RESTORE NATURE NEWSLETTER

November 2025

Final newsletter text

Dear Reader

In this letter I will outline my experience of Uganda. I apologize for missing so many newsletters. I've been working on two big illustration projects with hard deadlines in the last few months and not going into my garden much except to water, and thus had little to write about.

But in September I was extremely privileged to go on a trip to Uganda to meet the authors of the book I'm working on currently. I have been following a Ugandan homesteader who lives in Kampala for quite a while. I look at pictures of the city Kampala and I see a nation of gardeners. Everything is so green, streets lined with big trees, parks, botanical gardens and more. As luck would have it I spent the time at Entebbe, very close to Kampala. I was not disappointed in the gardening ethos of Ugandans. We stayed on the shores of lake Victoria, less than 1 degree north of the equator, and the resort had the most wonderful garden of which the manager and staff are extremely proud.

Outside the gate the farms started. I will describe the plants I saw in the accompanying article.

We went for one trip to a market in Entebbe and I saw the town by daylight. There were garden plots everywhere with bananas, taro and cassava. Every spot that could bring a yield was utilised.

We went to visit a local permaculture homestead with hundreds of different plants from coffee to capsicum trees and specializing in spice and aromatic plants from all around the world. They had a boutique on the main road which sold teas, fruit smoothies and other delicious, healthy products.

In the small homestead garden they grew coffee, mulberry, paw paw, mango, yarrow, artemisia, rosemary, rocket, parsley, mint, amaranth, French lavender, lemon verbena, hyssop, chamomile, feverfew, spearmint, apple mint, wormwood, sage, holy basil, Cuban oregano, garden rue, night blooming jasmine, arabian jasmine, chervil, cardamom, cinnamon (apparently the leaves have better flavor) chard, pumpkins, a unique land race of grenadilla, small round eggplants, tobacco, taro, avocado, some kind of tree tomato with small round red berries and white flowers that I've never seen before. For the goats, chickens and cattle there were algae growing in a tank as high nutrient feed.

At the market the produce was very low priced and the vendors looked like they work really hard for a living. I bought some dried hibiscus tea pods. They make a delicious red tea. The tiny finger length bananas are also delicious. Their banana flavour and creaminess is intense compared to the Cavendish we're used to in the rest of the world.

Some people I met in Uganda are concerned about the regional markets and hoping that governments and cities will do more to promote and improve the regional markets which provide work to so many people.I will comment more on this in the article.

I had many conversations with a member of staff at the resort about his grandfather who died at the age of 115. The old man did many strange things, and I'd love to elaborate on these habits which may have accounted for his longevity. Its time Africa's blue zones are studied.

All in all, Uganda is a paradise for gardeners. It is such a beautiful country, I didn't feel like coming home.

Topic suggestions welcome

You may write to me anytime at the website greenidiom by filling out a comment. You can also use my webmail (website mail) address greenidi@greenidiom.com.

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