AS World Garden Day approaches on October 11 local gardeners have shared how their love for gardening inspired and healed them.
Falling off a horse brought Laura Flint down to earth in more ways than one. Recovering from severe head injuries that led to seizures, anxiety disorder, double vision and memory loss, she rekindled a childhood love for gardens and an appreciation of gardening as a means to escape boredom during long days at home.
For Flint, gardening became therapeutic and, as it turned out, a way to connect with her environment and community and to make new friends.
Looking for something to keep herself occupied during her recovery, she started propagating her succulents.
“I started collecting house plants – I have about 50 in my bedroom alone – and planted a vegetable garden.
“This gave me something to focus on. It gave me a coping mechanism; it helped to distract me from my anxieties, and everything just grew from there,” she said.
After becoming blind following a surgery, 73-year-old Vuyo Tsika uses his garden to keep him going.
“I used to be a mechanic and had taxis, I would wake up at 1am to queue at the rank and then come home to get ready and go back at about 5am,” he said.
Tsika started his garden five years ago, which now brings an income when he sells his produce to the community.
“I struggled with the idea of sitting idle and that is why I decided to find something that would not only keep me busy but something that would occupy my mind.
“Gardening keeps me going, I spend over eight hours a day in my garden, it keeps me young and mentally aware,” said Tsika.
Beauty Kume, 53, learnt to grow her vegetables from her mother who maintained an expansive food garden in their Gugulethu home and would then sell their home-grown vegetables at the street corner.
She found a kindred spirit in her husband, Harrison, who learnt at school to grow his own vegetables.
The couple grow the richest variety of vegetables including spinach, pumpkins, tomatoes and peppers.
They make their own compost and control pests by making their own spray consisting of water and strong-smelling herbs such as garlic and chilli.
Kume now has her own patch of greenery which she uses to help teach others about the benefits of home-grown vegetables and save money.
Kume’s garden not only feeds her and her family but also feeds her Facebook community, which has about 5 000 members. |