One of the key activities we wanted to undertake as EcoMoran is the creation of organic kitchen gardens in the children's homes we engage with.
For the past 5 months, we have been engaging with a children's home in Gathiga (Kenya) with one of the sweetest children you will ever come across. They are all between the ages of 5 and 12, with the exception of one older child that's currently in high school.
We started off in January with a lesson covering types of food, heathy and local eating, and food waste, followed by another session covering the hazards of chemical fertilizers, the benefits of organic gardening, and how to compost. You would be amazed at how quickly the kids caught on to all these concepts and lessons. Once that was done, we rolled up our sleeves and got down to the nitty gritty of composting.
Margaret, the amazing and kind caretaker of the home, coordinated the collection of food scraps and waste while we were away during the week. When we arrived for our next session, we found a whole sack full of food waste ready for us. Here are a few photos of the first stage: building the compost
Fast forward to 6 weeks later, and our compost is ready. We had some of the kids help out with collecting and packing the rest into a sack and an old bucket before proceeding to the long awaited planting session
Part of learning is doing, so we had the kids create rows for our seedlings which we bought earlier from AgroVet and planted some onions, spinach, kales, bell peppers, and dhania (coriander) using the compost we made! We planted all the seedlings in two sessions (about a month apart from each other). As you can see in some of the pictures, the spinach and kales had already began to grow in the background :)
We are so happy to share that the garden is doing really well and all the vegetables are growing like a bunch of champs! We cannot wait to share with you when the entire garden is in full bloom.
Oh, here is a parting-shot photo of Liza, co-founder and one of the volunteers at EcoMoran. Be happy this weekend!
