Part 1: How GROW started.
Casual garden work during the 90s gave me an elevated interest in plants and their enormous latent potential, i.e. changing or transforming environments into scenic beautiful spaces both for men and animals. This potential can have both financial and educational benefits for the participant e.g. skills from landscaping, as an environmental officer or an agriculturist etc.

It was not an instant magnetic pulse but an unconscious build up to the present state.
With all this enthusiasm building up I came across a Jubilee church pamphlet asking for any interested person who can volunteer with Hilary Frost to plant a garden at a Jubilee member’s (Zoleka) property in Langa, Zone 9. I excitedly met with my sister Hilary and 2 young girls she brought with her on that rainy day in Zoleka’s garden, and we proceeded to do the ground work and planted beautiful vegetables and indigenous plants. So that was the ignition that started the whole thing. Before that I had a burning desire to develop empty spaces in our areas (Langa). At this point the space on the side of Jubilee church seemed most probable to start a vegetable garden. We agreed and started the process of motivating for that patch to the church leadership. The church blessed this idea and we were so excited and grateful about the Jubilee church decision. We started to plan mapping out the side patch area (the length of the railway line).

Establishing the Jubilee garden.
Before we could start to develop the land we visited a few gardens around Cape Town communities as a way of learning their approaches and motivation. I enrolled on a 3day garden course in Soil For Life in Constantia. With confidence built up from all this groundwork, we began to move. The toughest test was the state of the ground we were going to work on. From the entrance of the garden halfway it was the tarmac where trucks were once parked. From there on to the far end it was gravel mixed with concrete and anything dumped from any renovation and construction done inside the church. You wouldn’t see the debris because it was covered by grass and weeds. Only when maybe you’d want to dig a plot you’d hit an old broken ceramic sink or tiles and so on.
This challenge was overwhelming us so we enlisted a Zimbabwean run company that overcame that hurdle for us speedily. Just 2 guys with a spade and pickaxe finished that job within 3 days. All that rubble had to be removed, just imagine the contrast when we needed soil now we are losing it with the rubble. Sister Hilary said we have to use boxes to plant on as we couldn’t plant directly on that poor soil. In the process of digging we discovered a railway line right in the length of our garden. Then Steve Schlessinger reminded us that this church building was once a tile factory that used rail carriages to ferry stuff.

The official launch of GROW.
We put all things in place and prepared to choose 08/08/2016 as an official planting day for GROW Jubilee garden. Sometime after our official opening Cape Town had an acute water shortage. Had we known about that drought GROW would have had a serious delay in our mission to grow vegetables for vulnerable communities.

First Fruits.
The immediate beneficiaries of this ministry were: Sunshade ministry, Langa, iKhaya Labantu, vulnerable individuals in our communities, and using markets we were running as a way to introduce this initiative. With so much need for yields either charitably or through sales the space we had wasn’t enough keep up with the demand. In the east of Eden (Redcross Society grounds) GROW planted another beautiful garden. I especially mention this one besides others we planted throughout.

Training.
Around 2020 I joined Redcross Society as a volunteer along with other gardeners who were already there. My motivation was to use the space to model a method that was not used by my fellow workers. Without being arrogant I’d show them the methods I was using from soil amendment to interplanting ,composting, organic fertilization etc. They had hands-on experience on my work as I hired them and showed them how to do these things. This was around the 2020 Covid pandemic. So Jubilee had a food kitchen running in Redcross with produce from its own garden there.
I with with my guys from Redcross went to a 3day workshop run by Abalimi G Nursery to further train them.
End of Part 1

Part 2 of the history of GROW coming soon, stay tuned!
Lungelo, Head gardener GROW