Helping out at Siyakhana with Food Garden advice and training.

Mveledzandhivo Community Project.

We must tell you about Mveledzandhivo.
This is not just another school community project with a vegetable patch. This is a place where people get together to learn. The potential these people have, working hard to create a food secure future for themselves is inspiring to say the least. When you are growing up in a place where most people are poor the difference that a properly run healthy organic farm makes to rour life is inestimable. Follow the link (Just click on the name:Mveledzandhivo) to see a full story about how Positive Cycle got a chance to share knowledge and help to build with a community. This kind of farming is realistically the future of much of Africa. There isn't money available to keep correcting the damage done by industrial agriculture, and other commercial concerns. Community Project funding.

Visiting Pretty's Garden.

Positive Cycle paid a visit to a garden in Gauteng, in a 'previously disadvantaged community' being run by a delightful lady named Pretty. It's a fulfilling thing to do, being involved in such an ethical endeavour. We were very proud to be able to assist Pretty with some seeds and seedlings (particularly jalapenos as we have plenty of those at the moment) and also with a little know how and advice. Compost is going to be particularly helpful to Pretty as making it herself is ultimately going to save money. So will the companion planting and square foot planting advice Pretty got from Positive Cycle. These techniques dramatically increase yields (amounts of crops) and also soil health which again limits the yearly expense of augmenting her soil. Positive Cycle feels strongly about the benefits South Africans can reap by working on our economy where it really counts. Helping poor people to grow food and establish income from the crops they grow. That's why we go out to whatever schools and communities we can gain access to in order to help people understand the basics of both successful economics and healthy environmental practises. Seeing the difference good agricultural advice can bring to a community in terms of health and nutrition, psychological well being and economic prosperity is what it is all about for us at Positive Cycle.

Bio dynamic gardening lessons improve one's quality of life in so many ways you'll think you've had a spiritual experience. Except it's totally practical and hands on. Learning how to grow food and other useful plants in a proper environment, a formal gardening class where the instructor knows what to say and the information makes sense and works when you try it out on your own in your garden at home. Most of the reason so many people get started on a vegetable garden at some point in their lives and give up on it before too long is that without a bit of real world knowledge about how to prepare soil, feed plants, water correctly etc it's going to be a difficult skill to learn. Indeed some say gardening is an art. I am one of those and so were the previous two generations of my family. Come with me on a journey into good health, good food and beautiful surroundings by attending a Positive Cycle gardening class.

Food Growing Training Course.

It has been a little while since we I last touched base here so let me tell you what has been going on at the Positive Cycle garden. Our sponsored efforts to teach and develop gardens and gardeners in areas like Hammanskraal and Lesabe around Gauteng province have borne fruit (literally and figuratively) and those projects are taking off now thanks to some enthusiastic learners and all of the beautiful plants they have been growing. As a result of this Positive Cycle, while still operating an edible gardening service, is now mainly occupied with teaching people from all walks of life how to grow food. Learning vegetable gardening and 'bio dynamic growing' in the Positive Cycle garden has become popular with the locals in Auckland Park as well as with many visitors from further afield who come to find out how to creat this simple, healthy life for themselves. It's wonderful to see people progress as gardeners after attending a garden workshop and learning how to prepare soil, make anti pest solutions from the material in the garden and many other great techniques to turn your veggie patch into a wonderland that feeds the whole family. Teaching organic planting and growing methods is one of Positive Cycle's key areas of focus and we are glad of the opportunity to contribute to agricultural education in South Africa.

Organic Fertilisers and why they make sense.

Fertilisers for the garden. The 'organic method' has become popular.
Entirely organic fertilisers are preferable to chemical fertilisers, which tend to offer partial and impermanent results when compared to a consistent and careful application of the organic gardener's knowledge of how to make and apply fertilser.

'Chemical soup' is undesirable because it is difficult to predict the chemical cocktails that are produced when we introduce synthesized and or extracted chemical additives to our living soil.

The idea of 'living soil' is important since the action of a fertiliser is dependent on these little guys.Microbes, and particular microbes with particular interactions with each other and the surrounding soil are important to the processes that make nutrients available to plant roots.

The twist in the tale comes in when we realise that many purportedly organic fertiliser products may be organically based but they contain a chemical additive. This doesn't help. What one is working with are living organisms and dousing them in the compounds we think they need rather than creating the conditions in which the natural chemical reactions of life takes place is the only real way to achieve balance in your soil.
The quick fix offered by certain chemical recipes is an illusion and if you fall for it you will find yourself constantly amending your soil as it just gets weaker and weaker. Organic gardening and farmng is all about helping natural processes to achieve their most productive balance.

Organic Gardening Service

Gro4u is Positive Cycle's action team. An organic gardening service. We come out to your home and assess your soil, conducting a thorough soil analysis, after which we prepare bds accordingly and plant and maintain an organic vegetable garden second to none. We plant herbs, vegetables, fruits, nuts and berries. Transforming your garden into a wonderland of culinary delights.
We like to imagine ourselves as ' the gourmet gardeners'. We also take pride in the appearance and designer garden appeal of our garden installations. It's very satisfying to make an out door space not only beautiful but productive too.