I used a simple design of wires and steel pegs, to make a straight stand, for the peas to be able to climb up the wires.
The idea is that you put a peg in
front and between the planting bags in a row line, from front to back, in a veggie
tunnel. Each row has 4 planted lines from front to back. The steel pegs should
be 80 cm long. The length of the wire to support the legumes and fruits should
be the same as the length of the planted row. After you have placed the pegs of
each line in their places, you need to tie the wire along each line to the peg
in that line.
After the wire and pegs were placed,
you need to tie the plants gently to wire. If you are dealing with legumes you
will need to be extra careful not to bruise them or tie them too tight, else
you break them. For this reason we have decided to use plastic or elastic ropes
which are very soft and easy to stretch.
After placing the stand you will
begin to see that the plants will adapt and get into shape easily. After the
final harvest of the plants you will need to remove the stand and place it in a
store safely for the next planting.
The legumes that were planted at Hope
village were part of a Planting Calendar implementation. Last year, 2013, we
planted one cultivar and saw that this could really work, then this year we
said ‘let’s try and plant two more cultivars and see’.
In the beginning we only planted one
seed per planting bag, but now we have planted two seeds per bag and the seeds
flowed quickly, within 3 weeks after planting. The first cultivar we planted
was Sugar Pod II. Then we planted Oregano Sugar Pod II is very fast growing and
gives plenty of flowers that matures within 4 days. We then planted Kennedy in
another tunnel, which is very slow compared to the first two cultivars. The
children love the sugar pod cultivars because the peas are really sweet. We are
also seeing a greater harvest than year.
Emmanuel
Muyumba
TOT in Horticulture and Veggietunnel Production
+264813899866
