Timeless Dames of De Kaap Valley

Adri Henn: A life immersed in Lowveld roots

Meet Barberton’s very own Lowveld legend, Adri Henn, a woman whose life has taken her from a humble background to running one of the region’s most authentic natural-produce farms.

Adri Henn, the woman whose life is deeply woven into Lowveld history, from mission hospitals to self-sufficient farming, reflecting the roots that still shape the Barberton community today. All photos provided by Adri.

Few people embody the spirit of the Lowveld quite like Barberton’s own Adri Henn. Born into the Bothma family, her journey spans mission hospitals, forest settlements, slate-and-inkpot classrooms, a lifetime of family bonds, and ultimately a return to the land she never stopped longing for.

Today, her legacy continues through her thriving natural-produce enterprise, a humble but powerful celebration of healthy living and healthy food.

Adri making fruit salad with her grandchildren. From the oldest to the youngest: Millah, Lilly-belle, Iliah, Khairein and Sias.

Adri was born in 1950 at a mission hospital in Acornhoek and spent her earliest years on a farm bordering the Kruger National Park and in Kampersrus. Her father later sold the farm and moved the family to White River, but fate pulled Adri to one of the most unusual early schooling experiences imaginable: a multi-grade classroom in Kaapschehoop.

Her mother, being a teacher, found herself educating Grades 1 to 4 or 5 in a single room, each row representing a different grade. The headmaster, the only other teacher, handled the senior primary learners. Life in Kaapschehoop in 1955 was utterly remote: three or four log cabins, no electricity, no shops, misty mornings, and bees everywhere.

Adri remembers the slatted log cabins attracting swarms of bees so persistently that she seldom went a day without a sting. The children wrote on slates with a griffel (a slate pencil), wiped clean with a wet rag, and used little inkwells cut into their old wooden desks. On particularly dark mornings, the children were taught by candlelight.

On this farm, everyone lends a hand. Here, Iliah and Sias are helping make tomato trellises (driepote).

When the Kaapschehoop teacher returned, the family moved back to a forestry farm on the Spioenkop road, ground that today forms part of Kabokweni, where her father and brother ran a sawmill and her mother taught at Rob Ferreira. Her sister became head prefect at the school in 1959. As Adri puts it, “We were Lowvelders through and through.”

Childhood idylls eventually gave way to change. During her first year of high school, the family relocated to the Northern Cape, a devastating move for someone whose heart was anchored so firmly in the Lowveld landscape. She later studied in Johannesburg, married, and raised her children there, but the longing for her birthplace never faded.

A farm wouldn’t be complete without a tame farm animal. Here is Adri with Sias and Iliah and the “no-name" rooster.

In 1998, the opportunity finally came when Adri purchased a farm on the R38, allowing her to return permanently to the Lowveld. Though her children were city born and raised, they chose to move with her, later marrying and settling in the region themselves. Today, her grandchildren are proudly growing up as “Slowvelders”, as she affectionately calls them.

Before moving to Barberton, Adri had already begun experimenting with horticulture by running a small nursery at her home in Halfway House.

Gladys and Winile hard at work at a stall at the Farmers’ Market held in Kaapschehoop.

Once settled on the R38 farm, with her son now working alongside her fulltime, she expanded into vegetable production. But not just any vegetables: produce grown entirely without chemicals, fertilisers, and pesticides. The farm produces only organic products.

What emerged was Farm in a Box, a quiet but impactful food venture supplying Barberton, Nelspruit, and White River with fresh, nutrient-rich produce.

Winile, Bongani, Adri and Gladys at the Farmers’ Market in Kaapschehoop.

Over the years, Adri has built a reputation for pure, slow-grown food:

Vegetables free from any chemical interference;
Stone-ground, non-GMO flour from the Cape;
Handmade bread, rolls, pizza bases, and pasta;
Naturally fermented pickles;
Yogurt and pastured meat sourced from Schoemansdal.

It is, as she says, “Your one-stop healthy diet shop.”

Adri’s life reads like a tapestry woven through decades of Lowveld history, from mission hospitals and lion-attack legends to self-sufficient farming and family legacy. Her story is a reminder of the deep personal roots that continue to nourish the Barberton community today.

Customers can 👉 shop online or join her 👉 WhatsApp group, Farm in a Box (by request), for weekly orders and updates.