This is my mother's kitchen garden. Am amazed how far she has come. She doesn't buy vegetables anymore.

Challenges,

The greatest was the soil.

This space was filled with a lot of cement and other construction debree.(first photo of surrounding area shows the condition of the soil) I started it out by putting a layer (about an inch or two) of clay over the construction soil and planted simple flowers that were not so demanding nutrients wise. When my mother saw things could grow, she added a fresh layer of clay and chicken manure(from a neigbour), replaced my flowers with vegetables

Since then, it's a tiny paradise. She is now planting vegetables in basins, buckets, sacks .

Pests

Aphids are still a challenge. There thick caterpillars two weeks ago that chew through the kale leaves. Second photo shows an affected leaf.

Third photo shows the pests on the plant.

Took the last photo about a month ago.

Despite having to share her vegetables with aphids and their caterpillars, the vegetables are doing well; She told me presence of caterpillars means the vegetables are healthy and free of dangerous chemicals

She's got kale, Spinach, Amaranth, onions, pumpkin

The amaranth is still baby stage. Waiting to see how it will fair. She spread the seeds generously over the tiny garden.

Even has a pumpkin plant growing. She let it crawl outside and it's flowering with fruit

The leaves have been supplying her with additional vegetables.

And spring onions.

OTHER vegetables

Nightshade -

Don't know what the other one is called

And a traditional variety of kale that is spicy, a bit bitter

Cooked kales + spinach + amaranth

Follow up ...

Sugarcane

A kind of Spice

Vegetable
(Nderema in local dialect)

That's a tomato plant next to the spinach.

The Amaranth is gone. Rest of the garden looks robust

Some pests