We recently heard from a woman in Zaka named Dorcus Zinyongo, who developed an innovative way to use drip irrigation in her keyhole garden. Here is an abridged version of her story:
“I live in Chimedza Village with my mother and I have two children: a boy and a girl. My eldest daughter is doing a degree at Great Zimbabwe University and my son is at Zaka Secondary School. The father to my children is now late.
We are among the beneficiaries of keyhole gardens and we’ve benefited a lot because now we can get vegetables any time – and they are close to the kitchen! Our health has improved very much since the introduction of the keyhole and community nutritional gardens, and we are much more physically strong. Now that we have been taught the nutritional values of the vegetables, we’ve created many new recipes.
Our health has improved because in both gardens we don’t use chemical fertilizers and chemicals to control pests after we learned how they affect our immune system. We are grateful for the borehole in our village but still I have found out that there is need to save water so I borrowed the method you see in the picture. I use discarded plastic bottles, filling them with water and placing them inverted in the keyhole garden among the vegetables. It’s like drip irrigation.”