Tag: gardening

Posted in General Blogs, SA Specific - MCA

Would You “Bawk” at Chicken-ponics?

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss
chicken crossing the road wearing shoes -istock photos

Most of us have heard of hydroponics, and many of us have heard of aquaponics, but have you ever heard of chicken-ponics?

Hydroponics is the growing of plants with a water-based, nutrient-infused solution, bypassing the need for soil. There are several methods including roots dangling in the nutrient solution from floating pots to hydroton pellets (expanded clay) that anchor the roots.

There is also aquaponics which takes the hydroponics system up a level by adding fish to the system. (Aquaculture is the raising of fish. Mix this with HydroPonics and you get AquaPonics. ) In a great oversimplification, in aquaponics, the fish water, complete with fish waste, is cycled through the plants. This cycling fertilizes the plants while purifying and aerating the water for passing back into the fish. These systems can contain worms to increase efficiency (vermiponics) but that’s more syllables than I care to discuss, but here is a link for better details on Aquaponics.

Now we come to the fun part: what happens if we add chickens on top of the fish? Better yet, what if we add chickens and rabbits? This is where things can get crazy. A little research shows a variety of animals have been added to aquaponics to add nutrient waste into the system and feed the fish, as well as produce food for humans and animals. I’ve seen ducks (quack-aponics), rabbits, or chickens thrown into the mix. We are possibly looking to incorporate rabbits and chickens along with the fish and plants. My concern is keeping the water healthy enough to grow fresh veggies with the chicken waste involved. We are looking at different versions now and welcome any ideas or constructive criticism. The plan will be completed the second week of April 2024 and the build will be the following week.

The ultimate goal will be to maximize food production while minimizing space and external inputs. The system will be located at our leader, Stephen’s property in South Africa, and will then be used to teach others in his community how to replicate this system. We will also be looking to replicate this system at our demonstration farm in the US – but that is future news to be announced in May!

Stay tuned for pictures, plans, and updates on what we build and how it works. If you would like to donate to Mahala Love and projects like this, please click here. Thanks for reading!

Posted in General Blogs

Great Things – Big and Small

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together”

Vincent van Gogh

A series of small things, now that is something I can relate to. On some days, I can dream of great things and large impacts with grand gestures. On other days, I can not. On those “other days,” I try and find a small thing to do.

If I am struggling with a project, relationship, idea, or whatever, I will try and focus on one small step I can complete. If there is no small step that avails itself or I can not muster whatever is needed to do that small step, instead I will find one small joy about that thing and hold steadfast until I can take another step.

Today I am joyful for the relationships I have developed through the work of Mahala Love. I am joyful for the people who show me perseverance and dignity as they make strides in their lives. I am joyful for the opportunity to have met and to call many of these people my friends. 

That great big bundle of joy is what leads me to the next small step. 

Mahala Love – sharing with the world.

Posted in General Blogs

Process and Progress

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss

A week or so ago, Mahala Love applied for the Slow Food Negroni Week Fund grant. I will start by saying I love writing grants!. I love the freedom to let my mind wander through all the ideas Mahala Love and our partners discuss, the plans that have been created and then attempt to pare them down into manageable and logistically sound paths to be constrained within a specific set of funding goals. Perhaps, I am a bit of a nerd in that respect.

Once I have written a grant, I feel complete with the process. True, I occasionally check the email to see if there is any word, but I feel very satisfied with knowing that the path forward has been laid. The details have been thought through and I now know just what we need to make it happen. Perhaps we will be fortunate enough to receive the funding and can now focus simply on getting the work done. If not, I know we will move forward, it will just take longer to find the proper resources, and the phases will be slower or smaller. We will still plant a food forest, but will plant seeds and seedlings versus trees. We will still offer seeds to the families, and invite neighboring folks to our teaching garden, there will just be less varieties and offerings to start. But Mahala Love is focused and determined and know we will reach our goals to share in food security with our neighbors both here in the US and in South Africa.

Our partners in Limpopo, have also applied for the same grant. Themba has applied to further the progress of the seed bank and the efforts there to catalog, collect, and share seeds among the community. The two grants have some overlap in community and sharing of resources. Mahala Love staff will be attending the Seed Festival in September of this year and can’t wait to see and share more seeds with the folks in Limpopo.

So, as always, we welcome your prayers, good vibes, happy thoughts and ideas! And we will continue to work to make changes in our food systems and provide our neighbors and ourselves with healthy and nutrient dense food and build community in which to share it.

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Posted in General Blogs

South Africa -Spring 2023

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss

The beginning of 2023 has brought many adventures – Getting married being one of them! I am so happy to introduce Sam to the picture here at Mahala Love, not to mention to my life all around! He is funny, organized, and loves to do projects. He is a great asset to ML!

We had a combination Mahala Love working trip and honeymoon in South Africa in March. Sam got the crash course in people, food, places and our projects there. Except for the fact that he is very tall and South African shovels are perilously short, it was a great fit!

Together, Sam and I worked on the Seed library with Themba in Limpopo (see that page), met with Cinderella to design the new permaculture garden at the beautiful new school location, (See ML-South Africa, Mpumalanga) and did a little touristy sight seeing.

The trip was fantastic and never long enough. But September will be here soon enough and we can continue our work there. In the meantime, those locations are in very competent hands and the work continues there while we continue to work here.

Posted in General Blogs

Be Kind, Grow Things

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss

It’s been pointed out lately that I tend to be, “reductive.” I think that’s code for terse, curt, short or any number of other words meaning not only – “to the point,” but most likely, “ too to the point.” Perhaps it is true. I do like a good basic noun-verb combination to start a conversation, with a few adjectives thrown in because I’m Southern by raising. Examples, “pick up your shoes” – Southern version – “Pick up your stinking shoes.”

I think it is in ideas that I tend to be reductive as oppose to words though. What seems to be complicated issues to some people, I seem to think are more simple. If you’re lost, either metaphorically or literally, why flounder alone driving in circles? Pause and ask for directions. When everyone is getting on my nerves, pause, look in the mirror, there is the source.

Here we are in the most confusing times of near history, with a nonstop onslaught of verbiage coming at us nearly 24/7. I find this hard to take. I don’t know why the same story is reported on 73.65 times in a single day, with 18 points of view from 13 people that I can see as having no connection other than someone handed them a microphone and a makeup artist to pat the shine off of their nose. Wait, who is this and why do they have an opinion and where did they get those facts and are those really facts and why do I trust her opinion and who told him to have that opinion in the first place and have any of these people actually searched for a fact on their own or are they merely regurgitating the spew from social media that will keep them existing as a persona, as opposed to be erased if the unpopular view dare be brought in to the light as anything that might beworthyofevenlookingatbutthenwhatabout… You get my point. Does anyone else feel this way?

So, with all of that, I would like to get to my point. Times are strange, people are stranger. I probably don’t understand you, and you probably don’t understand me. But I can still love you, honor you by listening to what you believe, and know you are a person as worthy of your opinions and place on this earth as am I. As we navigate unknown, unprecedented waters, let’s grow together – whether it be community, flowers, food, a government responsive to the folks who elect them, let’s all try and remember that we are neighbors, friends, and family long before and long after the stress and politics and pandemics of the day are over. Let’s just be kind, and grow some stinking things, shall we?

Posted in General Blogs, US Specific Blogs

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun or When You’re Crawling Out of a Pandemic.

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss

Where to begin updating you on Herban Renewal – After a pretty productive lock-down period of installing gardens, trying a few hugelculture beds, testing aquaponics, setting up the vermiculture, getting our chickens set up and starting to lay, we did the next logical thing and decided to sell the Herban Renewal property in town! Yep.

However, after finding Buyers, then finding another property, things just didn’t go as planned. The house was packed into boxes, utilities were set to switch, many, many plans were made. Also, there were the way-too-many plants and seeds ordered and hatching eggs set to deliver, the sketches of raised beds and food forests, all in anticipation of a few acres and a couple of awesome out buildings, and then, on the final day, –(cue dramatic music) things…fell … apart.

