PROFILE : Nnalongo, housewife who sells vegetables fresh from the garden

Christine Griffin Tusiime grows more than 20 types of vegetables on a 25-decimal piece of land in Bukasa, a Kampala suburb. It started as a hobby, family garden and now it is turning into a business that earns her close to Shs800,000 a month.

Tusiime a housewife and mother of five is a citizen in the United Kingdom. She has a vegetable garden in the UK but the idea to develop the same here started with a puzzle.

Nnalongo had a lot of soil that had been excavated as the constructors laid a foundation for her house in November 2015 in the same area of Bukasa. The first garden was in her compound with vegetable seeds she carried from the UK.

Some people call her Nnalongo while others simply refer to her as Christine. Her garden has a signpost Nalongo’s Salads &Vegetables is located a few meters away from the tarmac road at Bukasa Stage near Ssebo Green recreation centre.

“I wanted to have fresh vegetables but also try out to see if the soil and weather conditions in Uganda were favourable for some of the fruits and vegetables I got from the UK. I brought Strawberry seeds, mustards, mizuna and without fertilizers, they were able to grow,” she says.

More soil was dug for the foundation and Tusiime did not have where to put it. “I then asked my neighbor to allow me put the soil in his land. He also said it was okay for me to transfer my garden there,” she says.

She grows turmeric, ginger, spinach, parsley, garlic, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, radishes, Swiss chard, basil, coriander, sukuma, dodo, watermelon, pumpkins, lettuce, pakchao, strawberries and keeps them organic.

“I do not use any fertilizers on the crops but rather use vinegar and liquid soap to spray the plants as they are usually affected by aunts and termites,” she says.

Some of the vegetables can be eaten raw or boiled. If someone does not have time to cook, they can be kept for more than five days under refrigeration.

Her customers

Her neighbours are her major customers. They normally come to the garden in the evening because she is usually there for her evening tea. And the gardeners are there too. They pick vegetables for the customers depending on what they order for and a bunch of vegetables that fit in one hand goes for Shs 1000.

“There are Canadians, Ethiopians and some Ugandans in my neighbourhood that are my regular customers. They like the vegetables because they are sure they are fresh from the garden.”

Besides her neighbours, Nalongo also supplies the Italian Supermarket twice a week. She supplies 200 grams of plain and mixed salads at shs 3000 a packet.

Spraying

Nalongo’s problem was the plant flies that affected the vegetables. She got the idea of using vinegar and liquid soap in a mixture to kill the flies. “My neighbor in England told me about this idea.

I mix 10ml of vinegar, 10ml of liquid soap and one liter of water for the garden and this has helped me keep my garden organic and pest free.”
She taught her gardeners how to make the mixture and they are able to do it even when she is away and they usually spray in the evening.

Sometimes the ants and termites attack the vegetables and Nalongo has resorted to planting marigold flowers to keep away some insects because they do not like the smell from the flowers.

Watering

It is a dry season and without watering, the plants would wither. Nalongo uses plastic empty water bottles to water the plants that need water throughout the day. She puts support sticks near the plant and suspends bottles filled with water on the stick. At the bottom of the bottles, she makes a hole and the water keeps on dripping from the bottle throughout the day keeping the plant hydrated throughout. She refills the bottles every evening.
“It is continued watering throughout the day.

This technique saves us the burden of watering every morning or evening. Also the plant is hydrated throughout the day and the water is not used at once the way it would be if we just watered once,” says Emma Asiimwe a gardener at Nalongo’s vegetable garden.

The workers

The men who work at Nalongo’s garden were builders that dug the foundation of the house that is under construction.

“I felt bad that Emma was leaving because he was a special case. He had shared with me his problems and I knew he needed money. He was my first employee at the garden,” she says.

Emma was able to pay his brother Moses’ hospital bills when he was sick and now, Moses works at the garden too. Each of the gardeners earns Shs 200,000 a month as salary for maintaining the garden and planting more vegetable when necessary.

Why this way

“People are no longer interested in foods filled with chemicals because they are a risk to our health.

In the past, I would go to supermarkets to buy vegetables and salads but they were never fresh. I thought of having my own garden where I would get fresh ones. When I sell them from the garden, people are sure they are fresh.”

Challenges

My biggest challenge is that the weather and soil type do not favour some of the plants I got from the UK so they need extra care or they wither. The type of soil in UK is soft and moist. Here is the soil is very dry and hard.

Some plants need extra care so that they don’t wither and dry. Also the weather is too dry now so the plants to be watered all the time,” she says.

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