"The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth - one is nearer God's heart in a garden, than anywhere else on earth"

Helena Ohlsson, who lives in Stockholm, is visiting Sri Lanka and HELP these days. Helena was trained as a horticulturist (Swedish translation "trädgårdsingenjör"), and she is a passionate gardener. She has sent us a brief report about a home garden project in Siripala and Sriyani's village Dolahena. With the global population expected to reach over 9 billion by 2050, there is a continuous need to increase food production and buffer stocks. Currently, there is much attention towards home gardens as a strategy to enhance household food security and nutrition.

Helena Ohlsson



"I have now been here almost four weeks and we have come a bit on the way to build the shade house, or we are almost done with the actual construction.

I did bring a lot of seeds from Sweden to see if it can be grown here as well. I brought about 15 different tomato seeds, beens, flowers and vegetables. I also brought potatos and ginger. Potato and ginger has been planted, photo no 1, and we can now see that is has started to grow. Just after we planted the potato and ginger we had to cover it to make sure Jimmie (Siripala's dog) didn’t start to dig in the soil."

The purpose of the shade house, according to Siripala, is "to demonstrate for our children and our villagers traditional ways of cultivating fruit trees and vegetables. We will also use it for practical training at the Sathkara school."

Siripala tilling the ground for potatoes and ginger. Finally, the seed bed is protected with coconut leaves (cadjan) to stop Siripala's dog Jimmie from digging in the ground.

Constructing the shade house: I did bring curtains from IKEA to use as shading but Sriyani wanted to use them for new mosquito nets, so that is really the only thing that is missing in finishing the shade house.

The new shade house to the plant nursery - almost completed. The shade house have roof on half of it to protect the seedlings from heavy rain. Then the hardier plants will be moved out into the shaded area. Some plants will stay under roof all the time such as tomatoes. 

Said about school children and home gardening: "Health and nutrition of students must be at minimum standards for students to be able to study. If a student comes to school on an empty stomach, he or she is unlikely to be able to learn. Often it is because the alcoholic parent has consumed the family food money in drink. So there has to be community involvement. A government program to provide food and milk is too bureaucratic. These activities must be left to the schools to carry out in the most reasonable basis they think fit bearing in mind the specific local conditions. This should be extended to the agricultural plots to encourage the ethic of home gardening and learning about healthy eating habits all of which must be explained to students from a very young age." Source: http://kalpanakaranna.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html.

More friends from Sweden, Marit Lindberg, with her two daughters Agnes and Isolde and her husband Johan Suneson, came all the way from Malmö to visit Siripala and Sriyani.

Helena and Marit, Marit's daughter and her husband Johan in the shade house. The net is now in place, providing the shade house with more light regimes. Photo: Siripala