Go Farm is an urban market garden in Nairobi that locally sells a wide variety of healthy vegetables. Good for you, good for the environment!
We use practices that stimulate the natural biological processes and biodiversity in the soil.
Toys for farm girls: Jacky enjoyed trying out the new scale in the kitchen yesterday. This simple piece of equipment makes life much easier as our orders are slowly growing bigger.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Jacky and Maggie harvested and packaged the veggies yesterday without me since I was staring into a friend’s microscope - but that's a story for another time.
This is how collaboration looks like: our own veggies (green crates), complemented by veggies from (red crates). We are very happy to be able to offer a wider variety of fresh, organic vegetables. And so are our customers!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
A snapshot of the produce that we delivered last week.
More poo, bring it on, I can’t get enough of it!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We still need a lot of compost to make new veggie beds. We cover the soil with a thick layer to kickstart the process of enriching the soil; after that, we top it up when needed. And yes, we plant the seedlings directly in the compost.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
As we are not able to make enough compost for new beds from the available materials in our own plot, we have to bring it in from elsewhere. We order truckloads full of horse poo, mixed with straw, that we transform into beautiful, nice smelling compost within 2-3 months.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We apply a no-till method: after taking the woody and grassy bits and pieces out of the soil, we just put the matured horse manure on top and let the soil life do the rest of the work. It is amazing how much a layer of 15 cm compost diminishes within 6 months!
Our ferocious (don’t mess with her, 2nd photo) broody chicken Luca finally has some fertile eggs to sit on.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
She refused to leave the chicken coop for weeks, hardly feeding herself, protecting eggs from the other chickens that are probably not fertile anyway, despite our very active cockerel 😉. We hope that this problem is solved once she’ll have her own babies.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We got 6 Bantam eggs (thanks Suzanne 😘), from 6 different mamas probably, so we will have a variety of chicks soon hopefully.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Expected date of delivery: 19th of November.
I love harvesting these aromatic basil leaves and when they are turned into pesto, I can't stop eating! Luckily we have plenty basil in the greenhouse at the moment so I can make a good stockpile.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Freeze the pesto in ice cube trays, transfer the cubes to a freezer bag and you have your homemade pesto at hand for half a year (though you'll finish it probably much quicker).
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Pesto ingredients:
- 2 big cups basil leaves
- 3 gloves garlic
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (for a vegan option: 3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast)
- 1/3 cup of slightly roasted pine nuts (I often use sunflower seeds, walnuts also work).
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Pulse the nuts or seeds with the basil in the food processor before adding the garlic and cheese or yeast. Slowly pour in the olive oil, add salt, pepper and a bit of lemon juice. Ready to dig in!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Use pesto on pasta (of course!) but it is also delicious on a toasted sandwich, in your soup, with grilled veggies or on a baked (sweet) potato.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Enjoy!
Laika inspecting the drips. Work in progress.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Lots of work now but will save us water and time very soon.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Man at work.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Putting the first bits and pieces together for our drip irrigation system. A next step in the direction of saving precious resources, in this case water and time.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Water will be directly guided into the soil which will hopefully also help decrease some fungal diseases.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Red Russian kale, with its lacey leaves, and gorgeous purple stems and veins, one of four varieties of kale we grow in our garden at the moment. It seems that the purple stands out even more after frosty nights but luckily, we don’t have those here 😁.
The young, small leaves can be eaten raw in salads. The bigger ones can be chopped, spiced and briefly cooked for a lovely side dish - the leaves turn to deep green. Or simply add them to your curries, stews and soups.
Enjoy!
Sukuma wiki cannot be forgotten in any Kenyan garden!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For those not familiar with one of the highlights of the Kenyan cuisine: sukuma wiki literally means to ‘push the week’ or ‘stretch the week’ in Swahili.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I’m not a 100% sure why it is called like that, and versions differ, but I know that it is affordable and available all-year round. So, my story is: whenever and wherever you are, you always manage to buy some sukuma – it allows you to survive the week, until your payday on Saturday. Sounds plausible 😉?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I fry the chopped sukuma with onions, garlic, chili, turmeric, smoked paprika, tomatoes, a bit of vegetable broth and some lemon juice. Very nice with rice or sweet potato mash. Enjoy!
Our goodies for this week’s mixed salad bags: different mustard, kale, rucola and lettuce leaves, a bunch of fresh herbs, and some edible flowers. Enjoy!
Farm diaries: changing directions.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Little did I know: it turned out that butternut squash is a creeper and needs lots of space - hence the habit of planting it at the border of the plot and not right in the middle of it, as Maggie (my guardian / garden angel) pointed me delicately at.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So, we went up in the air and built a small bamboo construction that works perfectly fine.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Lesson from the garden: change directions if need be ;).
“How did you manage to become a farmer?” asked a friend earlier this week. Although I don’t consider myself a farmer yet, I master quite some new skills, compared to a year ago.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I told him that I’m actually an ‘internet farmer’. I learn from people who generously share their knowledge via YouTube and Instagram. Google became my best friend, and there are plentiful online courses and e-books available. Lack of information is no longer an excuse to not try things out.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
However, absolutely nothing beats hands-on experience. You can keep on staring at your screen, dreaming and studying but this will lead to nothing unless you transform your ideas into action. Only then things will start to change.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So that’s what I did. I planted beetroot. And lettuce, beans and tomatoes.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Scary? Absolutely. Will you make mistakes? Of course. Frustrating? Definitely. Is it worth it? Oh yes!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So keep on going, one action at the time.
Nairobi
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when GoFarm posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
