How to Start a Farming God's Way Garden

By Sara:

This is something that happened a while ago, so it isn't very current news, but just something fun to share.  It is photos that show how to set up a garden using the Farming God's Way technique.  This took place in Amuria, with KIDO, one of the Ugandan development organizations I work with.

First, we had to dig up all of the weeds in the plot where we were going to plant (weed as if you're never going to weed again).

It was quite the task.

In the first day of work, all we did was clear the weeds and mark out the outside boundaries of the plot.

Here are the KIDO field officers (from left to right): William, Geofrey, and Emma.  But wait, that mzungu in the middle isn't KIDO staff; that's Ben, who was my fellow livestock intern at World Hunger Relief.  He came over from Kenya for a couple weeks to visit me and Anthony.  It was fun to do farm work together again!  We got made fun of for not being "real" farmers because we weren't wearing rubber boots like Geofrey.  But look at those fancy shoes that Emma's wearing...

The second day, we picked up all of the (now dry) weeds and marked out the lines where we were going to plant.

We also cleared large quantities of trash out of the plot.  This is just a small amount of what was in there.

Then, we dug the planting holes.
 
We used composted manure as fertilizer in the holes.  We went to collect that from Geofrey's uncle's home in the village.  Carrying around a box of compost was pretty interesting.

While some people dug holes, some added compost and others were planting the seeds.

Once everything is prepared, you cover the whole garden with mulch (but no pictures of that here).

And here are a couple of slightly ridiculous pictures from that same time, when there were four former World Hunger Relief people all staying at our house.