Vertical Garden

We commenced a trial of our first vertical garden in September 2011.  The initial results were really pleasing and the family loved the garden.  Unfortunately the village suffered greatly in the extreme floods that occurred throughout October and November and at one point only the top rung remained out of the 1.8m high flood waters, the great news was this was full of vegetables and so the family at least had some access to food. 

A vertical garden consists of 3 vertical posts, six 4 meter lengths of recycled PVC pipe and local materials to create some sun protection (Normally we install 2 per household).   The recycled PVC pipe is cut with small growing circles and  filled with rich fertile soil.  These are attached to the posts and a simple sun shelter completes the job.

Key Benefits;

• Provides significant growing area in a small space (Typically a 4m x 1 m space enables 48meters of growing space)
• Uses much less water than planting directly in the ground
• Provides families with little land the ability to grow vegetables to support their family
• Provides ability to grow vegetables during the rainy season in flood prone areas
• Encourages growth of variety of vegetables

How we do it?
Husk is following on from the initial trial and providing vertical gardens for Type 1 and 2 families in Treak and Kompheim Village.;  Our aim over the first 3 months of 2012 is to have around 6 vertical gardens in operation. 
Our basic program principles include;

• Families must be willing to work on developing their garden
• Families are taught how to make compost and bio char
• Basic nutritional training is given and families are encouraged to grow a range of different vegetables
• Families must undertake the construction work to create the garden with us.

Learnings and Challenges
One of the challenges we are facing is the lack of access to a range of quality seeds.  We are working to find sources of a range of vegetable seeds at the moment.

Following on from the first garden we have made a number of improvements and are continuing to work to come up with the best designed.  The key change we have made is to use natural materials for the sun protection rather than the green mesh.  We are also looking to trial using Bamboo for the shallow root vegetables - possibly as the top rung.

Costs
Each set of two vertical gardens costs us around $150 US to install, this includes the materials, creation of bio char and compost, seedlings and some training time.

Interested in Donating a Vertical Garden?
Please complete the donation form and mark this as a "vertical garden" donation.  Please fax this form back to our office.  You will receive a receipt by email within 2-3 days.