Westridge resident Janet Matthews, a participant in a previous Soil for Life health and wellbeing training programme, learned to grow her own vegetables at home.
Soil for Life, a non-profit organisation that promotes healthy soil and living and growing nutritional food, is calling on Mitchell’s Plain residents, especially the unemployed, to sign up for its upcoming health and well-being training.
The training will take place over three months in Mitchell’s Plain from March to May, and again from August to October.
Participants will need to pay a once-off R40 fee.
Over the course of the programme, they will receive health and well-being learning materials and a gardening starter pack with compost, seedlings, seeds and mulch, says Soil for Life programme coordinator Sandi Fortune-Lewis.
“They will learn how to breathe, do exercises, what kind of herbs to take from your garden when, for example, you have a headache.
“They will also learn how to make compost and organic pesticides, and how to save water.
The training is not just for people with a natural interest in gardening, says Ms Fortune-Lewis.
“It is open to anybody, especially the unemployed. We previously had someone who worked night shift and had a piece of barren land in his backyard that he wanted to beautify. He had the most beautiful garden [in the end], growing fruit trees, herbs and succulents.”
For more information or to sign up for the training, contact the Soil for Life office at 021 794 4982, Joy Erasmus at 065 134 9871 or Ms Fortune-Lewis at 073 159 2128.