Right from the start when we first came to Onseepkans in 2011 we realized that vegetable gardening will be an essential part of our mission, both for us and the community around us. Over the course of the next 12 years we learned a lot (and made many mistakes!).
We learned the different methods to approach vegetable gardening, from the conventional method of chemical fertilizers and tilling the ground to manure, compost and the no-dig method.
We also learned the different ways of irrigation, from flooding, to sprinkler, to micro, to drip (and again mistakes and having to re-invent the wheel which cost us a lot of money!).
Since we started developing our main farming project, the dates, we realized that even our vegetable gardening have to slot in with our vision for the date trees. In-between the date tree rows are open spaces of 9 meters wide. These open spaces we want to utilize for vegetables, however, we cannot use sprinkler irrigation since the young date trees do not want excessive water on their growing points. Thus we are forced to use mainly drip irrigation. We decided for the time being to focus on the no-dig gardening method with mulching and manure for fertilizer.
For us it make sense to try to make the no-dig method work, since this would be the best example to give to the communities around us. These communities do not have the money nor the means to farm with vegetables the normal commercial way.
Over the years we identified four basic vegetables that we try to cultivate right through the year, Swiss Chard (very similar to spinach), Beetroot, Carrots and Onions. We are experimenting with the other vegetables to see what work when. Our climate is unique in the sense that during summer (December, January, February) it is too hot to plant vegetables. The plants simply do no grow, but struggle to survive in the heat. This is not a problem to us, since these months are the peak months to prepare for our date harvest.
Please pray for our vegetable project, that it will be a blessing and a testimony to the communities around us.
