Keyhole Home Gardening

Country:
Uganda
Why to choose this solution?
It can improve food security, health, and livelihoods among the communities.
Savings per day or production:
It requires locally available resources to establish. Reduces household expenditures on vegetables, i.e., for a normal family, 2000 USh (USD 1) can be saved per day. Three keyhole gardens can supply a large family with a variety of crops during a year.
Cost in money and in own time to construct:
Requires little land and investment to set up. Family/ home labour is used, and it takes like approximately 3- 5 hours to establish.
Lifetime:
3-5 years.
Maintenance needed:
It is easy to maintain. It only requires regular weeding, fertilizer application, replacing of the compost baskets, planting seeds, and harvesting produce, which is not extremely time-consuming or difficult.
Resources needed in use:
Time, knowledge/competencies, materials (seedlings, garden tools such as hoes, knives)
Problems and limits:
Construction can be somewhat effort-intensive but not cost-intensive.
Where and how can you get it or make it?
JEEP trains communities in how to establish such gardens. The garden can be established in a kitchen space, compound, or courtyard.
Skills needed to produce, install. maintenance, use:
Hands-on skills, vocational skills, home-mentored skills.
How to use it:
To be added.
How to maintain it:
Regular weeding of the garden is needed.
Climate effect (if any):
When using compost in the garden, it helps to increase carbon in soil, which reduces emissions on a small scale. Pollution from use of inorganic fertilizers is limited.
Where it is used and how many users are there?
In Uganda, over 10,000 people have established such gardens in central, northern, western, southern and eastern parts of the country. JEEP has trained around 150 people in South Sudan in establishment and maintenance of the key hole gardens.
Why is it successful?
It is made through the use of locally available materials, it requires less knowledge and skill, just a small piece of land is needed, and it is easy to make. Usually built near houses, keyhole gardens enable anyone to farm easily, which is especially suitable for elderly and for physically challenged farmers. There is no need for tillage and less need for water. All forces are oriented towards achieving food security in a sustainable manner. Beneficial to the home in waste management, especially compostable kitchen waste.
If you can make it, a short description, typical problems, materials needed.:
Materials: Stakes, black soil, banana fibres, kitchen waste, garden waste, manure (compost, farm yard manure, poultry litter), bricks/plastic bottles, dry mater, water, seedlings, basin, hoe, spade, etc. Problems: Knowledge and skills, materials in some communities may not be available. Procedures: Establishment needs a trained or skilled person.
How to make it (if possible):
Needs a trained person to make.
How is it delivered and by whom?
JEEP trains trainers of trainers which have been key in delivering the concept to other people in the communities.
Successful financial model
What policies and strategies helped the success?
Government programs, private-sector programs, use of trainers of trainer (ToT) approach, inclusion of vulnerable groups of people in the food-production process, and awareness-creation on the need for a sustainable food-production approach.
More info:
JEEP, 7 Miles, Gayaza Rd, Kyanja, Kampala, P. O. Box 4264, Uganda. Tel: +256 414 578 316. info@jeepfolkecenter.org
Sources:
http://www.jeepfolkecenter.org
Name of the association uploading the case:
JEEP
When was the case uploaded? (YYYY-MM-DD):
2020-09-16