Teaching children from a young age how to create and maintain a vegetable garden is not only an educational experience but also serves as a way to introduce them to the wonders of nature. It also helps them develop life skills.
This is according to Sharon Hewer, acting vice-principal of Meyerton Primary School. Sharon is the brain behind the school’s vegetable garden project, which is now well underway thanks to the help of a parent and a farmer who supplied bulbs for the veggie garden.
The vegetable garden, which was created on a piece of land between classrooms on the school grounds, is about 22 m in length and 8.3 m in width and will soon produce its first harvest of spinach, radishes, spring onions, peppermint, rosemary, and strawberries. The vegetables harvested will be used to feed the school’s children. Learners from the school helped with the planting and watering bulbs on Mandela Day, July 18, under the supervision of staff.
The children will henceforth be responsible for maintaining the vegetable garden. Mzi Madlanga, the school’s gardener, will assist and ensure that the plants get enough water and that the children look after the vegetable garden. According to Sharon, the vegetable garden project was a long-standing dream of the school. The dream became a reality when Nomsa Mninzi, a parent of two Meyerton Primary pupils, became involved in the project. Nomsa, the owner of 316 Farming, a family farm in Nelsonia, Meyerton, that farms vegetables and onions, is currently running a project. It aims to establish vegetable gardens at schools with the aim of promoting agriculture in schools and teaching children where the food we eat comes from. Nomsa farms with herbs such as coriander, baby spinach, wild rocket, rocket, rosemary, tarragon, basil, and mint, as well as other vegetables such as spinach, butternut squash, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage. She donated plants to the school’s vegetable garden project.
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