Puschka Farm

One of the most beautiful areas on the South African landscape is indeed the Magaliesberg, and Puschka Farm is part of this as a working organic farm. On Puschka farm we focus on self-sufficiency and sustainable farming practices.

Puschka Organic Farm in the Magaliesberg

Self-Sufficiency

Of course we have our own vegetable and herb garden and try to eat like “locavores” ie either our own produce or that which has been locally produced by our neighbours. We grow our own wheat and rye from which we make our own wholewheat bread and pasta & also grow non GMO mielies - what would life be without bread & 'pap'?.

This year we bottled 250 bottles of tomatoes (just about enough pasta sauce for a year!) as well as some beetroot, beans, peaches and figs. We also froze enough pumpkin, beans and onions to keep us going when we do not have fresh available.

We have chicken and turkey meat, beef from our indigenous Nguni cattle , lamb from our Meatmaster sheep  & milk to make butter & cheese from our Dexter cattle.

Sustainable Farming

Since the major 3 year drought in our area we no longer from commercially but we still prattise Organic & Permaculture princeples on the food we grow & raise.This means that weeding is a nightmare! We cannot use herbicides as other farmers do and thus must use hand weeding and inter row mowing. 

Fertilisers must be certified organic and these are expensive so we use a lot of manure from our own Nguni cattle, eatmaster sheep, chickens and turkeys. We make compost and also use earthworms casts. We rotate our crops and use legumes such as cow peas as a green manure.

Pesticides must also be organically certified but we also make our own from garlic, chillies and wood from the local cork bush.

We would like to become less reliant on ESKOM but that will take time as our power supply infrastructure is geared towards ESKOM usage and to change it is going to be very costly. We do however heat most of our water using "donkies" fired with wood from alien trees on the farm and, except for Puschka House, have replaced the electric geysers in our cottages with these donkies or solar geysers. Also our Stone and Writer's  Cottages are  completely 'off the grid' & have a 12 volt solar systems.

Apart from providing us with manure, meat and an income our Nguni cattle and goats are used to help control bush encroachment. They are good browsers and readily eat the new shoots and small bushes.