Ashleigh welcomes us into her beloved vegetable garden, where she grows food for her family using organic principles—including plant diversity, a healthy soil microbiome, mulch, and heirloom varieties.
She is part of a growing movement of organic gardeners in Zambia who have not only stopped using chemicals but are actively working to build eco-friendly, regenerative gardens. Her story is proof that it’s possible to grow food naturally—and beautifully.
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When you set up this garden, was there any um sort of design with any principles you were following in terms of designing your beds, laying out your beds and outside space? So, this one has been here since I was a child. Okay. So, 20 years. So, I just for now have come in as it is. But if I was to start from scratch, I would not put rose. You’re blowing my mind. If you don’t have rose, what do you do? Um, so in Choma on the farm, my vegetable garden was just a big open space and it had pavers dotted around. And so I would plant like say maybe the strawberries down the side and then all the other crops wouldn’t necessarily be in lines. They’d be in groups with a paver or two to step. So you’re in the garden jumping on pavers. Um but you get to make use of basically like this would all be plantable. Um, so you increase your space. Yes, you increase your space. You you tend to then rotate crops naturally because you might have a group of lettuce growing here. And as it’s finishing, you stick in some kale plants or rape plants and then they start growing there before the lettuce is done. And it just kind of it’s it’s a really nice I really enjoyed it like that. Natural approach. Natural. Yeah. And you’re not constantly thinking like, oh, this bed’s full. You’re just planting. And if you squeeze something in in between other plants, it’s it’s I love it. Hi, I’m Ashley and this is Logan. And this is our home veggie garden. Um, where we grow whatever we can to be able to eat from the garden and not buy from shops where possible. We’ve got passion fruit here. Okay. Which actually just popped up. And there’s two different types. There’s the yellow and the purple. Um, and they are very easy to maintain as long as they’ve got a bit of water and sun and give a little I noticed you’ve put a very strong trellis at the back. Is that for this to grow over? That was actually my seedling greenhouse. Oh, and um the wind just kept blowing it and it was too hot inside during majority of the year in Zambia. So now it’s a trellis. You can make it a drying shed. Oh, good idea. Yeah. So that all the excess you have, you make I’m hoping it’s going to make a tunnel that like the kids could have a little hideout in there. No, I often hide out over here. Yeah. Logan sits here and it’s a nice shady spot. I notice here you’ve got mint. So this is actually lemon balm. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, so it is I think it’s related to mint, but if you smell it, it’s like a lemony lovely. Yeah. So this I grow purely for tea. Okay. You can either dry it and then you just pour hot water over or you can just use the fresh leaves with hot water. What are the benefits of drinking lemon balm tea? Um, helps with anxiety, calms you down, helps you sleep. Um yeah, those are the main benefits of that. I think it’s anti-ungal too if you struggle with that. Yeah. Um cold sores. Good for cold sores. It smells more like soap. Does it? Um and so this bed I’m trying to create a herb bed here. Um, so we do have kale here for now. This is beautiful. Yeah. So, this is heirloom scarlet kale. I would actually put this in my ornamental bits cuz it looks it looks fantastic. Yeah, cuz you can if you let this go to seed, you can collect those seeds and it should come back as it is. It doesn’t deteriorate like um your hybrid seeds. It’s a shame to think we’ve bred all this beauty out. Exactly. Possibly quite a bit of the nutrition as well. Yeah. Um and I’ve also noticed that the heirloom veggies require less uh they less susceptible to diseases and insects. Interesting. Yeah. So, that’s been great. I’m looking at the planting in your rose. Just this section here. Yeah. There’s quite a variety of things that you have in your herb bed. You’ve got your kale, your dragon fruit. Um, yeah. What’s behind this mix planting that you So, some of the time the plants benefit each other. Some of the time it’s just that I’m waiting for things to establish and there’s extra space, so I stick them in there. But if you come down this way, um, so here you’ve got kale, which will end up about almost a meter high, and you’ve got lettuce that as soon as August hits, it’s going to struggle in the sun. So, the kale will grow and shade the lettuce. the lettuce and the kale will drop their dead leaves and create