Herbalist Netanya Naude is a woman with green fingers

A cup of herbal tea a day keeps the doctor away, says a local entrepreneur who went from a rural and farm lifestyle to city life after learning from God, elders and experiences off the grid.

Netanya Naude was born in Virginia in the Free State and grew up in small mining communities between Carletonville in Gauteng and Potchefstroom in the North West. Naude says she has always relied on trading her skills for survival because she struggled to get a well-paid job. It was also the reason why she started growing edible and medicinal plants.

“If you don’t have formal education, you cannot get a proper job,” she says.

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Naude says in 2012 she went through a bout of depression that had her heading into the hills, where she lived for a year and a half.

“I ended up homeless, living in between Greyton and McGregor in a two-man tent. That’s when my journey with various tribes and elders started. A Rastafari elder taught me how to grow food, make the soil healthier and use plants in herbal tea remedies for things like headaches or period pains,” she says.

Naude says it wasn’t easy to find food in the bush.

“I foraged various maroga dishes and herbal teas before I knew all the minerals and vitamins in herbs and teas. The teas kept me alive when I didn’t have much meat or vegetables to eat. I was living on herbs, pasta, pap and popcorn,” she says.

Ironically Naude, who was terrified of horses, was left alone with a horse by the Rastas one day. She never dreamed the animal she feared would lead her to a blessing.

ALSO READ: 10 herbs to cure inflammation (and how to grow them yourself)

“After a big storm, I heard the horse making strange sounds. The horse got stuck trying to escape the storm and when I eventually got the courage together to free the horse, it revealed a potato patch to me. It came at a very necessary time because I needed food,” she says.

“I learned that sometimes you have to face your fears to get to your blessings.”

Bulbinella

The first plant Naude learnt about was the Bulbinella.

“Living in the bush in a tent, you get bitten by mosquitoes. They showed me the plant and how to use the sap to remove the itch from the bite within three minutes. There are other medicinal uses for it too, it is an antibacterial and antiseptic plant that you can use to clean out wounds and use as plaster and it helps prevent scarring,” she says.

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Naude started growing vegetables and herbs to stay alive and had spinach, carrots, beans and herbs such as sage, basil and oregano and mint.

“Then I started with potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and gem squashes,” she adds.

Naude says out of all the vegetables, she loved growing bush beans the most.

“Bush beans don’t need maintenance and help heal the soil and have a high yield, which means you can harvest about once a week and this gives you enough time to start a succession crop. There are a big variety of beans, butter beans, contender beans, scarlet-red runner beans, and purple blauhilda beans,” she says.

‘Green fingers’

Despite having green fingers and having all the knowledge about plants, there is one plant Naude struggled to grow – rosemary.

“Every time I try to plant it, it dies. It has happened more times than I can count. Rosemary is the type of plant that wants to be left alone and doesn’t want a lot of water. Because of my interaction with plants, maybe I give it too much or too little attention,” she says.

ALSO READ: Ideal time to sow some herbs

Naude’s best harvest was an orange pumpkin that grew as big as half a tyre. Her love for tea also started in the bush. The first tea she made from herbs was pineapple sage tea. Naude says selling tea had led her to different provinces and farms that booked her to present workshops to train staff to start gardens.

“I traded my skills for land use, so I could grow my teas,” she says.

Naude says the best tea she made was the Sereni-tea which was good for headaches, stress relief and an anti-inflammatory.

“There is still a lot of taboo around herbalism in South Africa because many link herbal remedies to witchcraft, sangomas or hippies. The herbalism I studied and what I learnt from the elders had nothing to do with magic or voodoo,” she says.

“It is a challenge to address this mindset daily.”

– marizkac@citizen.co.za