Qualla: Company's Garden https://qualla.com/company-s-garden en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/k/3/v/n/company-s-garden-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Company's Garden https://qualla.com/company-s-garden Company's Garden: Introduction https://qualla.com/company-s-garden/ Photo credit Romaine, CC0. On 29 April 1652, a master gardener named Hendrik Boom pushed a spade into the soil at the foot of Table Mountain and planted the first seeds of what would become South Africa's oldest garden. He was not making history; he was making dinner. The Dutch East India Company needed fresh vegetables to provision ships on the grueling six-month voyage between the Netherlands and the spice islands of Indonesia, and the Cape of Good Hope was the logical midpoint. Boom planted salad herbs, peas, beans, radishes, beet, spinach, and cabbage - practical crops for scurvy-ravaged sailors. Within a year, the garden was feeding the settlement year-round. Within a decade, nearly every garden plant of Europe and India was growing in its beds. The Company's Garden was never meant to become a city park. It was a survival strategy that outlived the empire that created it.

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Image: Romaine | CC0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/3/v/n/company-s-garden-wp/k3vn-companys-garden-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Company's Garden: Trial, Error, and Turnips https://qualla.com/company-s-garden/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 4.0. The settlers kept meticulous records, noting every seed sown and every harvest gathered, building through trial and error a planting calendar adapted to the Cape's Mediterranean climate. They grew asparagus and turnips alongside the staples, caught fish, trapped wild game, and tr...

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Image: CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/3/v/n/company-s-garden-wp/k3vn-companys-garden-trial-error-and-turnips.mp3 0:06 2 full Company's Garden: From Cabbages to Camellias https://qualla.com/company-s-garden/ Photo credit Peter Kolb, Public domain. Before 1680, the Company's Garden was all business: rows of vegetables, no ornamental pretension. Then Governor Simon van der Stel redesigned the grounds, transforming the utilitarian plot into something beautiful. During the seventeenth century, writers of various nationalities ...

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Image: Peter Kolb | Public domain

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/3/v/n/company-s-garden-wp/k3vn-companys-garden-from-cabbages-to-camellias.mp3 0:06 3 full Company's Garden: What Survives https://qualla.com/company-s-garden/ Photo credit KNewman1, CC BY-SA 3.0. A pear tree planted around 1652 still stands in the garden - the oldest cultivated pear tree in South Africa, a living connection to the moment European agriculture first took root on this continent. A rose garden designed in 1929 blooms near a fish pond. The Delville Wood Memori...

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Image: KNewman1 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/3/v/n/company-s-garden-wp/k3vn-companys-garden-what-survives.mp3 0:06 4 full Company's Garden: The Seed of a City https://qualla.com/company-s-garden/ Photo credit LKD2018, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Company's Garden is a national heritage site, and the title is earned. Every major thread of South African history passes through or near this green rectangle in the heart of Cape Town. The Dutch East India Company planted it. Enslaved people tended it. British administrators...

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Image: LKD2018 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/3/v/n/company-s-garden-wp/k3vn-companys-garden-the-seed-of-a-city.mp3 0:06 5 full