NIELS COLESKY, OWNER GUY
That thing about taking it in with mother’s milk – well, that’s what happened. Back when In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry was a big hit, and cool people were saying “far out” and calling cash “bread”, I was travelling Somerset West in a carry cot on the back seat of a Alfa My mother was driving, the lawnmower was in the boot, and my father, though he was some way off adding his butch plot-clearing service to the business, was sort of in the recycling business: he was the Klawer-based King of retreading tyres.
From my back seat, I couldn’t help learning everything there is to know about lawns and edges and hedges, and everything else that goes with gardening, and running a garden service. I cut my first lawn when I was 5 (Victa lawnmowers were the hot new beasts in SA). They made me wait a lot longer before I was allowed my first chainsaw.
Between 1970 and now, I have been in and out of the business. In my high school years, it kept my Suzuki GT50 on the road (and cigarettes in my pocket). I finished school, and headed off, pretty sure I had planted my last lawn. But eight years later, in late 1999, I rejoined the business.
The lure might have something to do with the fact that the year I was born, 1970, was also the first Earth Day www.earthday.net/. It was a sign. If there’s one thing that makes my knees week, it’s the smell of earth. More specifically, the smell of compost. To most, compost is, well, just the shit you put on your garden to me it is one of the solutions to the world’s problems.
I know shit!
This site tells you about Eating Gardens, and Green Gro Gardens. Anything more you want to know, call me on:
021 852 1595
082 77 33 849
Or drop me an email
FATHER “call me David” MATHINI, TEAM LEADER
David heads up the lawn team. He has been with the business since before I took it over. Customers love him, and my dream is that one day, in the not-too-distant future, he takes on a stronger partnership role.
JOSEPH “Joey” AFRICA
(pictured here with Lewis xxxxx, the other half of my dream tree team, directing operations on an assignment in the Karoo)
Joey has been with the business on and off since I was about 12. There is virtually nothing I can tell him about his job.
Joey sets very high standards for himself and – despite our annual employer/ymployee fall, there are very few people in this world I respect more. He celebrated his first hangover by vowing never to drink again… something we all have done, I suppose, except Joey has never drunk again. Oh, and if you ever want an honest explanation of why we lost the rugby, Joey is the guy to ask.
Picture to come
GERALD “China” FREDERICKS
I was seven years old when China joined the business – in fact, he was one of the assets to came with Green Gro Gardens when my father bought it. Had he had my education, I am sure he would have gone on to be an engineer. Gerald’s greatest gift to me was teaching me how to use a chainsaw.
Picture to come
BREEZE KILANI
Breeze joined the business about five years ago. He is a masterful brush cutter operator, and stronger than an ox – he is the personification of black power. Breeze has days when he drives me insane but he has a charm and humour about him that makes his presence in my business something I would rather not do without.
HAZEL MUGFORD, PERMACULTURE QUEEN
I met Hazel by mistake, at the far end of a “gentle” riverside ride that had a few hills savage enough to make the scones she was baking and the coffee she was brewing smell like the promised land. Read all about it here. She runs an extraordinary guest farm and permaculture facility www.wildolivefarm.co.za near Stilbaai (and if you go along for a weekend, make sure you have some of her home-made apricot jam with your scones. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.)
We’ve teamed up on permaculture: Hazel is probably the most highly trained consultant and designer in the country (though she’s not satisfied: as you read this she’s planning another trip to the UK to add to her qualifications). And those chickens you’ll be temporarily hosting if you choose to go the permaculture dome route? They’re Hazel’s: they travel.
HEATHER PARKER, BEAUTIFUL BULLY
“I just don’t know why it has to be so difficult,” is what Heather recently had to say about my business.
So she became my business consultant, using Eating Gardens as the subject of a thesis for her Executive MBA course. Ho Ho, bubba. In a short time there has been lots of hair pulling and rivers of tears.
Not really. The process has awakened me to opportunities and given me what my business needs most… excitement. Things within my setup that I just had not seen, are suddenly so evident I’m falling over them. Even my compost has responded: between Heather and Hazel it’s too frightened to just lie around doing nothing.
In her real life, Heather is a journalist, editor and media strategist.