The $1 Organic Menu

Well, it’s not at McDonald’s.  And it’s not just one meal.  It’s right outside your kitchen and feeds you throughout the entire dry season.

For the past two days, we’ve been hosting a seminar at the clinic on “Sack Gardening.”  We invited 15 of our HIV+ patients who are on ARV treatment, live in urban Kamenge,  and who struggle to meet their daily nutritional needs.

And, wow, did we learn a lot.  Even I, who never thought I’d work a garden in my life, am planning to build a garden this weekend.

The concept is simple…and cheap.

First, you buy a large sack (such as the 50 or 100 kg sacks used to transport potatoes or rice).  In Burundi, these cost 500 FBU, or $0.41; however, many people will already have one lying around their house.   Then you collect some good dirt, small stones, and an old bottle or can which you cut off the ends to make a cylinder.  The only thing left is to buy the seed, which in Burundi cost about 200 FBU ($0.16) per pack, and one pack contains enough seed to split between 20 people to plant their sack gardens.

Then, to actually construct your sack garden, you place your sack just outside your kitchen and place the cylinder in the center of the sack and fill it with stones.  You then add dirt evenly around all sides, keeping the dirt from entering the stone cylinder.

This process is repeated (shimmying the cylinder up the stone column) until the entire sack is full and you have a stone column running down the center.

The stone column makes sure    when you water your sack, the  water goes all the way down to the  bottom, meaning that you can  plant even on the sides of your  sack, giving you more garden  space.

After you’ve filled your sack, you need to find 3 stakes to support your stack to make sure it doesn’t topple over.  You then pour 5 liters of water (which can be recycled water from rinsing your dishes or taking a shower) into your sack to leave over night.  This makes sure your soil is nice and moist for planting the next day.

The first step on day two is to cut staggered holes into the sides of your stack, where you can plant light weight or leafy vegetables.

You then get to the fun part…the actual planting!

What’s important to remember here is what type of vegetables you are planting.  Heavy vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, cabbage, etc need to be planted in your bottom wholes so that as they grow they will be supported by the ground beneath them.  Meanwhile, pretty light weight veggies need to planted on the sides (and veggies which don’t have big heads like onions).  This could include leaks, spring onions, spinach, lengalenga (an indigenous,  very nutrient rich leafy green), or other “cut and come again” type green leafy vegetables.   Finally, any root or vine like vegetable will be planted on the top…so carrots, onions, tomatoes, peppers, or a green leafy vegetable with a “heart.”

All that’s left is to water the seeds!  And keep watering your sack as your garden comes to life.  

What’s great about this method of gardening is:

1) It can be done in an urban setting where you don’t have a large plot of land to grow vegetables on.

2) In a small space, you can plant a large variety of vegetables which helps ensure that you and your family are getting a balanced vitamin and mineral rich diet.

3) Because you can recycle water from your kitchen and house (we even learned how to make compost and fertilizers with human waste), you can keep your garden growing throughout the dry season.  With just five sacks, you could provide the vegetable intake of a family of 6-8 people year round!

4) You can do it all for under $1.

And people say the $1 menu at McDonald’s is a good deal!  They obviously haven’t tried sack gardening yet.

Anyway, it was a very fun couple of days for all of us who participated.  Not only did we learn to make the gardens, we spent a lot of time talking about how you create a healthy, balanced diet (which is EXTREMELY important when you are HIV+), as well as learning how to make compost piles, organic fertilizers, and organic pesticides.

All in all…very cool.   And it’s inspiring us at the clinic to think about how we can further support patients from the moment they learn they are HIV+ to start leading a healthy positive life…maybe it’s just brining over a sack and seeds on our first home visit.