Vegetable Growing with KIDO

Praise God for rain!  Now that it has started raining relatively frequently, the KIDO staff have started programs involving planting in the communities.  I have had the opportunity to go with KIDO staff to several communities for some practical trainings.  The theoretical, classroom trainings are now being put into practice.

One of the trainings was on vegetable nursery bed production.  Nursery beds were something new to me.  I am used to starting seeds inside in the winter and then transplanting them outside once it gets warmer.  It turns out that nursery beds are kind of the same idea.  You start seeds in a safe, well-tended location, then transplant them into the garden once they get to a decent size.  

First, we cleared the space for the nursery beds.  These little girls really wanted to help out with this tiny hoe.  It was intended for adults, but it really was their size.

 

After clearing the area, it is important to measure out the bed with nice, straight lines.  It needs to be a width that isn't so wide that you would step on the bed to water or weed.

I learned some useful techniques for making measurements without a ruler.

After smoothing out the soil, they burned leaves and grass to help sterilize the soil from some insect pests.

  
Next, we marked out careful lines and planted the seeds at the proper spacing.  
 

Then, you use bricks around the edge of the bed to keep the soil from washing away in the rain.  
 

Or, if you don't have bricks, you can use whatever you have, like banana stalks.

 

At another training, we used conservation agriculture methods to plant beans and maize.  One of the important aspects of conservation agriculture is planting in rows.  This makes it easier to weed and gives the plants the right amount of space to grow strong and healthy.

We did some different things for the maize and the beans.  With the maize, the farmers are planting mucuna, a green manure, in between the rows of maize, after the maize germinates.  Mucuna grows very quickly and will cover the soil, helping prevent erosion and keeping the soil moist.  It also adds nutrients to the soil and will provide mulch and organic matter when the plants are cut at the end of the season.

With the beans, the farmers are going to put mulch in between the rows of beans after the beans germinate.  This is for pretty much the same reasons as the mucuna.

 

After one of the trainings, the farmers fed all of us from KIDO a lunch.  They wanted to take a picture of us in which I was eating.  This is what they got: