Salt River Community Food Garden

07/04/2020

"Free Online Training - Thursday, April 9, 11 am PST

Two weeks ago, we held a webinar on Building Your Pandemic Victory Garden and the response was so overwhelming, my colleagues and I decided to host a followup webinar on a related, urgent topic: Rapid Soil Building.

If you want to have a thriving garden up and running quickly, creating fertile soil is vital.

You don’t want to have to rely on store-bought compost that is expensive and toxic, especially if it lacks the fertility to grow healthy plants.

In Thursday's webinar, we want to introduce five ways you can start building soil rapidly right now, and introduce you to biochar, compost extract, practical soil biology, and even more gardening techniques.

This will help show you how grow to the best plants possible, as fast as possible, without expensive inputs.

This will be an exciting opportunity to learn and put ideas into action, and get food and medicine growing in your garden as soon as possible.

Just click below to sign up..."

Join Brian Vaag, Erik Ohlsen, Peter Hirst, Katharine Hinson and other Soil Professionals as they show case studies for how to rapidly build soil in times of Emergency and Beyond. Learn about: Biochar Soil Biology Restoration Biological Extract Topsoil Building Most importantly, walk away with 5 thin...

03/04/2020

Just leaving this here...

Other food production and distribution also included

04/03/2020

When Jamiah Hargins moved to the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles in 2015, he planted a backyard garden so he and his family (wife Ginnia and daughter Triana) could enjoy fruits and vegetables.

But that small plot produced more than they could eat. Not wanting all the herbs, lemons, and beans to go to waste, Jamiah posted on Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social network, to gauge his neighbors' interest in a crop swap.

The turnout was substantial.

Fifteen people showed up, bearing armfuls of artichokes, kale, onions, and pumpkins from their small backyards and container gardens...

When Jamiah Hargins grew too many lemons and herbs, he created an informal crop swap that has turned into an official farmers market in his Los Angeles community.

25/02/2020

A dumping site in Salt River, Cape Town has been transformed into a flourishing community food garden.

The founder of UK NGO Progress London, Simon David Ghartey, said the life-changing project was made a reality because of funding from organisations like UNICEF South Africa.

The thinking behind it was to educate communities about conserving their environment so as to benefit from it...

A dumping site in Salt River Cape Town has been transformed into a flourishing community food garden.

25/02/2020

'...Statistics from UNICEF estimate that as many as two-thirds of children live below the line of poverty in South Africa, and as many as 1 in 3 of them experience violence.

Unfortunately, the statistics are increasing – with lifeline prevalence rates over 30% due to substance abuse, orphanhood, HIV, gun violence, gangsterism and a high youth unemployment rate of 63%.

If you go to bed hungry every night, life as a thief or a gangster may not seem like a bad idea.

According to local sources in Cape Town, young boys are often pushed into a life of crime by their superiors. These boys are young and vulnerable and are often left feeling like they have no choice.

If you pay closer attention, you can see this happening all around you. Take a walk down to the lovely Muizenberg beach-promenade, for example. Young boys may approach you to ask for money – then before you even have time to turn around, they run straight back to their “boss”, handing over all the money you just gave them.

Some of these children may end up dropping out of school to work for gangsters. They start selling drugs and end up with an addiction.

Without any safe network to fall back on and with no money, it is a difficult situation to get out of...'

Community projects have a major impact on their surroundings and are indeed platforms for change. They bring people together, are educational and create hope. Often, they serve as a safe haven in a challenging environment.

23/02/2020

The Promised Garden

There is a garden where our hearts converse,
At ease beside clear water, dreaming
A whole and perfect future for yourself,
Myself, our children and our friends.

And if we must rise and leave,
Put on identity and fight,
Each day more desperate than the last
And further from our future, that
Is no more than love and respect shown
To all blocked from the garden that we own.

There is a garden at the heart of things,
Our oldest memory guards it with her strong will.
Those who by love and work attain there
Bathe in her living waters, lift up their hearts and
Turn again to share the steep privations of the hill;
They walk in the market but their feet are still.

There is a garden where our hearts converse,
At ease beside clear water, dreaming
A whole and perfect future for yourself,
Myself, our children and our friends.

~Theo Dorgan

22/02/2020

22/02/2020

A selection of photos from the grand garden opening on a cool, wet, Saturday afternoon...

22/02/2020

Cape Town - The remarkable transformation could be straight out of a reality TV show. Taking a rubbish-infested piece of land and turning it into a designer food garden.

This community food garden project was launched in Salt River with the hopes of encouraging local people to beautify and conserve their environment.

The garden project was launched through the partnership of local and international organisations, including Rainbow Warriors International, Baz-Art, Unicef South Africa and Progress London.

The local community also played a vital role in making the gardening project a reality. Founder of UK-based NGO Progress London, Simon Ghartey was interviewed by local radio station, Cape Talk about the establishment of the garden...

This community food garden project was launched in Salt River with the hopes of encouraging local people to beautify and conserve their environment.

22/02/2020

Cape Talk interview with Simon David Ghartey, founder of Progress London, about the new Salt River Community Garden, a collaboration among UNICEF South Africa, Progress London, Baz-Art, Rainbow Warriors International and many members of the Salt River community.

A community garden has been set up in the Saltriver neighbourhood and is the joint collaboration of Rainbow Warriors International, Baz-Art, Unicef South Africa, Progress London, and the Salt River community itself. Refilwe Moloto speaks to Simon Ghartey, founder of the UK-based Progress.

22/02/2020

For the past 40 years, this site in the middle of Salt River, Cape Town, had been used as a horse stables, storage facility, a motor vehicle workshop and a drug den, complete with pack of vicious dogs.

At some point, about 25 years ago, people in the neighbourhood say it got burned to the ground, and became an illegal dumping site.

On Thursday 6 February 2020, with the blessing of Salt River community leaders, a group of began to chop, dig up and remove about 2 - 3 feet of highly compacted rubbish - building rubble, broken glass, plastic, old clothes, tins, photos, love letters, kids toys, papers, used nappies, used hypodermic needles, a couple of dead animals - all mixed up with tough grass.

For our core team of local youths and casual workers, it was a hard week of slogging away in wild wind, swirling dust and blazing sun, but we eventually broke the back of it, and things soon began to look much better.

By Sunday 16 October, one section of this space had been transformed into a community food garden and learning centre, and the other was taking shape as a new children's safe play area.

Under the guidance of art2uplift/Flowers for Africa, both spaces were enlivened by wall art produced by community members of all ages.

This was a collaborative project involving Salt River community members, Progress London (Founder: Simon David Ghartey,) Baz-Art , UNICEF South Africa, Rainbow Warriors International (Founder: Ryan Fortune) and Luc van der Walt and Kimberley Cattaneo, founders of art2uplift.