The School Garden Co-op Report

The school garden project has been planted into the 6000 ft of newly installed drip irrigation lines. The area had been ploughed and disced then the drip lines were laid into place. The garden team planted the area over a two day period and began irrigation, leaving the seeds in a very warm moist bed to germinate. We are into the dry season in South Sudan, but the Nile River's banks are flooded allowing easy pumping access to the water. The team planted their rows about five feet apart to allow for growth and leaving room to harvest. The team planted sukuma (a leafy vegetable similar to collard greens), egg plant, cucumber, green pepper, and tomato in the drip irrigated area. They also planted watermelon close by that will be hand watered.

Using drip irrigation, smaller amounts of water are required. This will decrease the energy cost of producing the vegetables. There will be less weeding required as the majority of the area will be dry. This will be an ideal time to grow the vine plants. We are anticipating an exciting time of abundant vegetable production.

The garden team has two trained garden/vegetable growers from the Ministry of Agriculture who will be aiding the team. This will be an excellent time to start a fruit tree orchard. The hope is to acquire fruit tree seeds to plant and water on higher ground. After getting a good start with irrigation, the youngly started tree’s will enjoy the coming rain season to get deep roots.

This may be a time of fewer challenges to produce but the big challenge will be learning how to operate within a Co-op. The CEDASS team on the ground will be there along with an NGO called AVSI that has helped set up the Co-op to guide the Co-op members on what their duties are as a co-op. The co-op is made of many community members working together, with equal voting rights to operate the school garden with full disclosure of all financial issues. As the garden continues to grow, the primary reasons for the garden project are vitally important.