Ever wondered how to make a vertical garden?

Written By megan eastwood

My first vertical garden

Vertical gardens (or garden towers as they are also known) are ideal for use in areas that are either small, poor, dry, or all three.

  • They grow the same amount of food as a 10x10 square metre area,

  • Use 95% less water

  • drastically reduce labour (weeds only grow on top)

  • Less pests, hence better crop yields

  • Are simple and cheap to create

This makes them ideal to teach the girls at the annual leadership camp, so they can teach their families and communities and help reduce food scarcity and/or grow fresh produce to sell., without the need for a large piece of land.

Vertical gardens are part of the curriculum at the annual Girls Leadership Camp.

Watch the video below to see how we build a vertical garden.

Watch here to see how we created a vertical garden.

Each year we have reports of success stories during our follow up with the girls, where they have taken the idea home to their communities and implemented it.

This year one of the girls (Faith, seen in our video) stayed behind after the girls had left, and was taking a keen interest in helping us build a 2nd garden with the remaining soil and seedlings. On talking to her we learned that she is from an extremely dry area and they rarely eat any fruit or veg because they just can’t grow it, water is too scare. As we know plant foods are extremely important to our diets for both nutrients and fibre.

Before she left camp we made sure to connect her with her local 100 Humanitarians, who are also active in her area. They go into communities and teach them how to create vertical gardens, then give them enough supplies to implement the program. 100 Humanitarians also help with the vertical garden program at our leadership camps, and they can be seen in our photos and videos.

Just another of the many ways this camp is helping, not just the girls but their communities too.

Small Gestures transform lives.

megan eastwood