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!