Umthathi Training Project taught more than 50 residents about greening their yards during a training workshop on Friday.
Umthathi managing director Marlene Mitchener told Grocott's Mail that of the 51 residents who attended the workshop, 31 were from Extension 7, while the other 20 were gardeners from various parts of the township.
Umthathi Training Project taught more than 50 residents about greening their yards during a training workshop on Friday.
Umthathi managing director Marlene Mitchener told Grocott's Mail that of the 51 residents who attended the workshop, 31 were from Extension 7, while the other 20 were gardeners from various parts of the township.
Each of five groups spent an hour-and-a-half learning about a specific type of garden.
The training covered pest control and the following types of gardens: keyhole, container, tower (or bag), trench beds, medicinal plants and trellis.
Mitchener said facilitators discussed nutrition and hygiene, as well as showing the participants how to make and use solar cookers and hotboxes.
Kholeka Ralo, Umthathi's Home and Community Food Garden co-odinator, said they encouraged as many people as possible to cultivate their own gardens.
Ralo said the residents would be able to produce their own food in a sustained way.
Umthathi's Schools' Organic Gardening facilitator, Xolela Qinela, taught the residents how to make a tower garden, when there's little space available. “You can use dirty water for watering,” he said. "In the nucleus of the tower garden, we plant cabbages, while spinach goes to the sides," said Qinela.
Extension 7 resident Hlumisa Bobo said, “We should stop buying vegetables from supermarkets, because they keep them in the fridge for a long time,” said Bobo. She said the training helped her to socialise with residents.
Another facilitator, Xolani Mountain, said a container garden would help those who lived in flats. Mountain said top soil and manure could be used when one made a container garden.
Mitchener encouraged the participants to start their own gardens and to enter Category Four of the Grahamstown Flower Festival Gardening Competition.
