Sunday, November 24, 2013

Good Living Soil


Thursday, October 31, 2013

Good quality soil

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.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Vertical Planters and Urban Greening

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.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013




Saturday, September 28, 2013

Corporate Social Responsibility

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.

Friday, September 27, 2013

So many plants... the value of diversity

 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.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Using mulch

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.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Saving seeds

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.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Food is medicine

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.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Growing with Positive Cycle

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.

Monday, August 19, 2013

The language of healthy eating and GMO

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. 

Friday, August 16, 2013

Circadian Rhythms, anything to do with what you eat?

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.

Friday, August 9, 2013

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

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?

Monday, July 29, 2013

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

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?

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.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Planting times and how they vary across the country

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.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

We're selling the produce...At last!

This Spring is looking very exciting so far. Positive Cycle is now managing and training so many successful peri urban micro farms that even the administration is quite a bit of work. We're on top of it though and it looks like our long time goal/dream of actually stimulating micro economic growth is beginning to take hold. Paulis Foods have been purchasing high quality veg from our micro farms. This is such excellent news. The produce is of the very highest quality and their company gets bragging rights for being among the first to realise that bringing micro economic farmers into the supply chain is a vital step for the health of South Africa's economy. It's also wise because when Positive Cycle trained farmers grow produce, they do it properly. The food our projects produce is the healthiest and most nutritious on the market. No we haven't tested that in a laboratory, it just works out that way when you use the full complement of bio dynamic agricultural techniques. There are right and wrong ways to grow food and we do it the right way. Not braggin you understand, just passionate. The Positive Cycle training company and GRO4U edible landscaping service were a long time in the planning stages and now that they have both been fully functional for several years we are starting to see spectacular results like these Lesabe Primary School.

So in short, yay for Paulis Foods!!! (BTW, the food is the best in Johannesburg, so its not only responsible, it's also delicious.)

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Battle against Monsanto

It often seems as though some do not take the bio dynamic model of agriculture very seriously, but make no mistake, people are fighting tooth and nail to try and break the iron grip that industrialised mono-culture has on agriculture. Support for the work done by Positive Cycle  is certainly present in society. Bio Watch a Durban based NPO has fought a nine year legal battle against Monsanto which you can read about.
It seems counter intuitive that a company doing business in such an insidious way has been allowed to operate to such an extent that they are a global force. It's unpleasant to realise that many are still ignorant of how these corporate giants can steal our food supply by owning the genetically modified organisms they sell as food items. There are legal battles underway in different countries all over the world to settle ownership of seed and gene stock. India, and Bolivia, as well as a few other independent minded nations and courts have ruled that original strains were a common heritage.Monsanto erred when they damaged their genetic build, and cannot claim that they 'own' the new organisms. That of course is reality, something most of the world is still ignoring. As individuals we can consult a list of monsanto products to avoid and do our best to eat natural foods.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Positive Recycle

Positive Cycle is pleased as punch to announce the formation of our new division, 'Positive Recycle'. In the years spent learning and teaching the art and science of growing food and useful plants without chemicals from labs but rather the natural substances available to use as pesticides and soil inputs, our company discovered the incalculable benefits of recycling food waste. Using anaerobic fermentation, we are able to turn food and other types of organic wet waste into incredibly potent fertilisers and compost. In combination with vermiculture, this system, known as 'bokashi' is set to revolutionise the recycling industry, not to mention play a vital role in off setting the costs of soil augmentation. Bokashi bins are to become a common sight in every home, school, shop, restaurant and office. In fact, we hope to create such a level of awareness, and provide such a high quality service in this field, that failing to recycle food waste will become a shameful thing that decent people simply don't admit to. If you would like to help, if protecting and even promoting the environment has meaning for you (and it should) we would encourage you to get in touch with us by clicking on the header of this post and doing your part by buying our inexpensive and properly carried out recycling systems and services.