Visit our Garden

Plant your own: heritage fruit orchard & veggie garden

The opportunity to plant a new garden fuels the daydreams of all aspiring gardeners. We invite the dreamers to join us during Garden Week for a masterclass on how to plant and successfully grow your very own heritage fruit orchard and vegetable garden.

For this workshop, we travel to Soetmelksvlei, a delightful new experience by Babylonstoren. Following a short ride along the picturesque slopes of Simonsberg, we’ll descend towards the historical Soetmelksvlei farmyard. Here, visitors are offered a glimpse of life before the turn of the 20th century through the immaculately recreated interiors of the Farmhouse and Old Cellar, as well as the garden.

The fruit orchards and veggie gardens are an integral part of the Cape Dutch werf – of equal significance to the animals in the kraal, the watermill, carpentry in the workshop and the mampoer distillery.

To portray farm life in the late 19th century, we selected old heritage fruit varieties that were grown at the Cape around 1897. Some cultivars are still grown and well known to gardeners, such as Fan Retief guavas, Cape rough lemons, Elberta peaches and Adam figs. Other cultivars had been tried at the Cape but never flourished, such as the December pear and Cox’s Orange Pippen apples. Mulberries, loquats and jambos, again, grew so readily that gardeners planted them but never bothered with named varieties for centuries!

Join us as we explore these and other intricacies, with practical tips on how to grow your own food at home, in honour of Garden Week.

Cape cookery: traditional melktert, melkkos & koesisters

Only 10 spaces available.

Milk tart is the unofficial national dessert of South Africa. It features in the traditional style – with a liberal sprinkle of cinnamon – at any self-respecting home industry store and in many South African home bakers’ recipe books. There’s even a dedicated national Milk Tart Day celebrated annually on 27 February. Join us in the heritage kitchen of Soetmelksvlei, a new Babylonstoren excursion, to celebrate and enjoy milk tart in all its delicious glory.

Following a short ride along the picturesque slopes of Simonsberg, we’ll descend towards the historical farmyard of Soetmelksvlei, which represents a time when life was simpler, and craftsmanship was treasured.

Here, master baker Martjie Malan will teach you the art of making traditional milk tart using the simplest of farm ingredients. We’ll also explore a variation on this recipe named melkkos (meaning “milk food”) and learn to bake traditional Cape Malay-inspired koesisters infused with sugar syrup and spice.

After a hands-on morning in the farm air, we’ll enjoy a hearty lunch in the Old Stables Restaurant before heading back to Babylonstoren.

Grow your own seasonal vegetables

Only 15 places available

Babylonstoren prides itself on the seasonal fruit and vegetables that abound in our garden, and we’re happy to share our secrets! Join Babylonstoren’s vegetable team in the veggie garden where they will demonstrate their top growing tips and tell you more about crop rotation, alternative methods for soil preparation, compost, mulches, propagation and planting.

At the start of the growing season in spring, we plant for summer. This is the season for rambling pumpkins, aubergines, tomatoes, baby marrows and basil – to name a few of the favourites. You’ll have the opportunity to get your hands dirty and sow some leafy greens before sitting down to lunch, made with ingredients fresh from our garden.

Steaming coffee from the Lekker Room is served upon arrival.
Lunch at the Greenhouse Restaurant is included.

Create a natural freshwater pond

Only 15 places available

A thriving freshwater pond in your garden creates a habitat for various animals and plants. A well-established pond becomes a functioning ecosystem, including amphibians, freshwater invertebrates, and attracts birds as well as small mammals and reptiles.

In this workshop, master botanist Ernst van Jaarsveld and conservation ecologist and entomologist Arné Stander will share their knowledge on creating such a ecosystem at home – from where to start, what substrates to use, what plants to plant, and what fish you can add to create a wonderful oasis in your garden.

_Steaming coffee from the Lekker Room is served upon arrival.
Lunch in the Greenhouse is included. _