Gako Organic Farm

A colleague tipped us about a training programme for gardeners. She already sent her gardener there for a week and this turned out a success. The idea is that you spend one to three weeks at the farm and have intensive training on how to farm on a small scale and organically. These are all day trainings and you even stay there in dorms over night.

We are thinking of sending our gardener there for one week to start with, so we went and had a little look. We do not expect much return for ourselves, except that we will have less burning smells from garden waste. It is more our aim to train our gardener, both to be more employable and to have his own little garden at home.

Here are some impressions.
A rabbit high rise. The droppings and urine flow to the middle and are collected. This is used as fertilizer.
Double dug beds. This is named so, because the ground has to be ploughed twice, not sure why. The rows have to be at least 50 cm wide in order to have enough food for the plants.

By making a hill the space is used more efficiently - these are known as kitchen or keyhole gardens. Compost and water is added via the central "chimney".

An even better way to use space. Within the bag is a cylinder to ensure enough air going to the roots.

Mushrooms are more of a luxury good in Rwanda. The seeds have to be bought, because it is too hard to multiply them yourself. They grow on sterilized banana tree or bark and have to be in a dark and humid place.

Because they are only training women groups at the moment, our gardener will have to wait until December. But he seemed enthusiastic.