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1652
The first seeds were sown on 29 April 1652
The Dutch East India Company established the garden to provide fresh vegetables for the settlement and for passing ships. The master gardener and free burgher Hendrik Boom prepared the first ground for sowing on 29 April 1652. It is the oldest garden in South Africa.
Trial and error
The settlers wrote down the sowing dates every day
The settlers sowed different kinds of seeds and kept a record of them each day. Through trial and error they compiled a calendar for sowing and harvesting through the year. At first they grew salad herbs, peas, beans, radish, spinach, wheat, cabbage and turnips. By 1653 the garden let the settlers feed themselves all year.
1658
By 1658 nearly every garden plant of Europe and India grew here
By 1658 nearly every garden plant of Europe and India was already cultivated in the garden, though potatoes and maize were not yet introduced. Before 1680 the garden mainly produced vegetables, until Simon van der Stel laid out the ground afresh to beautify it. In the 17th century, writers of many nationalities made it famous.
The herbarium
A botanist's plant catalogue was sent to the Netherlands
The garden's superintendent and botanist, Hendrik Bernard Oldenland, compiled a herbarium. After his sudden death it was sent to the Netherlands, and in 1770 his Catalogue of Plants was found in the possession of Professor Burmann of Amsterdam.
Today
A pear tree from about 1652 still stands in the park
Today the garden is a large public park in the middle of Cape Town. It holds the oldest cultivated pear tree in South Africa, from about 1652, and a rose garden designed and built in 1929. Parliament, the South African Museum and the National Gallery are next to it, and it hosts the annual Cape Town Festival.
Day 1, morning
Next is Bo-Kaap.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Company's Garden, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.