25 years ago the St Isidore food supply farm was purchased from the Catholic Church and transformed into Kings Grant Country Retreat and Restaurant. Now we begin a new journey, one that embraces our Trappist Monk farm roots with the Return to Farm Project; the start of a diverse small-scale food supply farm that will supply our restaurant, staff and community with ‘farm to fork’ food and a holistic farm experience for our guests and ourselves.
We’re looking for a different way of life; one that moves away from relying on the big commercial empires to meet our needs and moving closer to ‘supporting local,’ to community and connection, to authenticity, to learning and appreciating artisanal skills and handmade products and becoming more self-sufficient in the way of food and energy production.
Our goal is simple; to grow and produce the food our restaurant needs, to embrace and practice permaculture and to keep it affordable. We want to create an experience and space that feels aligned; a holistic farm experience that requires us and our guests to be outdoors, to be close to the soil, working with and being in nature, with animals, plants and with plenty of open wide space.
Our project starts small. We begin with a few simple organic vegetable garden plots, 20 chickens for eggs, 2 beehives for honey and the beginning of a food forest.
We’re starting a farm from scratch. Our first step has been to identify where to place and prepare our vegetable plots, the food forest, the chicken tractors and aloe garden. The second step has been to protect this area from the cattle by fencing it off. And thirdly, to prepare the heavily compacted soil by ripping it and disking it – a first time in over 50 years. Next, we planted seeds and seedlings. To follow will come ‘composting,’ better water conservation and application and learning more about companion planting and how to do cuttings. We’ve started with a few basic projects that suit our shoe-string budget for now! As we grow and generate income through farming, we’ll expand bit by bit.
We’re starting a farm from scratch. Our first step has been to identify where to place and prepare our vegetable plots, the food forest, the chicken tractors and aloe garden. The second step has been to protect this area from the cattle by fencing it off. And thirdly, to prepare the heavily compacted soil by ripping it and disking it – a first time in over 50 years. Next, we planted seeds and seedlings. To follow will come ‘composting,’ better water conservation and application and learning more about companion planting and how to do cuttings. We’ve started with a few basic projects that suit our shoe-string budget for now! As we grow and generate income through farming, we’ll expand bit by bit.
To start, we will grow our own vegetables and herbs for the Saint Isidore’s Restaurant. We are blessed to have Sutherland Seedlings Nursery right here on our doorstep, beautiful red soils and plenty of water. Our first task will be to fence off half a hectre of land to grow our vegetables and to protect them from being grazed by cattle and horses. We will also start ‘composting’ and will delve into ‘companion planting’ and ‘permaculture practices.’
We are starting a long term food forest project. We’ll be planting fruit and nut trees, vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants over a 10 year period. The long term goal is for it to become a multi-layered food foraging heaven that will eventually be self-sustainable and wild. This too will supply our restaurant with all sorts of seasonal produce and it will become a place to explore and learn about food forests, foraging and the different plant species.
We need a good supply of eggs here at Kings Grant! With all the breakfasts we serve and the eggs that are needed for baking – having a few chickens laying us some eggs will be one less big weekly kitchen order for us! Our biggest challenge will be to keep our ‘layers’ safe from the many birds of prey in the valley and our local predators such as mongoose, legawaans, serval and jackal. We will need to design a ‘mobile protected free-ranging’ chicken pen.
We are surrounded by century old Eucalyptus trees as well as avo and lemon orchards. Flowers and pollen are in abundance. It makes good sense to have some bee hives on our property and to learn beekeeping. Buying honey is another big weekly expense for us so this will help reduce our kitchen orders and will be another step towards becoming a ‘farm-to-fork’ restaurant. Right now, we are in the process of catching our honey bees!
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
