Primary 5 weighed, sorted and sold the crop at the gate, then did the bookkeeping themselves.
The tomatoes went in as seedlings in February, into the four raised beds along the orchard wall. Primary 5 watered them, staked them, lost about a fifth of the crop to a fortnight of rain in May, and picked the rest across three mornings last week.
Forty kilogrammes, weighed on the kitchen scales and recorded in the ledger the class has kept since September. Twelve kilos went to the kitchen, eighteen were sold at the gate on Friday afternoon, and the remaining ten went out in the Harvest Share boxes.
The bookkeeping is the part the children argue about most. Every cost goes in, including the seedlings and the stakes, so the class knows whether the beds actually paid for themselves. This year they did, by a margin of about forty thousand shillings.
Next year the same class wants to try peppers. The argument for it, made at some length in Friday's meeting, is that peppers sell for more.
