Letters from Uganda: March 2012

Soon after we arrived here, we heard about the Church's Food Initiative program to help people in third world countries become self reliant by growing their own food. We decided that if we were going to teach people here how to grow their own food, we needed to try it for ourselves.

Our barren back yard was a dump for the construction left overs and the soil is not good. So we put in 3 little grow beds, got soil from three different locations in the area and started planting.

We started our garden in the dry season. This is unheard of here. Traditionally, they plant their crops here during the rainy season and then let everything die when it stops raining. With the weather being hot year round, there is no reason why vegetables can't grow year round if irrigated. No one has heard anything about irrigation. We introduced drip irrigation to them by using a plastic water bottle or a soda pop bottle with little holes punched in the sides at the bottom, filling it with water and putting the lid back on. The bottle is buried about an inch deep next to the plant or in the center of a square foot. The water flows out slowly into the plants roots without wasting water. If the lid is screwed on tightly, it stops the flow of water. If you open it a little, the water flows out very slowly. It needs refilling only once a day (usually), therefore using very little to water the garden. Water is a precious commodity here. They haul all of the water they use every day in 5 gallon plastic containers they call gericans. However, we have an outdoor faucet where we put a hose and can get water most of the time. We keep gericans full of water to use when we can't get any water from the faucet.

This is the yard on one side of our house. The concrete slab is the septic tank for the whole compound. We constructed three grow beds. In the front one, we planted onions, of course, for transplanting. We also planted tomatoes for transplanting. The other crops that we seeded are carrots, cabbage, peppers, watermelons, pumpkins, beans, beets and cucumbers.

Around the latrine (outhouse for the guards), we planted okra to make it look a little better. We have harvested quite a bit of okra from here. You can see the watermelon plant to the right of the outhouse.

A close up of the outhouse. No, it's not very private. We're glad we don't have to use it. There is just a hole in the floor.

We have been watering and taking care of this mango tree that was already here. It has grown at least 3 feet since we've been here. Next to the mango tree and growing up the bricks is a loofa sponge plant. It grows those neat sponges that you scrub with in the shower. We bought one and took the seeds out and planted them. I don't know the official name for it. It has grown really fast and looks neat on the bricks.

The little tomatoes that Robert has transplanted into plastic cups. We have given away many of them.

All four of the cabbages were planted at one time but one has really out grown the rest. On the right are the onions that we planted from seeds from home. There are only about a dozen plants. The carrots are doing well.

These are onions that we planted for transplanting. They are purple onions and the seeds are a variety grown locally. The one tomato plant next to the water bottle is doing very well.

This papaya tree was under the ladder and was all bent over and was about 2 feet tall when we found it. We tied it to the fence with a rope to straighten it, watered it and now it is about 6 feel tall and setting little papaya's (paw paw's) We will be here long enough to enjoy them, we hope.