Phase 4 and 5 – Oct Nov 2017
The Johannesburg Development Agency on behalf of the City of Johannesburg established food gardens for Westbury and Bernard’s Isaacs Primary Schools.
Skills Transfer – 2 visits per month, School Visits Maintenance, Food Garden Workshop, Establishing a kiddies gardening club.
A great deal of enthusiasm has been shown by teachers, pupils and community from both schools and communication via WhatsApp has been excellent. Attendance is high in both food gardens and food garden maintenance tasks such as watering are done on a regular basis. Tasks during school visits included amongst others pruning of plants, watering and tiding up the food gardens as well as mulching all raised beds and planting.
The kids gardening club has been steadily growing in both schools and involvement from both teachers and students has been fantastic. The chance to practice what is taught in science and biology classes coupled with the excitement of growing and harvesting your own food has resulted in great participation from students at both schools.
After an impressive harvest which was given to the schools’ respective food banks, a second round of planting took place in both gardens to ensure a consistent harvest. The principles of successive planting were taught during the school visits and workshop, giving teachers and students the tools and knowledge to not only maintain the food gardens but also keep up the production year-round. Other principles, such as seed saving, were also introduced to minimize costs while keeping the food gardens green and productive.
The highlight of this journey is getting recognition from a local newspaper covering the success of the Food Gardens.
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