24/04/2026
We aim to create an environment that promotes biodiversity, so it was exciting to spot a toad in the vegetable garden at night. 🐸
Toads are fantastic allies in a vegetable garden, acting as natural pest control. A single toad can consume thousands of insects in a season, helping protect plants without chemical pesticides. They’re also highly sensitive to pesticides, herbicides and environmental toxins, so their presence is often a sign of a healthy, living system.
Truth be told, we’re not often in the garden at night, and seeing this toad made us realise that biodiversity is already here, right around us, often unnoticed.
That’s very much what the City Nature Challenge is about: looking a little closer, making observations, and documenting the life that surrounds us. From today until Monday, you can log observations in to help highlight and protect urban wildlife. Every year, cities around the world take part in this friendly challenge to see who can record the most observations and find the most species. In Swellendam, you can join the Overberg group and contribute to the challenge.
And in support of the Swellendam Tree Walk being developed by the Swellendam Conservancy, we’re offering up to 15% off our sausages and charcuterie at the market tomorrow. 🤩 Just show us your observations of trees in iNaturalist. They must be visible from the road within a 1 km radius around the market. 🌳
Many of these trees may have been planted by residents rather than occurring wild, but they support a host of species and are no less important.🐦⬛
Make the most of the beautiful autumn weather - go exploring, take photos, and log your observations in iNaturalist. Every observation helps build a living atlas of our local biodiversity.
Come show us what you’ve found. 🌳 See you tomorrow, at the
