^{Checkers Little Garden}

Some time ago one of your local Supermarket chain groups, Checkers, started a great initiative to educate children about caring for Mother Earth.

They launched the first “Checkers Little Garden” project in 2018 whereby you get a seedling kit with your purchase. From these kits the kids can grow their own little garden.
The demand under the children and even adults were so big that they repeated it in 2020.

Each little kit consist out of;

• A compostable pot
• A soil pod
• A tape with seeds
• A pop-out name tag

For those who don’t know a compostable pot is made from biodegradable materials which disintegrate in the ground.

^{The garden kit}

It was a nightmare for us mom’s as the kids had to collect 8 flowers, 6 herbs and 10 vegetable kits to have the full set. Of course Checkers was not of must help as you never knew which kit you were going to get with your purchase.

When we had all the kits my stepson, Divan, wanted to start his little garden but we told him to keep it for when we move. Little did we know that he had to wait two years to grow his little garden.

^{The full set}

Since we have moved he has been nagging me to teach him how to start growing his garden. Due to the nature of this engagement challenge there was not better time than today. Not only did I plan to teach him a few things but I need to keep him out of mischief as we had eight hours of loadshedding (power cut) today.

The right way to grow the garden is to first grow your seedling by mixing the soil pod with water making a wet mixture. You then place the seed tape in the compostable pot in a vertically position. The pot is then filled with the wet soil. What is left is to place the name tag in the pot so that you know what you are growing.

^{The soil pod}

After a few days the seedlings will germinate, start to grow and small plants will emerge. Once big enough you can plant the plants where you want them to grow into full plants.

I was sure that we didn't had to grow the seedlings first but that we could plant the pots directly into the ground. We are now living at the coast where the soil is extremely fertile plus we had just the right place to plant the pots.

I taught Divan how to do a little experiment to test the quality of the ground.

1. Fill a glass jar halfway with the soil where you want to do the planting
2. Fill it ¾ with water and put the lid on
3. Shake the jar well and leave it for a day. We left it for 6 hours

The soil started to separate and form layers.

Layers	Type of ground
Bottom layer	Sand
Middle layer	Silt (mud)
Top layer	clay
Good soil	40% sand, 40% silt, 20% clay

We were happy that we had good soil.
Divan then placed the seed strips in the pots, mixed the soil pods with water and put the wet soil back into the pots. He then planted the pots directly into the ground and place the tags marking clearly what was planted.

How to take care of the seeds/plants

Of importance is that the seeds must not get too much water or they will rot. As we have a sprinkling system all that Divan must do is to open the tap and run the sprinklers for a few minutes.

Once there are strong plants he will deep water the plants once a week. Deep watering is +/- 5cm and will uplift the root growth and make the plants stronger.

All that is left now is to cross fingers and to HOPE for the germination of the seeds and that we will soon have beautiful flowers, fresh herbs and healthy vegetables.

I share a heart-warming video about the Checkers Little Garden project which goes so much further than kids planting little gardens.