Wow! You won’t believe the transformation in the Kindergarten in Thiruchitrambaram! The front garden of the kindergarten which was once nothing more than bare earth is now positively overflowing with green! Bursting at the sides!

Papaya and tomato plants are already growing big and strong and little seedlings of salad leaves and bringal are popping up through the soil that we built up over the last few months. Nitrogen fixing beans are straggling through the beds and even a little lemon tree is thriving.

This last week Sadhana Forest volunteers came to the kindergarten to plant a number of vegetable and flower seeds with the children. With tiny little trowels, some of the kids prepared rows in which to sow the seeds of ladies finger, cucumber and others in the soil. They popped the seeds in the ground one by one gently, and then without needing to ask them some were already filling the watering can with water!

Soon the children in the kindergarten will have healthy fruit to snack on and some vegetables to add to their lunch.

Wow! What a great week at the kindergarten in Thiruchitrambaram this week. The children are becoming more accustomed to our presence and we can visibly see them relax more and recognise us on each visit.

On Monday we arrived with lots and lots of organic material and tools to build the raised garden beds. We finished the bamboo walls of the first three raised beds and then began building the soil. We layered organic material, soil and dry charcoal alternately, to build a thick layer of soil in each bed. This organic material can be grass, leaves, or raw compost. If it is dry, it needs to be soaked in water and pee first.

We wanted to do a demonstration on how to build soil so we brought bananas with us! We shared the bananas out amongst the children, the teachers and ourselves, and together we ate our bananas and then threw the peels into the raised bed! The children certainly enjoyed the snack and we hope by doing this every week, they will begin to understand that our food waste can be put back into the nutrient cycle to grow more food!

Each visit has been accompanied by music and on Tuesday, the children were delighted to learn how to play the Ballaphone with Ana and Tiago! This wonderful wooden African instrument, which resembles a xylophone, brought life to the kindergarten and the kids each had a go. Such fun!

Thanks again to Guillemont Junior School in the UK for their continued support for the kindergarten project.

This week was an exiting week at Thiruchitrambaram Kindergarten as we have started building the organic garden! This year Sadhana Forest has helped to carry out extensive remedial works at the kindergarten, including improving the masonry, fixing the plumbing and toilet, installing a water tank and painting the building in bright colors inside and out.  We then put up a fence at the front of the kindergarten to enclose a small area for an organic garden. This will protect the plants from hungry roaming cows!  See the previous blogs for details of these activities.

We have now begun to create the garden! After many planning meetings between Sadhana long-term volunteers, the Chidren”s Land Team and the Garden Team, a design for the garden was drawn up. The objectives of this garden are to create a space for the children to play outside, to grow fruits and vegetables for the children to eat and learn about growing food, and to grow medicinal herbs for the teachers to use with the children. The teachers at the Kindergarten Saguna and Mala expressed their wish for banana, papaya and drumstick trees. We have also considered which plants have multiple functions, for example medicinal and sensory. Chicken Spinach has pretty flowers and is highly nutritious. Beans look and smell amazing, are edible and can climb a frame to provide shade.

This week Rebecca, Ana, Tiago, Fabian, Sangara, Yasmin, Elles and Corine took tools and materials to the kindergarten twice to begin building the beds. We decided to build the walls of the beds out of bamboo, a tough natural material which looks fun. The next stage is to improve the soil for the beds by alternately putting down 24 layers of the existing soil and organic material soaked in water and pee. We almost completed one of the beds. We have several more to go! The kids were fascinated by what we were doing, and we have some fun activities planned for next week to engage them in building the soil and planting beans for nitrogen. Log in next week for an update!

We would like to express our gratitude to Guillemont Junior School in the UK for their support in this project, and for being the Sister School of Thiruchitrambaram Kindergarten!

26^th March 2010

by Becky

This week the Kindergarten project has pushed on with preparing the fence for the children’s garden. We loaded up a tractor trailer with solid granite posts, tools, 8 fence panels, 10 volunteers and headed off to the Kindergarten! Progress was fast, and after using a crow-bar and scooping out the 2-foot holes, we soon had all the fence posts in place. It was hot work, with the temperature being consistently over 30°C these days, but great fun. The next step was to build a bund at the base of the fence-line to protect the garden and the front of the kindergarten from flooding during the monsoon. The bund  which is a solid wall of earth reaching in this case to one and half feet high was constructed using the same method as our water conservation work in the forest.

While all this exciting work on the new fence was going on, we had arranged for a plumber, a mason and painters to come to the Kindergarten and improve the amenities for the kids. The plumber fixed the toilet, fitted a water tank and new taps outside. Not only will this provide easier access to water for the children and teachers, but also an outside water source for watering the garden. The mason touched up the general masonry on the fascia of the building, and the benches inside the kindergarten. He has also built a trough-like structure above the children’s toilet which will brighten it up when planted with flowers. The first coat of fresh turquoise and fiery orange have certainly brightened the building up!

The Sadhana Forest permaculture group was invited to incorporate designs for the garden into their weekly workshop. They have ideas of a tractor-tyre sand-pit, fruit trees, planters made from recycled materials, and many other features that the children can be involved with creating. They have asked the children this week to draw some ideas of what they would like in their garden, so we are looking forward to seeing what ideas they come up with.

Linking up two Sadhana projects, Tiago from Children’s Land came to meet the children with us and to make musical instruments. We took empty shampoo bottles with us and made maracas using various grains and pulses. Liz, our new addition to the Kindergarten team, helped to make rain-makers with them from bamboo. Tiago had the kids shaking their maracas in a call and response game, and everyone had fun, including our volunteers! Next week, we would like to start introducing some songs and games about plants and life cycles. We can’t wait. What productive week at the Green Kindergarten!