a nice mulch there. Um, so I do a lot of that where the vegetables benefit each other. You’ve created a little ecosystem. Yeah. I wish it was a bit bigger so that you could actually see. No, this is fantastic cuz even in this space we can see two varieties, three varieties of veg. Here you’ve done a block of um grape. So for example, last September, October, we actually got a lot of lettuce because it was shaded under other hardier veggies. I have heard someone recommend that you know leafy veg grow under some sort of shade whether it’s shade netting or natural shade. And it also helps you to a lot of the time uh everyone does what one of my friends calls Lego gardening where everything is straight and neat lines and the same species. But when you do it like this, it actually makes better use of your space because when you’ve eaten your lettuce, your kale has grown and you can eat your kale. And so you’ve got two crops out of one space. So these will be ready before the crispy lettuce. Um, so we should always have something to to pick. And I’m going to make another comment that I think you’ve you’ve planted your beds a lot more densely than I’ve seen people do their vegetable gardens. Is there a reason for that? Mainly just that you actually don’t have to spread them out so much. Yeah. And that I learned during uh I did a course on flower growing cut flowers and realized how much you can actually pack into a small space. Um so sometimes maybe I go too close but you work it out as you go and the more you can pack into your bed I think the better. And one thing I learned from Diane is also that you know the planting densely protects the soil. That’s another side benefit. And in addition to that, I see this beautiful layer of mulch. Yes. This is nice. I mean, this must be at least 2 cm. Yeah. If not more. So, whenever we can, we put these are shredded leaves. Mhm. Um, so something I’ve struggled with a lot um with teaching gardeners is to drop the crop when it’s finished and leave it on the bed. Sunflowers, old rape leaves, cabbage is fantastic for the soil, rotten lettuce leaves, um, basically whatever you can. those dead leaves should just stay. And even um the roots. So for example, if you’re harvesting a lettuce or kabi or your kale has finished and you’ve picked it all and you want to replant the bed, you just chop off at the base and leave the roots in and they rot and then you’re not disturbing the worms. you’re not disrupting the structure of the soil underneath. Um, so for example, over there, I can show you. Go over. We had some sunflowers. I wish they were still here. I think I got a shot from before. Okay. So, um, when they were done, you can see we’ve chopped the stems off, but the roots are still in the ground. Okay. Um, so that creates structure to the soil and a lot of the time, especially in farming practices, we rip all that out and cuz we want a clean bed. We want we want it to look clean before we start again. But in addition, I was led to believe that leaving this debris brings in disease and um, it can do and you got to be a bit careful. I don’t generally drop my tomato crop because they always got p powdery mildew. Um, but it depends if you’ve got a good balance of microorganisms in your soil. It should be fine. Um, but you can pick and choose what you choose what you put down on your soil. Um there’s So you’re literally waiting for these sunflower stalks to disintegrate or you just plant? They don’t have to. We’ll just plant back into here as soon as our seedlings are ready. I see you’ve done something similar with your asparagus. Yeah. So the asparagus is that’s in its um dormant period. So we’ll start watering beginning of August and it will just shoot up again. So that crop is an investment and it takes I think it’s 3 years till you’re getting a good harvest out of it. Um you know I think it’s so interesting you mentioned that this garden has been here for as long as you’ve been you guys been living here cuz that means you must have had to rejuvenate the soil quite a bit. How do you keep it? I mean years of growing vegetables is a lot for any piece of land. So, I moved back here a two years ago, and it’s taken me that long to get it going again. It was dead. It had just been so depleted. All the years of the the old style, cleaning the the old stuff off the top. Um, it’s taken time and it’s still not where it needs to be. Okay. So probably another year if I had my way. I had suggested um basically doing a light till on the whole area and just planting chicken pasture and putting chickens in for a year just to restore it. Restore it. Give it a break. Um, but I’m I’m slowly getting there without doing that. And I love how you’ve interspersed um flowers. So, I always put flowers in now that I’ve learned how much your crop can be