Healing the community with vegetables
“We started preparing the bedding and planting the veggies at the beginning of lockdown.”
A local East Lynn healing centre spread the love and care recently, when they opened a free vegetable garden for the community.
Founder of the Together We Heal centre Frikkie van der Merwe and his team tackled the open field opposite their property to clean up the field and start another free garden.
It is a holistic healing centre offering traditional healing services and health products.
At the beginning of the national lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Van der Merwe decided to start a free vegetable garden on the sidewalk of the centre’s property located on the corner of Bosloerie en Badenhorst streets in East Lynne.
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“We started preparing the bedding and planting the veggies at the beginning of lockdown,” Van der Merwe said.
“Some of these vegetables are currently ready to be harvested.
“We wanted to give back to the community who are in dire need due to the lockdown.”
Van der Merwe said the vegetable garden has almost everything except potatoes.
The variety in the garden consists of various vegetables including beetroot, radishes, strawberries, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots and more.
On Friday, Van der Merwe and his team started preparing the soil of the field opposite the property for a weekend of planting more vegetables.
He said they started cleaning the field the previous weekend and had the dumped building rubble and litter cleaned up and removed to make way to expand the garden.
“We have a lot of people coming to the gate asking to pick vegetables despite the ‘for free’ signs in the garden. That is a good indication that the community is benefiting from the vegetable garden.”
Van der Merwe said the centre recently received a donation of soil to use in the garden.
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“Our business is about caring and making a difference. That’s why we decided to start the free vegetable garden to give back to the community.”
Van der Merwe invited the community to visit the centre and to come harvest their own vegetables for free.
“I encourage the community to follow suit by putting back into the community with one small deed at a time. What are you doing for the community?”
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