In South Africa, permaculture was introduced several years ago as a development solution especially for townships, with the notion of “Door Gardens.” These gardens, the size of a door (2m x 1m), are adapted to suburban housing from townships, which often have a small fenced plot of a few square meters.
the idea is to create on that small surface a fertile land, using household waste mixed with plants available nearby (leaves, branches, grass …) and to associate crops for maximum performance on a small surface to provide a dietary supplement with fresh vegetables for families throughout the year.
Designing Hope supports the Silethithemba Halfway House since 2007 in Rosboom, one of the most disadvantaged suburb of Ladysmith District, in Kwazulu Natal.
Since 2011, Permaculture raised beds have been implemented in a pedagogical garden in this center.
In addition to growing crops in greenhouses, the women in the garden were also able to plant spinach seedlings on all of the newly developed outdoor plots around Halfway House, with support from the Bel Foundation and The Ivory Foundation. … Read More
Now that water is available in the garden of Roosboom’s Halfway House, thanks to the borehole and the installation of a pump supplying the 10,000-liter water tank, we were able to install automatic watering for the vegetable garden. A main … Read More
Once the greenhouse’s wooden poles and metal frame were in place, the sunshade fabric, which had been hand-sewn with a nylon cord, was positioned on the structure. A perimeter trench was then dug all around the greenhouse to bury the … Read More
To complete the nursery, additional seedlings have been placed in traditional seed trays.Regular watering is important to prevent them drying out too quickly.The children at Halfway House take on this task every day! A project undertaken by Designing Hope with … Read More
Once the nursery frame and internal grid had been installed, all that remained to be done was to fit a protective frame with a number of purposes:– Reduce the intensity of the sun’s rays, which are particularly hot in southern … Read More
At Roosboom, young plants have a number of enemies: the sun, lack of water and attacks by locusts and grasshoppers, which love young shoots… So we designed a system of bottomless trellises that has the advantage of drying out less … Read More
With the water reservoir just in place to collect water pumped from the ground by the Halfway house borehole, the plumber laid a large-diameter line from the borehole along the length of the greenhouse to install the drip system. 4 … Read More
After preparing the growing beds inside the greenhouse, the Roosboom team started working on the new plot of land recently made available to Halfway House by Roosboom Town Council. The humid summer is the ideal time to prepare the soil, … Read More
Young farmers from Levi’s Nek farm in Lesotho came to Roosboom to share their know-how and build a 200 m² greenhouse on the Halfway House site, similar to those they have already built on their own farm.Pine poles are set … Read More
Summer, which corresponds to the rainy season in southern Africa, is the ideal time to set up a fertiliser tree nursery. These trees have been chosen for their ability to fertilise the soil by producing nitrogen nodules at their roots, … Read More