increased by having beneficial insects come to your garden. Um, so the bees especially, but there’s also so many other insects people don’t think about. Wasps, ladybirds, um, certain types of ants. They all help to pollinate. And these are also so good for the soil. What are these? These are nesters. Okay. They’re edible leaves and flowers, so they make a really nice addition to salads. Hey. Yes. Yeah. Um, so they have they multi-purpose. They bring the insect the good insects. They create a cover crop on your soil and when they rot they they’re a really good green manure. Um, and they’re edible and they recede themselves. I didn’t plant these ones. They’ve just dropped from there. So once you’ve had your initial seeds, you don’t have to buy more more new ones. Yeah. Speaking of pollination, I’m actually seeing some bees inside. Yes. And speaking of pollination, um this So this these are heirloom cherry tomatoes. And you can just see the quantity of flowers. Wow. That are there. And if you don’t have the insects to pollinate all of those, you’re not going to get tomatoes from all of those. So, and this crop has been the best I think I’ve ever had. I think you’re probably challenging very many of our gardeners cuz we believe insects in the gardener bag. A lot of people believe that. We use a lot of insecticide um you know variety organic and non-organic every time we see an insect. So this this crop of tomatoes from its seedling stage has only had um the beneficial em uh the molasses mixture. And how does that help? So it’s basically a beneficial bacteria. So like when we eat yogurt, it that’s what it is for the plants. It’s that gut bacteria but for the plants. In fact, you can even drink it. It’s good for your skin. I have actually I’ve actually tried it. Yeah. And then I don’t think it’s just that though. So, I mean, it’s got molasses in there, and I really think it feeds and boosts the the crop, the plants. Yeah. And do you spray in terms of um managing your pests or So, the b the barb and I think it was a byb and salt mixture we did a couple of weeks ago. that is to manage fungus and bacterial issues, but it also deters the insects that actually eat the the plants. Um, so that’s all that these have had. I have though recently taught somebody to go through on a regular basis and just pull off any diseased leaves and dispose of them away from the garden. Um, and that way we try and control it from spreading through the crop. But we do get disease and like that crop of tomatoes there. It looks absolutely terrible. It’s completely diseased. We’re still getting tomatoes from it. I’m not going to spray it. I’m just going to let it finish and then I won’t mulch it back into the soil. But we still get a crop out of it. Yeah. So, I think you’ve mentioned three things that I think are really interesting in terms of managing your crop or managing the pests. You’ve got a really diverse ecosystem in here. A lot of different plants densely planted. So, I’m sure that controls the spread of disease, but you also mulch heavily, which I guess keeps it clean. You also feed the soil um and feed the plant with em. Yeah. And use less water if you mulch. And we’ve also recently changed from drip um from microjets to drip line. Um so when you’re not getting that water spray on your leaves, that helps to control disease as well. Um the dense planting is a little controversial because they say you should allow airflow for disease control which I have done in the tomatoes now. Um they’re a bit further apart but mainly we’re just keeping the bottom leaves. Um we keep taking them off so that they don’t spread the disease. Uh there’s also something which I learned which was sacrificial plants. Um so you’ll often find if you plant a bed of rape, one or two of them will be attacked and you can actually just treat that one or two and then they might be attacked again. and you’re just letting those insects attack those plants, but the rest of your crop is okay. Um, and that’s kind of a natural selection. Those were weak plants, and if you had to pull them out completely, those insects will just spread to the rest. Yeah. So, there is something called sacrificial planting. And in terms of companion planting, are there any um combinations that you recommend? I’m still learning. I tend to just plant anything with anything and I see if it works or not and then next time I adjust. Um, my best so far has been basil with strawberries, basil with tomatoes, and the kale or rape with lettuce because of the shade. And um, nesters with anything. Uh, spring onions. Um the insects don’t touch this and they don’t get disease. So you could actually plant a row of these through your tomatoes um and will kind of deter insects. Basil deters it attracts beneficials and deters the damaging insects. Um