Growing food security

Their aim is for all households to plant own veggies

A DEEP-SEATED desire to educate the masses about food, its security and growing it the proper way is the business seed behind an increasingly popular Nelson Mandela Bay food gardening service.

Cornucopia Gardens Port Elizabeth – which helps its clients establish new vegetable gardens or boost existing ones – was launched at the beginning of the year and is on a mission to see every household growing its own vegetable gardens.

The business was birthed from a passion for organic food and sustainability, with business partners Cindy Playdon and Nicola Schwim combining their individual interests in the industr y.

Playdon’s Pink Pepper organisation was more charity focused and helped mainly schools to build vegetable gardens, while Schwim’s Organic Footprints distributed organic products and was involved in community projects.

Schwim said: “We would see each other at some of these [projects] and decided to put the two concepts together as a lot of my clients – we have a gardening department – would ask if we set up gardens. The thing is we were not growers ourselves, but just distributed.”

“So I asked Cindy if she wanted to assist me to help people to do their vegetable gardens.

“I’m more on the business side of it, while Cindy is more the creative and about going out to do the actual gardens.”

The pair are a perfect business fit, with Playdon being the big philanthropic dreamer and face of the business, while Schwim is the more grounded and practical one ensuring their financial sustainability.

But their driving force for Cornucopia Gardens is food security.

“The main thing is engaging food security.

“We feel like we have lost a band of education somewhere, and that is how to grow food.

“So we find that with people all over – whether it is the guy in the township on a poverty level to the average middle-class people, to those with massive houses, like a R180 000 project we recently did – there is a want and desire to grow their own vegetables.

“But there is a lack of knowledge or lack of inspiration in that they want to but don’t know where to start,” Schwim said.

Cornucopia either sets up a food garden for clients to fit their budgets, helps them make their existing gardens work better through education about soil and seeds, or provides a map to create their own gardens.

They have been encouraging home owners, some of whom do not want a “vegetable patch” ruining the look of their manicured gardens, to plant food-bearing plants between their ornamental plants.

For those with space or other constraints, “upcycled veggie boxes”, which can come readymade, are on offer.

With rising costs of food, with a single trolley full of weekly essentials easily running into the hundreds of rands, more consumers are turning to planting their own food.

Many, however, lack the knowhow or inspiration to do so.

“The cost of food has become a huge awareness for people, that’s primary.

“In addition to the cost of food, the awareness of where our food is coming from is definitely growing. When we started this six years ago . . . it’s been a long journey of education,” Schwim said.