Celebrations at Moja Gabedi garden project on Garden Day
The seventh annual Garden Day took place last Sunday, October 9, with thousands across South Africa joining in, including students from the University of Pretoria.
The seventh annual Garden Day took place last Sunday, October 9, with thousands across South Africa joining in.
Garden Day is an annual celebration of gardens and green spaces, from rolling lawns or a couple of pots on a windowsill.
Moja Gabedi garden project in Hatfield was no exception, with residents from Pretoria, students from the University of Pretoria, Community Orientated Substance Use Programme (Cosup) members and the Moja Gabedi team joining in on the celebrations.
The initiative calls for a celebration of the new season by hosting celebrations and wearing flower crowns, to spend time with nature and enjoy the blooms as well as fruits of all that gardening labour.
Garden Day was conceptualised by a group of enthusiastic gardeners who wanted to encourage people across South Africa to connect by celebrating their green spaces.
Innocent Chauke, the manager of the community garden project Moja_Gabedi in Festival Street in Hatfield, shared his and his team’s hard work with the community by celebrating the goodness that came from the garden project.
The Moja Gabedi garden project was transformed from what was once an illegal rubbish dump, and thorn in the side of nearby UP’s Hatfield campus, to the stunning community project that is not just a beautiful sight to see. It provides a space for the community to get back to the therapeutic effects of nature and the care that goes into creating the space.
The project to transform the open piece of land in Festival Street, hit a snag in late 2019 when the agriculture students at UP turned the soil only to find that it buried 4m of rubbish because for many years it had been used as a dumping ground.
“Only after the removal of the 4m of rubbish, which included pieces of foundations, metal, pillars, poles, old telephones, typewriters, weighing approximately 3 000 tons, and addition of an equal amount of top soil and compost, could the first 120 fruit trees be planted,” said UP unit community engagement manager Gernia van Niekerk.
With help of numerous UP students doing the community engagement aspect of their courses – and men living at the nearby Reliable House, a no-harm centre for homeless people addicted to drugs – the beautiful green space, complete with canals and dams to manage the water on site, began to take shape.
Chauke ensures the day-to-day running of the garden, guiding the various community members tending to the garden. The garden also includes two bold stone sculptures created by Angus Taylor.
The next Garden Day will take place on Sunday, October 15, 2023.
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