The team at Wilderness Serra Cafema are very proud of their recently established vegetable garden, which they began nurturing in August 2022.
The project began due to the remoteness of the camp and the tricky logistics involved in getting fresh produce into camp – and this is before trucks are delayed! The ever-increasing cost of fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs got the team thinking about how they could help reduce costs themselves. The greatest incentive however, is to achieve 0% waste from their operations.
The project has been well received by the Serra Cafema team who are more than happy to dig in and assist. Gerrit, Serra Cafema’s Assistant Manager, is responsible for the planting, while Scullery staffer, Shorty, is in charge of watering and maintenance. All volunteers share a passion for gardening. The ever-growing vegetable garden already has an abundance of mint, parsley, rocket, tomatoes, pumpkin, beetroot, sweet potato, bush beans, lentils, green pepper, apples, lemons, oranges, avocado, sweet basil, papaya, sweet cane, onions, celery and spinach.
Inspired by their goal to reach 0% waste, in the kitchen, vegetable offcuts are frozen and used for soups, gravies and homemade chilli sauce. Potato peels are made into dried potato chips and served as bar or activity snacks. Ripe fruits are used to make delicious sorbets for deserts and the camp’s plate waste feeds the Himba dogs. Daily prep waste is added to the compost heap, which in turn is used to nourish the growing plants. This year’s beautiful and healthy pumpkins were grown with the garden’s compost.
The camp monitors its wastage stats very closely, and are incredibly proud of their achievements:
|
Month |
July |
August |
|
Prep Waste |
8 kg |
6.5 kg |
|
Bed Nights |
363 |
768 |
The Serra Cafema team is really motivated by the project as they can see the results of their hard work in the blossoming vegetable garden and the camp’s reduced wastage.
