Vertical Gardening

Tim Bannister teaching about vertical gardens.

It might seem impossible to grow food in an over crowded urban ghetto like Eastleigh, but in many urban areas throughout Kenya it is happening!

We had a great morning today with 44 of the Iftin women who participated in a demonstration of using vertical gardens to supply vegetables for their families. Two of our CBM colleagues, Tim Bannister and Bruno Soucey, were our special guests. Tim lead the demonstration, providing the women with practical ways of improving their food security.

After the main demonstration, we split into smaller groups where the women tried their hand at building a vertical garden themselves. Using discarded Canadian FoodGrains Bank bags, the women filled soil and manure around a packed cylinder of course gravel: This core of gravel is required for properly irrigating the garden.

Once the soil and gravel are assembled, the bags are watered and seeds or seedlings can be planted on top and along the sides of the bags through slits cut into the bag.

Bruno Soucey helping a group of ladies finish off a demonstration vertical garden at the VTC within the Eastleigh Community Centre

The women were very excited by the opportunity to grow their own vegetables within the crowded cinder block apartments where most of them live. With only a small foot print of space required, the vertical garden can supply a family with a constant supply of vegetables to enhance their family's diet.

Aaron helping a group of women gather supplies for a garden of their own. Although we will be offering a second refresher time next week, an eager group of six ladies took the initiative to gather all of the leftover supplies from today's demonstration in order to start their own garden at their home right away. With the help of Tim, we are planning to gather a bulk of gravel, soil,manure, and seedlings for the women to carry out a mass planting day.

Bruno with a proud group of women with their completed garden. Within the bags the ladies planted tomatoes, sukuma wiki, carrots,and spinach.




Other guests...

We were also delighted today to have Peter Matua, the development coordinator from the Africa Brotherhood Church, visit Iftin with a group of development workers from Machakos. On behalf of the ABC, they presented our group with a bag of sukumawiki seedlings.The ABC group came to learn more about the community centre's ceramic water filter project and to explore the potential of how this project might benefit their efforts in sustainable clean drinking water within the areas where they serve.