A Hydroponic garden for Riversands school.

In January I got a big surprise when the students of Grundfos chose the Riversands vegetable garden as their end of year project.

Grundfos already sponsored the Riversands Feeding and Garden project with a new pump, tanks and a computer for the borehole pump.

Now the students asked me what I would need to improve on the garden , Dudley Willer, their manager told me about a project he was involved, years ago in Swaziland where they built a Hydroponic garden for a school.

I had never heard about Hydroponic gardening and went on the internet to do some research, I discovered that if we could start this kind of gardening, we would be able to grow double the amount of vegetables in our garden, if we would be able to do this right , it would make it all a lot easier, I would not have all the troubles with the poor soil and it would solve our problems with the water as long as we would have enough water to top up the tank for the hydroponic garden.

In the long run it would be cheaper to run the garden as long as the students of Grundfos could manage to install this whole Hydroponic system.

In March they presented Shirley and me with 2 different kind of systems,they had all put many hours of work in researching this kind of gardening, we chose one system and all the students went to work to make this into a reality, they begged their "employers" of the companies where they did their in-service training for donations for the materials, piping+connections,tanks (from JoJo), pumps, gravel, thick plastic etc.

In June, while I was enjoying my holiday, they all started to install this new system in the garden, they had chosen a real horrible day to do this, on the wettest winter day we had in Johannesburg this winter. In the cold and rain they started digging a pit where the 2 bottom tanks had to be installed,( Milly made all the photos of this hard work! you see them in the last post.)

I have to thank here again all my garden ladies, who helped here to dig the new beds, Mammas this whole project would be impossible without your help, it is great to have these enthousiastic mothers helping us to make this project a reality, they do this as volunteers, giving so much of their time 4 days a week.

We hope to start this system in the first half of August,when the first summer seedlings are planted in this new garden.

Thank you Grundfos and especially Dudley Willer and his students, who made this possible!!!

The Students of Grundfos

Visit Marianne Belt

Last week Marianne and Fam. came to visit our vegetable garden, Marianne started this project in 2004 with Milly Jarvis.

A few years ago they moved back to The Netherlands, but Marianne is still very involved with our project and represent us in Holland.
Last year she gave a presentation in The Juliana school in Bilthoven, this school is collecting money for fruit for the children.
Soon we will be able to give each child a fruit with their meal at the school.
Marianne will also give a presentation in the Bosbes Kapel in The Hague.
This church is sponsoring our project this year, in February there will be an talent auction in the church to collect money for the project, a few weeks before this auction Marianne will come to the Hague to tell about the children in Riversands Primary school.

Summer 2008

Some of the vegetables out of the garden, Spinach, marrows or courgettes as they are called in Holland, even the last of the kale, boere kool in Dutch.
Thulani is picking the figs, Thulani is now in High school, when he was still at this school he used to come and help to get the weeds out during break time.
This holiday he came and helped to clear out the last of the grass and weeds at the bottom of the garden.

Summer 2008

A few of our last photos, to show you how green the garden looks after all the rain this month.

We found a giant marrow, it was as big as a watermelon.
The school was closed already, one of the mothers took it home.
Today we reached the end of the field, next year we could be planting the whole field.
We will need lots of topsoil and compost.
Our wish list for the coming year: shade cloth, wall, compost, topsoil, potting soil, lots of seeds.
more tools , irrigation extension.

Summer 2008

In November we harvested the first summer vegetables, we had many many courgettes, luckily most of them we could harvest before the school closed in December and the feeding stopped till the beginning of January.There are still many butternuts, spinach, beans and brinjals waiting for the school to start again. Many of the mothers who volunteer on the project go home to their families in the rural areas over the holidays, but fortunate for us there are always a few who stay home and keep helping us through the holidays in the vegetable garden, their is always lots of work to do during this time, watering, weeding preparing new beds, new seeds to be planted etc.

When Shirley heard that Gertrude was using some old spectacles from somebody else, she took her to the optician and made sure Gertrude got some new glasses with the right prescription for her eyes.
She is showing them off on the photo standing next to Shirley.

In November Sibongeli got her little baby daughter Gracious Joy, here she is with her big brother Prince. Many of our visitors and early helpers in the garden will remember Sibongeli, she was one of our first volunteers in the project, last year she got a job and left the project, but little Prince is always there to help us in the garden.

Shirley an I would like to thank all our friends especially Henny and Knud Jensen, Marleen Buscop and my mother Marianne Robijn in Holland for all their input, interest and finding of sponsors for The feeding and gardening project, without you the garden could not excist.

A big thank you, we wish you all a healthy new year filled with love and happiness.

Bosbes Kapel

http://www.bosbeskapel.nl/xhtml/zwo.html
My mother in the Netherlands heard that her church was looking for a project they could sponsor in 2008/2009 , she submitted The Riversand feeding and gardening project and we were the lucky ones to be chosen .
I sent them many photos of the project and in September they started off with the sale of postal stamps with pictures of the children of Riversand school enjoying their food.

By Christmas 1000 stamps had been sold, so the children of Riversand school are traveling on the Christmas cards through Holland this year.

Thank you to Gert-Jan de Raad and all the people involved for all your work to make this project a success.