FARM TO TABLE

Past village life centred around small-scale subsistence farming. Mixed farming allowed people to be very self-sufficient, leading them to share their surplus with one another. Their own wheat was grown, taken to be milled and stored in sacks. Farmers had their own stills for brandy, made their own wine, and had their own ‘mos’ cellars, of which there were several in the village.

Oom Krisjan Geldenhuys:

Times were tough in those days. We understood what hard work was. Money was scarce and everyone raised their children through living with the land. Then we could still take our mielies to the Mill to get ground into flour, which was baked into bread which we ate.

Tommy Panye: 

We lived here ‘from the ground’, everyone had a small holding and grew their own fruit and vegetables. There was no big business.

HOUSE POSITIONS

On a village walk one can observe that many McGregor houses are positioned close to the road, and often in the corner of a property. This was to maximise the area available for crop production and so that water could be gravity-fed past the houses on higher ground and down towards crops on the lower land.

QUINCE HEDGES

Streets were lined with quince hedges, some of which are still there today. These were planted as a distraction to keep cattle and pigs from eating valuable crops on the plots behind them. Pips were made into a medicinal syrup during an enteritis endemic.

COWS

The graceful dairy cows of McGregor have always provided milk both for personal use and also as a source of income. Milk cans were left early in the morning on the roadside and collected daily, then delivered to the Nestlé factory in Robertson. Today a few local cows graze the open vacant plots and slowly meander down the streets keeping the grass verges neat and tidy.

SWEET POTATOES & CABBAGES

Sweet potatoes have always been a staple crop in McGregor and cabbages were planted later, as a cash crop. The two are hardy and suitable to the local climate and are good for use in crop rotation. Soil nutrients, particularly nitrogen, are replenished by alternating legumes, which improves the soil structure, with deep-rooted vegetables.

MULBERRIES

The lower side of the village along Barry Street, particularly on the left-side, used to be called Moerbeibakkie or simply Bakkies, named after the mulberries that once grew there in abundance, and which were sold in bakkies or punnets. Wild mulberry trees are still common in McGregor, and their leaves make quite a statement as they go shocking yellow in the autumn.

HORSES

Horses are the dominant animal within the village today and form a link with the renowned horse breeding and stud farms in the Breede River Valley. Once a key aspect of subsistence farming, paddocks with horses are now a symbol of village gentrification. They do evoke the same feeling of open space as the fields of crops once did and so continue the semi-rural legacy of McGregor within the village.