Utilising a small backyard space
You can grow vegeables such as sukuma, cabbage, tomatoes, nakao and onions in a sack if you have a small backyard. photo BY fred muzaale.
What you need to know:
You can utilise the small space in your backyard to grow vegetables.
Some backyards, especially those in rented houses, do not have space for vegetable gardens. In fact, some are wholly cemented. If this is the case with your backyard, you need not despair.
Hakim Babara, a compound designer and gardening consultant with Mukwano Tree Planting Association, along Mukwano Road, explains how you can utilise small backyard spaces:
Get polythene sacks of any size. They can be 50kg or 100kg. You can use sacks made of other materials, but they will not last long.
Preparing the soil
Fill the bag with loam soil. It can be up to half, more than half or full. You can fill it if you are not going to change the soil. But you can also fill it so that you can have more sides to plant the vegetables in.
Mix the soil with some manure. Mix three quarter loam soil with a quarter manure or sewage. After mixing, water the soil in the bag everyday for a week, then leave the soil for three to four days and punch holes a foot apart on the sides. Plant seeds in the holes and on top of the bag.
Sowing
If the vegetables are big, punch big holes. If they are small, punch small holes. Plant enough seeds in the holes so that when they come up, you can pull out the bad ones and leave the good ones.
Types
Grow vegetables like cabbages and tomatoes on the top and others like dodo, nakati, sukumawiki, onions, chives, persil, rocket salads and carrots on the sides.
Seasons
Plant vegetables in these sacks all year round. You can remove the soil, add manure to it, leave it for three months and then plant again; or use the soil for two to three seasons if you want to throw it away.
Keep changing the type of vegetables you plant per season. This also eliminates the pests that could be in the soil.
Those that were feeding on one type of vegetable will find another type they do not feed on and will die off.
Such a garden will allow you to have instant vegetables with minimal work done.