You could say I was a bit shook, but I am a big believer that things work as they should. What has been unsettling is my lack of ability to decide if I wanted to stay put or move. The plants and hatching eggs arrived because I couldnt bring myself to cancel them. The plants made lovely gifts and egg hatching is always fun, even though I was not planning to have 30 plus chickens in my laundry room. But we hatched them because, well, because we could. There is nothing as fun as the anticipation and hearing those little eggs when they begin to peep. And the chicks are also delightful for about the first week. They continue to be delightful, but their odor inside your home – not so much.

Now here we are at the beginning of fall and we continue to live in our home and it’s still not for sale. So I am publicly declaring – I’m going to stay put!! Let fall planting begin.

Posted in General Blogs, US Specific Blogs

The Mulch Patch

Posted on by Robin KellyGoss

May is winding down. The weather has been much cooler than most recent Mays and we have had some really hard rains followed by no rain. The garden beds are slowly taking shape and a variety of experiments, which are completely unscientific, are succeeding, or not. Overall, the growth seems slow and tedious for the plants, but the mulch paths are growing a little more every day. Maybe it’s like the watched pot problem and if I don’t look for a few days, big healthy plants will appear.

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I’ve been doing a ton of reading, watching videos, digging through old books and general planning. The topics that I’ve dug into most deeply are mushrooms, Microgreens, permaculture, and food preservation. These are all topics I’ve looked at and tried out to various degrees, so it’s nice to circle back around for a deeper dive.

The first of 2 shipments of plants have arrived. Some people might just think they are tiny brown sticks, but I can imagine the Spice bushes, Lindera benzoin, hazelnuts, Corylus americana, and roses, Rosa rugosa, they will all become. The spice bush leaves serve as tea and the berries are edible, dried and fresh. The Hazels produce hazelnuts or filbert. Can you say homemade Nutella?!, I mean healthy protein! The Roses are for teas, fragrance, and Vitamin C from the hips. I once made rose petal jam; it smelled lovely, but it came out more like a hard candy that I couldn’t get out of the jar once it solidified.

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Most days I feel more like I am cultivating patches of mulch than an actual garden, but I know once the heat arrives most of these plants will explode! Here are a few pictures of the ever growing mulch patch and if you zoom in closely, you might even see a few plants.

  • kale, eggplant, and marigold
  • radish
  • bay, aster, rudibeckia, etc
  • Tomatoes – assorted varieties
Posted in Limpopo

South Africa – Thoughts about Small Scale Farmers

Posted on by Nthavela Themba

Small Scale farmers were faced with uncertainty when the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced the lock down, telling everyone to stay at home and restrict the movement of the people to only allow essential services.

The time that the president introduced the Lock Down, it was the exact time of completing the summer crops harvesting and moving to winter crops cultivation. Due to the government introduced Lock Down,  small scale farmers were unable to execute the duties at hand leading to the loss of sources of food and income and, also, interfering with the harvesting and cultivation calendar.

As time goes by, through the advocacy by sympathizers, small scale farmers were later allowed to go back to their fields provided they obtained permits. Even when they had permits, those who depend on retailers for seeds, as many do during winter season here in South Africa, were left wanting since other retailers that provide seeds were still considered non essential until level 4.

Now that small scale farmers have been allowed to work on their fields, there are also efforts by civil societies to provide some measure of relief by purchasing Agricultural produce from farmers which will be distributed to the vulnerable in the community.

Small Scale farmers are battling with a two edged sword, one being to continue with their activities and other being trying to protect themselves from the Covid-19 virus. South Africa is already in the middle of winter and normally people contact Fever and Flu like symptoms, and with the current pandemic, the situation is unpredictable.

South Africa is starting to see an increase in numbers in Covid-19 infections and everyone, especially elderly people, are advised to stay at home.  If the current rate of infections continue for weeks, it might create panic in people even though the lock down is being eased monthly.

This may hamper the effectiveness of Subsistence food production.