yeah. So that’s a bit of a an ongoing experiment. Yeah. One thing I haven’t mastered is pumpkins. Mhm. I I can’t seem cuz I don’t want to spray them. And that’s when you start to realize when you can’t grow it yourself because you’re not spraying, how much are the ones you’re buying being sprayed? And that’s what I realized with tomatoes. It’s when you realize how diseased they get when you don’t spray them. That’s when you realize when you’re buying them from conventional shops, how much spray has gone on, how many chemicals. And these are heirloom, so they should actually be slightly more resilient. Yeah, they should be. These ones didn’t get the best start. I neglected them a bit. Um, these ones are doing a lot better. This is this a tomato? Like it’s such a unique shape. Yes. This is called a get stuffed tomato. So it’s it’s more like a paste tomato. It’s not so watery inside. So when you cook with it, you get that nice thick tomato paste. It’s hu they’re huge. And look at this. I love these purple ones. Yeah. Fantastic. So those are good. Um these ones are actually grown for stuffing. So you can cut them open, stuff them, and put them in the oven. The yellow ones. Yeah. All of those. There’s more in there. I saw a red one somewhere. Yeah, I see it. Do you? Oh, bless you. Over here. Yeah. So, these are the carrots plants. All right. So, are these your carrots? Did you plant these? Um, yeah. I helped one of them. You helped, Malcolm. It looks like there’s quite a few carrots. There’s too many. It’s quite dense. Yeah. Do you keep all of them? Uh, we’ll pick some out. Yeah. Yeah. Just to We probably should have spread them out a bit more. Or I suppose you could thin them out. Yeah. Yeah. We just see how it goes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, how long has it taken for those seeds to grow? Probably about a year. A month. A month. Yeah. It’s been very painstaking waiting for the carrots to grow because of the weather. Just because they take so long even I think regardless of whether they are slow crop. Are they a good summer crop or a good winter crop? Uh winter. um winter in the rains they get too many insects eating them and they rot um having said that I I do do them in the rains I find it’s fine just do whatever um and what else do we have in this garden we have the beets beetroots okay yeah I’m actually so surprised that they do much more better than carrots really because they’re both in the same season and it looks like they’re growing the same speed when they’re not. Yeah, you can see that those are definitely bigger. A lot bigger. Yeah. So, these were planted at the same time. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Well, about the same. About the same time. Yeah. And they look really healthy from where from where I am. There’s no Yeah. And we’ve we haven’t put anything on these except for the end. Um otherwise nothing. Okay. Yeah. So very low maintenance. But at the moment what is it you’re doing to to feed the soil actively intentionally? Mainly mulching and um dropping the lettuce and brassica leaves onto the soil, but also just rotation. So tomatoes deplete the soil really quickly. Um, so if after tomatoes you can get cabbages or broccoli or something like that in. It’s getting a bit late in the season now for those, but you can still do kale, lettuce. Um, something I’ve really enjoyed though is korabi. Look at that. Yeah. So, the leaves are edible too. Slightly sweeter than um, rape. I really love them. So yeah, if I’m picking and I’m not going to use them, I’ll just leave them on the bed. And then this, instead of pulling out the root, I’m just going to twist it. Leave the root in there to rot. And then you’ve got your korabi. Korabi. Actually, you could pick some purple kale, too. Oh, yes. Can you pick like three or four leaves? Little farmer. Hey. Yeah. And then like your brassacas and your rape get hammered by aphids. So like I need to come through here. There’s terrible aphids in there. There’s so much stink bugs in this. Oh. So for those I’ll come through with a little spray bottle. with a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid, a teaspoon of cooking oil, and the rest water. And you spray that. So that’s like a liter bottle. Liter spray bottle. Yeah. Yeah. They’re the aphids. So I did it about a month ago and I guess I’ve left it too long. So it needs to be when you’re doing organic stuff like that, it needs to be regular. M um so it is a bit of work. Every garden is work. Yeah. Don’t don’t listen to anyone who says it’s low maintenance. It’s never low maintenance. [Music]
2 Comments
I am learning new things everytime I watch your videos and inspired to grow whatever I can.❤
What a lovely lady . She is so relaxed…her son is so involved in the gardening…little farmer in the making🎉