Simone and Matthew from KZN

Tell us a little about yourself!

My name is Simone. My husband, Matthew and I have 4, soon to be 5 children who are homeschooled (unschooling or self directed learning to be exact). We grow as much food as we can for our growing family and my husband hunts to provide us with truly organic and freerange meat, we also keep chickens, meat rabbits and bees although we don’t have much success with the bees yet. I grew up in kloof, KZN. My parents both loved gardening and the outdoors so I grew up watching my parents grow veggies and create beautiful spaces in our garden. Only as an adult did I take a particular interest in growing my own food and started experimenting with a little veggie garden once I was married. We currently live on 1.25 acres in the suburbs of Hillcrest, KZN bordering the springside nature reserve.

How did you start doing what you are doing now?
I discovered permaculture and food forests and did a days workshop in our area and I soon started dreaming of creating our own food forest. We were renting at the time but were focused on finding our own land eventually. On Christmas Day 2017 our now house popped up when I was browsing property’s. We made an appointment the next day and walked into a home that smelt overwhelmingly like cat wee and had a very overgrown garden but there was a window between the trees of the view beyond which made us fall in love with the place. The smell of cat wee only made me excited because I knew it would put people off and give us a chance at getting this home for a steal.

We moved in early the next year with our two little boys and our daughter on the way and the work began! It has taken the years since then to slowly build up the soil season after season using cover crops, chop and drop and garden refuse. We now have over 130 fruit trees ranging from the rare and unusual like ice cream bean and various custard apples to the regulars like citrus and stone fruits, loads of awesome fruiting and vegetable perennials, herbs and annuals in between them all.

My husband loves indigenous grasses so we plant loads of those and other indigenous plants on the banks and around the house. After all the covid craziness and the looting and unrest we all experienced in KZN we have been on turbo mode to become as self sufficient as possible and get our garden producing properly. With of our large family and all the bellies that need filling, I became more interested in finding what produces prolifically with as little effort as possible. I often have excess so decided to start a little side business to sell the extras and get all these unusual plants out there to other growers and be able to bring in new stuff and provide funds for garden projects etc.

I also discovered landrace gardening and have experienced with my accidental landrace butternut variety the ease in which food can be grown if the seed is strong with genetic diversity so I’m now on a mission to landrace everything I can like melons, gourds, cucumbers, other types of squash through cross pollination and tomatoes through manual cross pollination to suit my garden, my climate and my gardening style.

I grew over 50 butternuts this last summer without even knowing it because I threw a bunch of butternut seed which I’ve been saving year after year down a steep bank and forgot about it only to discover an entire bank of thriving giant butternut vines when I ventured down there to do some planting of reeds and grasses in the autumn, barely touched by pumpkin fly or pests. Growing and preserving heirlooms is great but I need volume, ease and resilient plants, my own personal varieties.

What are you most proud of in this process?

That we have created a life we love, that we are relearning skills lost to many of our generation and then teaching our children and that we are providing a simple and down to earth life for our children in this fast paced, pressure filled, instant gratification world we live in. They know where our food comes from, what it takes to get it on our plates and exactly what it means to eat meat. Also, I’m proud of the homegrown and organic coffee we get to enjoy every morning, that is a real labor of love and a great reward!

What advice would you like to share with those earlier on in their journey?

Get offline and get your hands dirty! Social media is a great place to become inspired and get ideas but you must move to the outdoors to get the infinite benefits of getting your hands dirty and the rewards of harvesting your own food! You must be willing to fail to succeed. Start with something you love, if it’s animals you love, or baking-get some hens for the best eggs you’ll ever eat, if it’s fresh salad you enjoy- start with some lettuce and herbs and slowly add to that etc etc.

Is there anything else you'd like to share? Where do you see growing going in South Africa?

I’m really excited by the South African communities I’ve tapped into online and locally through seed swaps and get so much inspiration from watching others do and then share so I try to do the same by sharing my successes and failures online and participating in regular seed swaps organized by Ghalema and Tawhid of Creating Eden where I love chatting to other growers in our area and selling, trading and sharing the things that grow successfully in my garden. We live in a place where no one should go hungry- my mother-in-law who comes from the cape always says if you stick a broomstick in the ground here in KZN it will grow so I hope to inspire others in my own small way to get growing too!

If you have a favourite quote/s that help you, give you wisdom etc., could you please share it?

One of my favorite permaculture principles is that “the “problem” is often the solution” which has helped me overcome many issues I’ve seen as a problem but realise they are actually helpful if I utilise them properly- like weeds (or pioneer plants)- you can eat many of them, they condition and protect the soil, feed the pollinators, they make great animal feed and can be turned into mulch and compost! Nature is our greatest teacher and it is best to learn to work with nature than against it so I ask myself how I can apply that in my gardening day to day.