Mitchell’s Plain home gardeners have tasted the sweetness of their labour and will soon reap the rewards in an annual competition.

The contestants completed the Soil for Life home food gardening programme last year and have been tending to their gardens and practising what they had learnt in their backyard, community and container gardens.

The annual Soil for Life Pat Featherstone Awards will be held in Constantia on Friday August 23.

The late Pat Featherstone founded the organisation, which runs programmes in Mitchell’s Plain, Philippi, Delft, Lavender Hill, Retreat and Steenberg.

Home food garden nominee Arthur Maart, 60, from Rocklands.

Home food garden nominee Arthur Maart, 60, from Rocklands, last week started cleaning a garden patch he shares with five other people to grow more carrots, onions, lettuce, chillies, coriander and spinach.

He spent R250 on seedlings and has saved some seeds, as learnt during the course last year.

He planted the seedlings on Thursday August 8 and is looking forward to seeing more green leaves than brown soil in a few weeks.

“It is a passion of mine to work with the earth and to see my hard work grow.”

Mr Maart says his 12-year-old grandson, who lives with him and enjoys the taste of the organic vegetables brought home, wants to be a farmer.

“So, I share what I have learnt with them at home. Some of it we sell and we also give to the feeding scheme.

“I feel very happy when I work in the garden. I feel that peace, and the more you put in the more you get to learn.”

He says he wants to help and teach other garden enthusiasts.

“To me, life began at 60. The garden has not let me down, and with the help of God, with the strength, I will go on to plant and share my skills with others.”

Ruwayda Adonis, 56, another nominee from Rocklands, sells some of her crop and shares some with her neighbours.

Ruwayda Adonis, 56, another nominee from Rocklands, sells some of her crop and shares some with her neighbours.

The front of her house is filled with brightly coloured hanging pot plants and flowers.

“The family is very impressed with my garden. Every Eid they come take photographs here.”

She has harvested carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, spinach, beetroot, celery and parsley.

“They (the neighbours) see what I grow and what I have started like a community garden, around the corner from my house. So, they come ask for this and that.”

Ms Adonis says it is not just about planting but about the passion and love that go with it.

“You must also know what you are doing and use what you have to grow your garden.”

She had cleared a dump site and started a community garden.

Shaheedah Abrahams, 67, a home food garden nominee in Rocklands.

Shaheedah Abrahams, 67, another nominee in Rocklands, uses whatever she can lay her hands on to plant.

Inside an old doll house, she has a patch of cabbages. In a play splash pool, she grows herbs and in a tyre there are tomatoes growing.

“My garden keeps me busy. You can’t have stress if you have a garden.”

Ms Abrahams says her produce allows her to share with others and that it has exceeded her expectations.

“When we make sandwiches, we can come to the garden and pick some lettuce leaves, tomato and carrots for salad.”

Soil for Life facilitator Joy Erasmus, of Westridge, says the course teaches recycling and how to use peels, pips and cartons to grow and replenish gardens.

The silver on the inside of crisp packets can be shredded and used as a deterrent for birds and insects.

“Earthworms can flourish in the compost bin and aerate the soil,” she says.

Later this month Soil for Life will run another 12-week home food gardening programme, and Ms Erasmus, will be recruiting for it at Westridge Gardens tomorrow, Thursday August 15, at 11am.

For more information and to register, call her on 060 820 6121.

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