By Antynet Ford

Beatrice Wangui has made rocky ground in Langalanga, Gilgil, into a spinach and vegetable farm by making compost and using vertical garden towers made of garden paper and clothes.

“The land in Langalanga area is purely rocky with no soil. For many years, we went almost ten kilometers in the neighbourhoods to lease land for farming because we could not grow anything on these rocks,” said Beatrice.

“But then I learned that from the waste materials in my home, I could make my own soil,” she said.

“Making my own soil at the compost pit takes upto six months and it is very fertile. In a year, I make soil twice from the compost pit and from it, I can make up to 10 vertical gardens of the Vetagro garden paper. I add to my own made soil by buying soil from vendors who sell it at between Sh200 and Sh300 per wheelbarrow,” she said.

The Vetagro garden paper she uses is a strong gardening sheet that costs around Sh2,800 for a kit to grow vegetables in layers instead of on flat ground. Wangui’s paper gardens have a high central section in the middle, and round layers going outwards like rings. She puts soil mixed with compost in each layer, and plants vegetables in the top of each layer. 

She also uses sacks and worn-out clothes to grow the vegetables, including old trousers filled with soil. 

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Her farm produces indigenous vegetables such as terere, saga and managu, as well as spinach and sukuma wiki. She also grows indigenous maize varieties, yellow, purple and red, which she sells as food and seeds.

“Before doing this growing, I was working on people’s farms in order to get food for my family. I always knew that nothing would grow in the rocks. This farming is able to feed my family and also earn a living from it as I sell the maize, vegetables and seeds, making a good fortune from it,” she said.

“For vegetables, I sell to a company who buy a kilo for Sh25 and it is a readily available market with no middlemen. I do rotational farming for sukuma wiki and spinach on 35 Vetagro paper towers I have made. The indigenous vegetables take a little more space that is why I have set them aside after making good soil separately flat on the side of the farm,” she said.

“I now have spinach which I harvest after 14 days. On a good day, I harvest upto 120 kg of spinach, which is about Sh6,000 a month. For the indigenous vegetables, I make about 100 kg and the pricing is still the same Sh25 per kilo. This is money I did not know I could make because of the rocks,” she said.

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