see earlier blog, The River Runs Thru).

“Community members consult me about their ailments. People learned about the use of herbs and they came here to get some. I have stopped it because it upset a lot of other things I have do do in the garden, but I still advise people in my personal capacity.”

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History of Bezuidenhout Valley and surrounding inner city suburbs of Joburg

The first owner of the farm, known as 'Doornfontein' is said to have been a Voortrekker named Barend Christiaan Viljoen. He apparently named the farm 'Doornfontein' because of the thorn trees (doringbome) and springs (fonteine) on the land.

Records indicate that the farm was transferred to Frederick Bezuidenhout on the same day that it was registered in the name of Viljoen by Mrs. Viljoen, who ceded the farm to the Bezuidenhout family.

Bezuidenhout was a young trekboer who came up from the Cape in 1848 and helped the Viljoen family with the farm. He eventually married the Viljoen's daughter, Judith, after whom the suburb of Judith's Paarl was named.

Frederick is believed to have built the homestead that can be seen today.

The farm consisted of approximately 4,000 hectares of ‘bleak, exposed and sparsely vegetated…’ land, extending from what is now End Street in the west to Bedfordview in the east and from Louis Botha in the north to beyond the Natal Spruit in the south. The Bezuidenhout's farm contributed to Jo'burg's transformation into the City of Gold.

The Main Reef Leader running across the south of the farm was proclaimed a public digging; there was an abundant water supply on the farm; and the requirement for land close to the growing town were critical factors in the evolution of Johannesburg.

Over time sections of the farm were auctioned off and the suburbs of Doornfontein, Jeppestown, Belgravia, Troyeville, Fairview, Bertrams, Lorentzville, Judith's Paarl, Bezuidenhout Valley, Observatory, Kensington, Cyrildene, Dewetshof, Bruma and Morninghill were founded.

Why this blog?

I was born in Johannesburg and have lived here most of my life. For 15 years I lived in the inner city suburb of Bez Valley, where I often felt like one of the characters in 'Road', a play by Jim Cartwright, who said, "It's so hard..."

My thespian nephew played the role of Scullery in the play, the narrator who "meanders aimlessly down his road pointing out features of the grim landscape and setting the scene for the glimpses we see of the inhabitants lives..."

But Cartwright does find hope in the lives of his characters and as Gilbert Keith Chesterton points out, "One sees great things from the valley and only small things from the peak."

I recently moved from Bez Valley to another liminal space on the Louis Botha Avenue side of Orchards, around the corner from Satyagraha House and across the road from the Torah Academy. This is an historically very rich part of Johannesburg and I am already planning a few blog posts.

So this blog will continue to explore the changing face of Jo'burg, moving slightly further afield than Bez Valley and the suburbs that immediately surround it, but not abandoning my starting point by any means. There is still so much to say.