Next to an Engen gas station in Diepsloot, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, Lawrence Ratshabedi grows vegetables for sale to local residents. "Customers like morogo," he says. "Morogo are leafy greens like chomolia kale, rape, Chinese cabbage." During the summer, they will also grow tomatoes and grey pumpkins, colloquially called "ysterpampoene" (iron pumpkins).
The Fuelarama Group operates the Engen fuel stop, called Tanganani. Next to it, they erected growing tunnels in 2019 for the express use of the community, says Fuelarama's Bernard Sedibane. "They don't pay us anything. We try to help unemployed people to plant what they need in order to sell it."
Fuelarama supplies Ratshabedi with seed and some compost. Every plant grown here was raised by him and Marshal Sibanda from seed. "My mother taught me to plant seeds," Ratshabedi says. Seedlings of cabbage, lettuce, beetroot, and carrots are growing out until large enough to be transplanted.
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Winter cropping of lettuce
Several varieties of beans are grown, like the dinawa bean (cowpeas), whose beans are eaten both fresh (the entire pod is cooked) and dried, while the leaves are used for morogo. They also cultivate double beans, which are, Sibanda remarks, from India.
They'd like to grow peas during winter, Ratshabedi says, but they don't have seeds at the moment.
The harvesting of sweet potato, or mbambayile, is coming up. They're growing white sweet potatoes with a Malawian origin and red-skinned sweet potatoes from Zimbabwe.
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Shallot onions in mulched beds
In winter, shallots and spring onions are lifted. The spring onions are so tough, he says, some clumps have resprouted despite lying discarded for three years.
Ratshabedi points out the grey colour of the soil. "If I take something out here, I have to wait for a month before I put it back. This soil of mine is not good, I just force it."
They make compost to improve the soil under their organic regime. "I just plant and believe," Ratshabedi says.
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The soil here lends itself to tuberous crops, Ratshabedi observes, such as these sweet potatoes
He also grows vegetables on a "smallanyana" ("very small") portion of Northern Farm, a farm owned by the City of Johannesburg a few kilometres away. The soil at Northern Farm is more fertile, he says, better for leafy vegetables, while the soil next to Engen Tanganani is more suited to root crops like sweet potatoes.
He aims to open a stall closer to the farm: pushing his wares in a wheelbarrow to where he currently sells it, takes up a lot of his time. He wants to spend more time farming and less time in the transport of his wares to a point of sale.
© Carolize Jansen | FreshPlaza.com
Marshal Sibanda and Patrick Ratshabedi
For more information:
Lawrence Ratshabedi
Lawmagrow Organics
Tel: +27 69 215 7423
