Kuruma

The name ‘Kuruma’ comes from a Khoi word meaning ‘Dry Place’. In 2009 we, Celeste and Willem, moved to the farm from Cape Town. We loved the area and were craving the lifestyle. For us this has become a continuous journey to self-sustainability. The farm consists of 52 ha of land, with 5 ha currently planted with table grapes. Around the main house we have gradually implemented permaculture principles and we also offer a few introductory courses. Our dream is to live in a self-sustainable manner and to be conscious of and caring for the environment that we are the custodians of.

If you have been in the world of organic farming and gardening for long enough, you eventually bump into a stange word : PERMACULTURE   It is a fairly simple idea and it manifestations are everywhere you look. Bill Mollison, the Tasmanian son of a fisherman first coined the term in 1978 and defined it as, “The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems.  It is the harmonious intergration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” Permaculture is thus a holistic, living-in-harmony-with-nature  worldview, as well as a technical approach for how to do so.

At KURUMA we host 2 to 4 introductory courses a year. Kobus covers the Design Priciples of Permaculture on this course including: Zoning and Sectors; Compost Making and Soil Life; Sheet Mulching; Vermiculture; Chicken Tractors; Water Strategies and Irrigation including Swales; Planting different beds/areas; Nursery Work including Sowing, Transplanting, Soil Mixtures and propagating with cuttings;  Seed Saving and Storage; Pasture and Orchard management. The focus is on larger systems incorporating swales, larger animals, and pasture/orchard elements. It is stressed that this is an introduction course that explores all the above-mentioned areas from a permaculture point of view. It is impossible to go into great depth with all the areas – instead, the course is designed to capture your interest, provide a solid base to start off from and tie you into a support network for the journey ahead.