Heart-shaped prickly pears, a chamomile lawn, a meditation garden with a secret and a kooigoed recliner – these are just a few of the places in my latest discovery, the garden at Babylonstoren.
After walking around with head gardener Liesl van der Walt, I felt like a little girl who had come across a secret garden.
What is it about this garden that delights?
It’s a large garden, all 300 varieties of plants, trees and flowers are edible, and it’s beautiful. But mostly, it’s full of surprises.
There’s a small apple tree grown from a cutting from the tree under which Sir Isaac Newton purportedly sat when an apple fell on his head, and the notion of gravity came to him.
“We love trees, their history and their stories,” says Van der Walt.
There’s also a tree redolent with persimmons with a giant mosaic below it; 49 pillars have scented roses climbing on them; guava trees over 80 years old.
You’re walking through a food garden, practical, yes, but also beautiful – the way the lettuces are planted, the trees are pruned, the beds laid out.
There are avenues of guava trees, carob trees and olives, a citrus orchard; there are blocks of ripe aubergines and green peppers, hedges of quinces. Sweet potatoes make a lush groundcover next to neighbouring rosemary, growing below the Frantoio olives.
There are walled gardens, hedged gardens and open lawns.
“While it’s important to feed our body, we must also feed the mind and soul,” says Van der Walt.
The garden, which is open to the public, is part of the Babylonstoren farm near Paarl, a formal garden inspired by the original Company Gardens which were planted by Jan van Riebeek to supply fresh produce to passing ships.
It was designed by Patrice Taravella from France and, despite its formal structure, it’s surprisingly creative, with the wild living happily alongside the pruned.
“With its strong structure, unlike that found in nature, a formal garden has beauty throughout the year,” says Van Der Walt. “Of course there are wonderful peaks, such as early summer. And contrasts, there’s the koppie, a natural greenbelt walk along a natural stream, with wild olives and oaks and a fantastic collection of clivias.”
Van der Walt first became involved when invited to help with the indigenous fragrance garden, drawing on her 20 years experience working at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
“It’s been an interesting growth for me, growing food plants. And combining that with a number of food plants from the veld (such as sour figs),” she says.
Everything in the garden must have a use – culinary, medicinal or for fragrance – and it’s enlightening to see how much can be grown in small spaces.
“I’m fascinated by diversity – if we grow pumpkins, we grow as many varieties a possible,” she says. So, for example, there are six different prickly pears in the labyrinth; different granadillas (including a bananadilla and guavadilla); 13 kinds of figs. The citrus block includes sweet oranges, kumquats, navels, the Cape rough lemon, and limes.
Fresh produce is harvested daily and used in the restaurants on the farm. “The menu is dictated by what I grow, and there’s a strong bond between me and the chef,” says Van der Walt. What comes from the garden is used creatively in the kitchen. For example, the Kei Apples are on the dessert menu, pears decorate the table and the flowers of the spring onion are sprinkled on the scrambled eggs.
The eggs, too, come from the garden’s chickens, which also clean the straw bales of wheat seeds before they’re used for mulch, so you don’t get sprouting wheat seeds, and provide manure for the compost.
The waste from the kitchen is fed to the compost, which is used for the vegetables, which come back to the kitchen. Gravity feeds water into waterways from the stream into the garden.
The garden is organic, requiring hands-on attention so that problems, such as an insect infestation, can be addressed quickly.
The farm dates back to the 1690s, and the garden was established on the oldest cultivated part of the farm, below the homestead and along the natural river. The dam was enlarged, topsoil brought in and the hard landscaping done in 2007.
The garden is only three years old and this is its third summer, and for many fruit trees it’s their first crop. The trees are grown in the traditional European way, carefully trellised and pruned, with fruit forming next to the main stem.
Van der Walt spent time in France with Taravella learning the old intensive ways of farming.
“I’m getting to know the microclimate and plants, and learning all the time,” says Van der Walt. Berries have been a new venture for her, “and it’s a wonderful new world”.
Herbs abound, and are collected along with flowering plants and made into Tussy-Mussies (little bouquets), sold at the shop. And, of course, there are many varieties of each herb.
The indigenous fragrance garden is a treat, the three ponds are for trout and tilapia.
There is so much to see here, so many layers, and it’s worth taking a tour.
It may be a garden for food, but it is foremost a garden, bringing joy and inspiration, says Van der Walt.
And the secret of the meditation garden? The mulberry trees – the secret the East kept from the West.
* The garden is open Wednesday to Sunday, with guided tours at 10am. Entrance is R10.
Jeanne’s favourites
* Newton’s apple tree.
* The chamomile lawn.
* The kooigoed recliner.
* The bird garden with adult-sized nests in which to hide and watch birds.
* The bee garden with different shaped hives.
* The berry block with raspberries, blueberries and blackberries.
* The little pipe calabash growing in the glasshouse.
* The hidden water jets –- a lot of fun for children and adults on a hot day.
Liesl’s favourites
I love diversity and I find my fascination shifts week by week as the fruits ripen. At the moment I find the ripe prickly pears and persimmons irresistible. Last month my favourite stop was at the different fig varieties. Over Christmas it was heaven lying on the flowering chamomile lawn eating a ripe nectarine picked from the surrounding trees. Now walking between the olive trees is very exciting, watching the green fruit hanging heavy in the tree turning purple and ready for pickling and pressing for oil.
Organic tips
* Look after the soil – it starts with good compost.
* Use different varieties of a plant.
* Use the best and strongest plants.
* Water regularly so you don't stress plants.
* Only grow plants that are happy in your microclimate.
* Follow the seasons.
* Use lots of mulch (I use compost and straw).
* Keep hands-on, so that nothing gets out of hand. - Cape Argus