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From radishes to tomatoes, vegetable gardens can be very satisfying and tasty. They also require some work to stay in good shape.
Pick out a spot in the garden that receives at least six to eight hours of sunlight daily. Then test your soil to see what its nutrient and clay-sand-silt make up is, and amend it as needed.
When drought hit Kenya three years ago, widowed farmer Agripina Mutuka cut down her family’s diet to just one meal a day as her harvests – and earnings – plummeted.
As Kenya limped through its worst drought in 40 years, Ms. Mutuka faced becoming one of 4.4 million people in need of food assistance. Then, 100 Humanitarians, an American nongovernmental organization, introduced her village of Lanasawa to garden towers – 4-foot-tall mesh fabric cylinders capable of growing 120 vegetables and herbs.
Why We Wrote This
Faced with rising food insecurity – driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the climate emergency – many African countries are scrambling to adapt. A solution in Kenya that provides food and dignity could take root elsewhere.
“I fully embraced the idea of the garden towers,” recalls Ms. Mutuka, who provides for her children and grandchildren. Two towers now feed the family, while she sells vegetables grown in six others. “The money … is enough to sustain my family.”
Each garden tower costs about $20, including soil and seedlings. “It is easy to set up, uses less space, and … uses less water, because water that would otherwise go to waste travels downwards through other plants,” says Marissa Waldrop of 100 Humanitarians.
Local officials say the towers can help address the need for sustainable growing systems if the climate emergency continues to disrupt weather patterns.
“Thanks to the garden towers … we barely have any beggars or people who go without food,” says Lanasawa administrative chief Kepha Lusasi.
This story was published in collaboration with Egab.
When drought hit Kenya three years ago, Agripina Mutuka had to slash her family’s diet to just one meal a day.
This was the most Ms. Mutuka, a widow who has been working as a farmer for 10 years, could afford after the drought dramatically reduced her earnings from the sale of her agricultural produce. “I used to fill 15 bags of maize each harvest. After the drought, I can barely fill three bags,” says Ms. Mutuka, who provides for her four children and two grandchildren in the agricultural region of Kakamega.
Kenya is going through its worst drought in 40 years, drying up the country’s once lush farmlands and leaving 4.4 million people in need of food assistance, according to official estimates.
Why We Wrote This
Faced with rising food insecurity – driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the climate emergency – many African countries are scrambling to adapt. A solution in Kenya that provides food and dignity could take root elsewhere.
On top of the damage wrought by the climate emergency, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also pushed up prices of staple imports such as oil, wheat, rice, maize, fertilizers, and oilseeds.
So when an American nongovernmental organization called 100 Humanitarians invited Ms. Mutuka and others in her village of Lanasawa to a meeting to discuss a possible solution for the dire food situation, she did not think twice.
The NGO introduced Ms. Mutuka and 30 of her neighbors to garden towers, 4-foot-tall durable mesh fabric cylinders, filled with soil and punched with holes a few inches apart into which seedlings are planted to produce a dense vertical garden, capable of growing 120 vegetables and herbs – all in a diameter of just 3 feet.
Egab.
Source: csmonitor.com
