This blog post is dedicated to all Switched ON Living members who enjoy gardening, and especially the ones with a vegetable garden.
For anyone who has done it, we know it’s a challenge to grow our own vegetables, even under the best conditions. There’s just so many things to think about – watering, weeding, when to plant, when to harvest, the weather, pests – and any mistake or mishap could prove disastrous.
But whatever challenges we might experience in Australia, they’re NOTHING compared with the obstacles facing Wissal Ben Moussa – she’s growing her vegetable garden is in the Sahara Desert.
Wissel and her family are literally turning the desert green. Located in a place called Guelmim, in the west of Morocco, it’s one of the most hostile environments on the planets.
But there she is, rightly proud of her little patch of abundance, an oasis in the vast nothingness of the Sahara, winning the battle against the heat, the wind, the poor soil and most especially the absence of water.
As we saw recentlyat Apricot Farm in southern California, Wissel and her family are using permaculture techniques to build soil productivity. As Wissel explains, the basics are simple enough – continually build the soil’s capacity to grow food through the constant use of green and animal manures and make intelligent use of the available water.
She
makes it sound so simple, but of course, we know it’s neither simple nor
common. Wissel’s most powerful weapon against the desert is her switched on
mindset:
- she recognised global climate change leadership is insufficient to address the problem
- she became as mad as hell and sought ways to make a difference
- she discovered permaculture
- she implemented and adapted permaculture techniques to the family farm
- she changed her immediate environment, and the course of her life.
It’s a text journey of discovery that’s exactly in tune with our Switched ON ethos.
There’s so much else for us to admire and takeaway from Wissel. First and foremost, there’s the sheer guts and determination to take on a project as daunting as farming in the desert.
Second, her willingness to try new techniques when faced with setbacks. Third, it’s the observation that people can recover from adversity and / or neglect just as well as the land can support a bounty if we support the land.
Wissel is wise and thoughtful well beyond her years. We wish her and her family All the Very Best.
One thing’s for sure, operating in the Sahara, they’re never going to run out of desert to bring back to productive life.
