The workshop space combines whimsy with mementos from past classes, a trove of preserved forages, and a practical backbone of local botanical reading.
Before everyone settles down for a class all eyes are on the signature cake—a flower-decked, herb-scented confection—on a boozy sideboard.
Botanical classes begin with a table side introduction to the species under discussion, with samples of local flora such as aromatic pelargoniums and agathosma being passed hand to hand and sniffed appreciatively.
A stroll through the nursery grounds and example gardens yields a domestic forage of edible weeds like nettles and sow thistle, and vegetables pulled straight from the vegetable garden.
On an early spring forage a local delicacy abounds: Trachyandra ciliata (top), known in Afrikaans as veldkool, or field cabbage.
After all the forages are washed, the cabin classroom is transformed into a communal kitchen.
Over the course of the next hour a meal of several courses materializes, bolstered by good butter and local bread.
When in doubt, make pesto.