Chapter 1: The Crags it is! 

Derek and I fell in love with this area as it ticked all my boxes for agreeing to go farming 1) Near a good hospital 2) Near a Woolworths/Checkers Blue line and 3) Near interesting people.

We started farm hunting and after many months and hard decisions and heart palpitations we bought a totally undeveloped piece of land. It only had unattended and badly damaged vines on it, but it had water. While this was going on someone said to Derek “you know you only have 20 good summers left” this shocked us into reality, and we ended up taking transfer of the farm in November 2019.

We are both over 60 and to be honest we may have more summers than 20 but they may not be quality summers - the farm 20 Good Summers was born!

Breaking Ground

We have done the unthinkable – we uprooted ALL the vines and are planting 3000 Soleta almond trees and 2000 new vines (Shiraz and Chardonnay). Everyone thinks we are stark raving mad, but we discovered that the fastest way to make a small fortune is to put a large fortune into a wine farm.

We broke ground in mid 2020 and have slowly been building our one-bedroom house, 4 guest units and a BIG barn. We have built a dam and prepared the ground for the arrival of the almonds and vines in July/August 2021. These will become productive in about 3 years time. In the interim we will offer wedding accommodation, a small venue hire option and a spot for hikers, bikers, and girl’s weekends. 

I never knew what hard work farming was! I thought you planted. Sat back and waited ! No, it is a fallacy. It is hard 24/7 work, but so rewarding. We are going totally off the grid and we are adding honey and veggies to our stable. I have done a fynbos foraging course and a bee keeping course to re train myself as I have always been in Corporate or a University Lecturer. A real career change at my ripe old age.

We will keep you updated as we progress and would love you to join us on our journey of 20 Good Summers and our exciting new chapter. Remember that the farm will still be called 20 Good Summers when we are 80!

Chapter 2: How Things Have Changed!

It has been 3 years since we moved to 20GoodSummers. What a JOURNEY! We are loving every moment of it. It is hard work but such fun and we have made incredible friends here, talk about different people ! We have also learned to drink MCC for breakfast.

The trees are looking magnificent and 2025 promises to be a wonderful crop if the baboons leave us alone ! They are already in again this year over the electric fence trashing the trees and eating the nuts !

The hives are up to 30 now and we / the bees produced about 350 kg’s of honey this year. We have also won 2 awards for our delicious golden nectar. 

The grapes are producing now, and Derek has put down 200 litres of Shiraz. This will be bottled as Red Wine vinegar or Shiraz at year end! We will see what it tastes like.

We have 7 sheep, 10 chickens, fish in the dam and a big veggie garden. The roses are LOVING living in The Crags, and I must say I am enormously proud of them. We have apple, nectarine, lemon, olive, peach, plum, fig, mulberry, lime, pomegranate, orange and grapefruit trees. We sell our honey, almonds and a home brewed pain oil, body butter and face cream.

Come and share our paradise as we continue to grow and embrace every precious moment of our 20 good summers.

Remember that the farm will still be called 20 Good Summers when we are 80! The OO in GOOD is the infinity sign so we never count down!