Kikondo, UG – Soil nourishing training gets families excited for vegetable gardens – 28 May 2016

Wamukisa held their first organic agriculture training today. Over 20 families came out to attend the training, which focused on the benefits and basic concepts of soil nourishment.

For months, families in Kikondo have been watching Wamukisa tend their demonstration organic vegetable garden and make compost. “Our families here have really been excited to learn more about what we are doing for some time now,” explained garden shop manager Michael Kiwanuka, “Really they are excited to be learning how to start their own gardens today.”

The training started with a review of setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timebound (SMART Goals).

“Our SMART Goal for this training is that by June 30, every family here today will have cultivated, raised, and fenced an 8 meter by 1 meter garden area,” said Kiwanuka, “Once we have prepared our soil as such, we can begin learning about planting and maintaining vegetables according to organic practices.”

According to Kiwanuka, setting SMART Goals at the beginning of the training reinforces to attendants that Wamukisa trainings are always actionable trainings where every participant should leave with a next step to improve their life.

After setting goals for the training participants learned specific, measurable benefits they could reap from growing vegetables at home. For example, they learned that if they currently buy two bundles of vegetables per week for their family, but could start growing two bundles from a single garden bed instead, they could save 52,000 UGS (US $17.33) per year with very little effort. That’s enough to buy five chickens, which could easily be ten or fifteen chickens at the end of another year.

After establishing goals and expectations, Kiwanuka reviewed the basic practices and benefits of soil nourishment. Then the training moved to the hands-on portion, where participants were invited to make compost and prepare soil by measuring, cultivating, raising, and making soil amendments with compost, manure, and rice hull charcoal.

The training was capped off by walking through Wamukisa’s vegetable gardens while participants estimated how much money they could make by selling all of the vegetables in each bed. Mama Thomas, who attended with her three-month old son, was surprised how much she learned: “Honestly, I only came because my mother in law made me. But now I am so happy I came because I can see this is a project I can do even with a baby and it will benefit the family.”

After the training, the Wamukisa garden shop team members encouraged everyone to begin preparing soil as soon as possible so they could qualify to attend garden building and maintenance trainings and start their own organic vegetables gardens.