Suubi Update Blog

There has been much excitement at Suubi over the past couple of weeks as the new demonstration garden at the centre has been developed. Earlier in March our inspiring friend and gardening guru, Bagatya Robert, from Nakonyonyi spent six days at Suubi.

In July last year, during the 2009 volunteer trip, we had taken five local agriculture teachers to Jinja district in Eastern Uganda where Robert runs an amazing demonstration garden for Nakonyonyi Primary School. Our teachers from Masaka district learnt an enormous amount during that trip and were all inspired to try and replicate Robert's extraordinary work at their own schools. With this in mind, Robert took the time, during this recent visit to Suubi, to tour all of the schools that have been involved in our School Garden Project. He was extremely pleased with what had been achieved and this inspired him to want to pass on further skills to the enthusiastic students and teachers.

It was decided that one teacher and a small group of students from each school would be involved in intensive training with Robert at Suubi. We considered this would be the ideal follow up to earlier training.  They were taught many new skills in establishing and maintaining a productive organic garden including; how to properly set up double dug, kitchen, mandala and sink gardens. In addition to this Robert explained a variety of planting methods and the importance of composting and mulching the garden. These teachers and students are now busy passing on these skills to everyone else at their respective schools. 

Banana suckers and pineapples were also added to recently planted avocado and paw paw seedlings, this means a large variety of fruit and vegetables will be in abundance at Suubi in the not to distant future. It is hoped that this will encourage, not only the schools involved in our garden project, but also the wider community around the centre, to grow a more diverse variety of food which will add much needed nutritional value to their day to day meals.