After planting seedlings of various fruit and vegetables just three months ago, learners at Talhado Children’s Haven and Pre-Primary School in St Francis Bay recently saw their first harvest of strawberries and spinach, which are used by the school to make organic meals for the learners.
Talhado Children’s Haven and Pre-Primary was established in 2000, under the guidance of Lesley Moore.
In 2011, Cathryn Hempel introduced the Montessori method of teaching.
Ten years later, Hempel, who is the current principal of the school, has continued to cater for the needs of up to 100 children aged between three and six years, by providing the learners with a Montessori-based curriculum.
As part of the specialised curriculum, the school taught learners about botany.
Despite their intriguing lessons on botany in the classroom, Hempel said it was very difficult to teach the biology of plants such as the various parts of the plants and the life cycle of the seed without a practical aspect on the topic.
Fortunately, Hempel said earlier this year the school was approached by Catherine Falconer, the owner of The Green Box in St Francis Bay, who offered to raise funds for a garden project at the school through her ‘Lekka’ app.
In addition, Falconer enlisted the help of Clinton Carstens from The Farmyard Nursery, who provided the soil, seedlings, and the initial labour to establish the garden at the school.
Carstens further sourced old tractor tyres and planted the seedlings inside the tyres.
“I was ecstatic when Catherine offered to help us establish a garden at our school,” said Hempel.
“The tractor tyres helped with the costs of building soil beds and kept everything neat and tidy.”
In addition to the generous donations from Carstens, Hempel said the United Church of St Francis Bay also provided funds to cover the soil, seedlings and initial equipment necessary to maintain the garden.
To better understand the process of gardening, Xolisile Ngantweni, a local farmer from Sea Vista, gave the learners a few lessons in gardening.
With their new tyre garden and basic knowledge about gardening, the school could finally focus on the practical aspect of botany when the learners planted the first seedlings in August.
Hempel said since the school’s garden project began, each class has remained dedicated to taking care of their tyre filled with seedlings of various fruit and vegetables.
After nurturing their gardens daily, Hempel said earlier this month the learners were excited when they experienced their first harvest of strawberries and spinach.
She said since the school provided the learners with porridge and home-cooked lunch every day, the school’s cook was able to make use of the spinach to make delicious, nutritious lunches for the learners.
“We provide a cooked lunch each day for the children, so it was good for them to know that the ingredients in their lunch was from their own hard work,” said Hempel.
She said the learners were eager to try new foods which they had nurtured to fruition.
“The children take great pride in their garden and were so excited to be able to eat the food that they grew themselves,” said Hempel.
To ensure that all the fruit and vegetables were organically grown, Hempel said they were currently ironing out some issues to prevent snails from eating the broccoli and cauliflower without the use of pesticides.
To further contribute positively toward the learners’ experience at the school, Hempel said the food garden has created an awareness and respect within the learners about the earth and how to care for it, as well as how to care for their bodies by eating fresh and organic ingredients straight from the garden.
“It is my dream for the garden to continue to grow, and to be able to offer more of a variety of fresh organic fruit and vegetables to the children,” said Hempel.
“I also hope that the children will use the knowledge gained outside of the classroom as they learn about botany within the cultural area of the Montessori classroom,” said Hempel.
