How green was my valley
2008-06-26
Marguerite Lombard
JEANNE MALHERBE lives in a secluded valley on the foothills of the Hawequa Mountains. She is one of the pioneers in biodynamic farming in South Africa. Jeanne retired from active farming a few years ago, but still lives on her beloved Bloublommetjieskloof. The road turns off Wellington’s Horse Shoe in the Blouvlei, and up into the mountains. The view from the top of the road to Bloublommetjieskloof is magnificent, and I am later reminded of Jeanne Malherbe’s own reaction on seeing the farm for the first time - “This is it. A valley embraced by mountains.” Her kitchen is filled with the scent of baking - the comforting aromas of hearth and home. Soon the conversation turns to cattle, as it must on a biodynamic farm - of the beautiful colourings of the nguni, with horns that are shaped like lyres, the gentle nature of the dairy cow. The biodynamic farm, she explains, is essentially a mixed farm, and about living in a community of people with common interests. The idea is to become more self-sufficient, not to buy in from outside, but to generate what you need on the farm - where possible. “It is about returning to nature, instead of exploiting it.” Jeanne Malherbe explains that the basis of the biodynamic farm is the cow. “She is the mid-point. Her manure is the most balanced, and she is dedicated to the earth. I can get quite lyrical about the cow, the way she breathes onto the earth, and onto the grass she eats.” When the rain clears, we walk out to take a look at a compost heap in her vegetable garden. Wisps of steam rise from the organic mound. “It is alive,” she says, removing a copper rod from the centre of the heap to test the temperature inside. I am reminded that this is no ordinary compost heap. It is infused with homeopathic preparations made from yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion and valerian. A teaspoon of each is enough for 14t of compost. “I am told that it is never about the substance itself, but its essence and properties that allow it to connect with the cosmos and energise the breathing heap of vegetative material. Today one of the farm workers is stuffing fresh manure into cow horns - a basket of cow horns on one side, and a neat row of filled horns on the bench beside her. Later the horns will be buried in the soil until spring, when the matured contents will be used in a highly diluted form to feed the soil. Starting out, Jeanne Malherbe bought Bloublommetjieskloof in the early 1970s after she had spent two years learning the principles of biodynamic farming, first at Emerson College in Sussex, then six months on a farm in Germany. “I was determined to farm, but had no money and at 38 I was not a youngster anymore. Nevertheless, I was looking for a farm to buy. “One day my mother’s car needed some attention and I stopped at a garage in Wellington. My mother grew up on Nabygelegen in the Bovlei, and people still remembered her. “Riaan Lategan asked me what I was doing in town. I told him. He told me he had bought a farm a year ago - would I be interested. The farm’s name was Bloublommetjieskloof. “I drove out to have a look, took one look at the road leading down into the valley, and decided to leave the car at the top, and walk down. “I loved it. This was it, was my first thought. The farm is small enough, hidden, and if I make a fool of myself, nobody will know. “The farm would need a lot of attention, but I was longing to fix it. But how does one buy such a farm?” With two mortgages. Her first purchases for the farm was at an auction on a neighbouring farm - a milk separator, a butter churn and a heap of cow manure. “I of course had no tractor or any way of carting the manure back to Bloublommetjieskloof, but a neighbour - Niel du Plessis, quite a youngster then - offered to help me. “Then to buy my first cows. I decided on Jerseys for their milk production, and they were also of a size I thought I would be able to handle.” A family acquaintance - a judge of jersey cows - offered to help. He would choose one, and then she would choose the second. “His choice was a magnificent milk producer, which lived to the age of 22 and produced 19 calves. Mine was beautiful, but her milk production was half. “This was the lesson he wanted to teach me: choose the one that has a thin skin, so that she always looks hungry - they are the good milk producers because they put everything into their milk.” From there, the hard work started. Growing vegetables, rising early to milk the cows, lugging 20 litre churns of milk down the mountain in a Volkswagen station wagon to be collected at 05:30 every morning. Trying to hawk the first offerings of Swiss chard, beans and mealies at a market near the Moederkerk in Wellington. “Nobody was interested! Not even in my tubs of cream.” Her reception in Cape Town was more encouraging - she sold to parents and children at the Waldorf and Michael Oak schools, and at a health shop, even later at markets in Mowbray and Rondebosch. The Biodynamic Association was founded on Bloublommetjieskloof in 1982. Then the society consisted of five farms in South Africa, three of them local: Bloublommetjieskloof and the Camphill farms in Atlantis and Hermanus. They met regularly to study, share ideas, and as interest grew, to hold annual conferences. The farm soon attracted a steady flow of volunteers from Germany, England, Ireland, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Today Bloublommetjieskloof remains a working farm, with Jeanne still in residence.
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