Gardening in South Sudan: Week 1
January 21, 2012 2 Comments
The “nursery” is coming alive as some of the vegetables I planted in the deep red South Sudanese soil are sprouting. Some seeds seem to be more receptive to the soil than others. So far, as can be seen by the photo above, the lettuce is sprouting well. There is hopeful notice of the cherry tomatoes starting to come up.
The routine involves watering morning and night, when the heat of the day isn’t so intense. South Sudan is coming up to the hottest months (February and March) reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius which can be detrimental to the plants. These months are followed by a cooler rainy season which is when most farmers plant seeds. This nursery is really an experiment to see which seeds will grow in this soil. After this round, we’ll eliminate those plants that didn’t germinate properly and increase production of those that do by planting the seeds directly into the soil when the rainy season starts.
The garden is a-go, people. Get out your shovels and prepare to swat the apple-sized locust because Oren is growing his veggies big!
Nice one Oren.
50 Celsius in the summer ? its crazy, is that temperature in your location ?
Not yet. In the afternoon it reaches about 30-35 degrees. I heard that in February, the temperature can reach 50 degrees but the mangos, which come at the same time, are great!