Soil for Life

Soil for Life

the soil for life garden

Soil for Life is a Non-Government Organization started in 2002 in Cape Town, South Africa that teaches people to grow their own food. The organization’s goals are to maximize the available space, conserve water, and utilize resources that would otherwise end up in landfills. Their motto is “healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy people.” (Soil for Life, 2009) Their work is not only about gardening and food. Soil for Life promotes ‘growing’; they want people to help themselves in several aspects of life including survival, earning money, having healthy families, improving values, dealing with inflation, and developing resourcefulness and creativity. They use low-cost, eco-friendly technologies and provide the people with programs to make sure the programs they implement are effective. The vision of Soil for Life is, “to be a self-sustaining organization which has a significant and positive impact on communities in the Western Cape.” (Soil for Life, 2009)

Patricia Featherstone, the founder of Soil for Life, came to Monwabisi Park in November to give a workshop on effective gardening techniques in the community. She demonstrated container gardens and stressed the importance of adding compost to the existing soil. This workshop was attended by current gardeners in the community and they were all given a bag of compost and some seed potatoes at the end of the program. Following up a few days after Pat gave the workshop, we saw that the attendees were using what they learned about aqua-traps, container gardens and composting in their own household gardens. The program clearly had a beneficial effect on the community members who took the initiative to attend.

Soil for Life offers many workshops to those who live in and around Cape Town. The cost ranges between R200 and R750, with group sizes requested at a minimum of fifteen people. (Soil for Life, 2009) A list of some of these workshops is below.

Materials used at the workshop in monwabisi park

• “Grow to Live” Weekend Workshops 
  • Two day intensive program that focuses on starting and maintaining an efficient, eco-friendly vegetable garden
• Earthworm Farming Workshops
  • Learn the benefits of starting and maintaining a household earthworm farm
  • Compost Making Workshops
    • Learn to create compost that will work best with the soils of the Western Cape
  • Pest Control Workshops
    • Learn organic alternatives for pest control in garden environments

Read More about Gardening Programs

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