What happened one year after the founding of the orchard?
On the 24th October2022, KWEPU initiated an orchard garden on the western part of Rusinga. We are operating on three quarters of an acre. Since we initiated this program on the island, Rusinga island has experienced long droughts which has really impacted negatively on agricultural activities on the island. Despite this major challenge, Kwepu has tried to maintain the garden and currently the following fruits are doing well:
Paw paws, Bananas, Avocado, Lemons, Oranges, Mangoes, Cassava, Sweet potatoes and Passion fruits.
We planted some water melons last year which we harvested and generated a total of 16,850 kshs from the sales.
The photos shows the status of the orchard garden after completion.
Since its conception last year October 2022, we have managed to do wiring in the store house and now connected to electricity, this was done from the sales made from the water melons.
We have also managed to build another house which we are currently using as our meeting venue and office where we coordinate all our activities.
We have also seen very significant change in our fruits like paw paws are almost getting ready for harvest in the next one month.
In order to harvest continuously through out the year, we project to do succession planting where we plant fruits at different stages hence we plan to plant more fruits at the onset of the next rainy season.
We also plan to construct a toilet soon should we get enough funds for it.
Then we also plan to extend the land so that we can plant enough fruits to meet the demand of the people of Rusinga.