Jorum ndiritu
The writer is the Farm manager Kantara Farm (VEGPRO) – Thika

Note from Su:

It makes me happy to read this. Lets hope more exporters turn to this form of farming. Not only is it cost effective, more interestingly though less obvious, it is also a ’soil biota friendly’ method of production. ……………a stones throw away from organic production………..:)

Su called me to tell me that the sunflowers have opened! Recall that They were planted at the end of July using our seed planting gadget (a simple plastic water pipe with a twig taped at the end to create the hole and direct the seed while saving the planters from endless backaches) – I wrote about this and other innovations in Kibera on Afrigadget blog here. It had been months since I’d seen the farm, Peter (BBC Correspondent for East Africa) and I rushed over with Su to get photos knowing that the sight had to be spectacular. Don’t tell him but “Yes” we’re trying to get BBC interested in covering this wonderful positive story out of Africa

We met Abdulahi at the entrance of the farm which is nicely fenced – he had erected a sign banning all photographers!

I discovered that the sunflowers were there for a purpose, and it was not to beautify the farm. Earlier in this blog Su had mentioned slightly elevated levels of heavy metals in some parts of the shamba (farm). It turns out that sunflowers have a unique ability to extract zinc! It’s complicated interaction between the secretions from earthworms which causes the binding of heavy metals which in turn allows plants to take them up. Sunflowers are extraordinarily efficient at this.

The sad news is that you can’t eat the seeds or compost the leaves as this is where the zinc accumulates. The flowers and leaves sadly have to be burned (even though I’d love to take some home to adorn my living room).

The worm farm has evolved! Here’s the new look, a half barrel filled to the brim with material and worms. The litter around is about to go into the tank.

Su and Mohammed spent some time digging in to look at the little critters which were buried deep because the top few inches were quite dry. He was advised to add more water. The worms digest all the household and crop waste and every month the team pour water ontop of the entire tank and catch what comes out. The worm poo which is conveniently called ‘casts’ dissolves and out comes a nutritious brown liquid that is imaginatively called ‘worm tea’. Anyone for a cuppa?

The worms here are a peculiar blue colour …I hope it’s not a bad sign!

Someone on the afrigadget blog asked how the water for irrigation is paid for? Well, here’s the story. The youth reform group own a watertank and they provide a clean water service to anyone in the community. They sell water by the 20 litre jerrycan to anyone in the community. This generates the income needed to pay for the farm irrigation water.

We also heard how these ex criminals challenged a mafia like group up stream the previous week – these guys had disconnected water to the community of hundreds of thousands of people. I can only imagine the image of ex criminals walking over to the water control valve where they organized the permanent opening of the water supply line! The community was so pleased to have water again that all manner of in kind donations for the construction of the community center were received.

Here’s Abdulahi

Victor

And Moha

And here’s Su with the guys during the ‘inspection’

Ok, for some reason lay out is completely all over the place!

This is Dom

Yesterday was the first commercial sale of product !! Totally awesome!!
So added to the advantages of food production, food security, environmental conservation, Youth Reform, we can now add INCOME GENERATION………….

Dominic has been keeping close tabs with the group and is largely responsible for their success. Hats off to you Dom!!
Yesterday whilst helping sort out the infrastructure for their vermiculture tanks, he managed to get these pictures of the group’s first commercial sale of kales and spinach.

The girl in the picture didn’t want her pic taken but the guys insisted as they are so totally proud of their farm

Notice the sunflowers growing with the crops. We’re hoping they will act as both a shade canopy as the weather heats up as well as a crop to help extract heavy metals within the soil. Today we are submitting leaf samples of all the crops (kales, cabbage, corriander, spinach and sunflower) for testing and will post the results asap.
Fingers crossed!!!!!

to this lush organic plot!!

105 days from start to harvest!!

To begin with, I needed to see the area in question and my friend Wakio Seaforth went into Kibera with Mr Saidi one of the representatives of the group. She returned with the following pictures

From then until now the youth have worked at a terriffic pace to make their dreams come true. Assisted by Dominic Wanjihia who trained them in setting up their drip irrigation system, Johara who arranged the soil tests, Zak who assisted in the early days, Claire who made the connections, raised finance and guided the group with their finances and myself…mainly co-ordinating, planning and advising, the following pictures are a testimony to the youth groups hard work and success.

The guys and gals in the youth group are almost fully fledged farmers.

Where there’s a will, there’s a farm!!

Dominic making sure the piping fits!!