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RIVING through Lesotho in the rain, a friend and I took a wrong turning and after a few kilometres of slip-sliding along we were brought to a halt by the sight of the most splendid vegetable garden down the slope that my car seemed eager to explore.

I just had to inspect it, for while every rural home in Lesotho has some attempt at gardening — a peach tree, some maize and pumpkins — this one was more ambitious.

It was owned by Ntate Ramothepane Tsehla, 78, and his wife Me Manyakallo, 67, pictured below right. They showed me their long beds of maize, spinach and pumpkins, all rudely verdant after good rains. Below were the ubiquitous peach trees: in Lesotho they are not pruned by garden-manual rules, and the branches droop with ripening yellow fruit.

But what caught the eye were three or more strange circular vegetable beds, built up with stones around a void like a slice cut out of a pie.

Spinach and other vegetables bushed out of the beds as if on some market table displaying living plants for you to harvest. After expressing our admiration, we delighted them by buying a bunch of beetroot pulled at request. They had plenty more, and the excess was or could be a source of income.

The building of keyhole