A shipwreck... and the rest is history

Imagine arriving at the furthest point of an unknown continent and being set the task of creating a vegetable garden from scratch (!) without knowing anything about the soil, the climate or the local vegetable-eating fauna?

This was the challenge in front of Hendrik Boom (he was clearly of horticultural stock, 'boom' is the Afrikaans/Dutch for 'tree') who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 with the first Dutch East India Company Governor. Boom was a master gardener in his homeland and he set about planting vegetables and fruit to supply passing sailing ships as per his job description. He wanted to go further, though, so he laid out a herb and medicinal garden alongside the veg. The site grew to become the beautiful Company Gardens that we see today in the centre of Cape Town. Boom and his successors also planted trees - perhaps this huge cedar that I'm standing next to - and roses and many ornamentals.

But maybe his task was not as daunting as it might have been... because Boom had received some local knowledge before he arrived at the Cape.

Eight years earlier, in 1644, a Dutch sailing ship ran aground off Bloubergstrand, up the coast from Cape Town. The crew managed to get off the ship and saved much of their cargo - including seeds. A party headed towards Cape Town and settled close to a stream below Table Mountain. Presumably they assessed their chances of rescue were better there than from a more remote stretch of coast. At their temporary settlement they planted seeds which grew so well they managed to keep themselves suppled with food until they were rescued 6 months later. Upon returning to Holland, their enterprising leaders recommended to the Company that it might be an idea to start a refreshment station at the Cape. Everything grew so well, they reported. And the area appeared to be only sparsely inhabited.
And the rest, as they say, is history...