How to create a bag garden

Name: Ripple Effect
Price range: $

Bag gardens are a simple way to grow vegetables in small spaces, whether in Africa or in your garden! A hessian sack filled with a mixture of soil and compost around a central column of stones, bag gardens filter water to vegetables planted in the top and around the sides.

"We grow spinach and cabbages in our bag garden. We eat vegetables for every meal, we have enough to give our neighbours and a surplus to sell."

Solange, Ripple Effect Rwanda

You will need:

Large sack
A tube e.g. cardboard tubing
Stones or gravel
A few large bricks or stones
Three long sticks or stakes
Top soil or compost
Well-rotted manure

Get started

1. Roll down the edges of the sack and add a small layer of stones at the bottom for drainage.

2. Place the tube on the stones in the middle and fill with more stones.

Create drainage

3. Surround the tube with a mixture of soil, compost and manure. Press down lightly.

4. Remove the tube to leave a column of stones in the middle of the soil mix.

Fill with soil

5. Repeat until the bag is full of soil and there’s a column of stones running the height of the bag. Unroll the sack and try to keep it upright as you go.

Create support

6. Hammer 3 stakes into the ground around the sack to support the bag.

7. Cut a series of horizontal lines in the sack sides at least 15cm apart where you want your plants to go. Make sure the holes are big enough to plant a seedling and there is enough room for the plant to grow.

Plant your seeds

8. Plant your seeds or seedlings in the holes and at the sack opening.

Water your plants

9. Water the garden generously at first and then regularly from the top of the bag, preferably with rainwater.

Have you been inspired by techniques like bag gardens used by farmers in rural Africa? Why not twin a garden today and grow side by side by side with a family in rural Migori, Kenya.

When you twin a garden, you are helping a family living in Kenya with three years of training in sustainable organic farming. Starting with small kitchen gardens, families can grow enough to eat, set up businesses, and go after their dreams.

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