Depending on the space available, you can grow mangoes in an urban setting.
A single mango tree can produce enough fruits per season for a family of six. It does not take a lot of space. A grafted mango seedling costs between sh2,500-sh4,000 in most nurseries.
Spare three square feet in your compound to plant a mango tree. If you look after it well, regularly watering and spraying it against pests and diseases and adding fertilisers, you and your family will enjoy fresh mangoes every season.
A little manure in the pit will make it grow faster. There are mangoes varieties on the market that can give up to 500 fruits per year, when mature.
A well-looked after grafted mango starts giving fruits at nine months. However, you need to keep removing the early fruits, until the tree develops a sizeable canopy, which is strong enough to hold the fruits.
It takes about three years to get a good canopy.
Planting an orange tree
The harvests can be big as long as you look after it properly. The oranges consumed by an average family in a year can be produced by a single tree.
All you have to do is find space for that orange tree in your compound and you will forget about buying oranges.
Dig a pit of 6x6ft, with a depth of two-feet, get fertiliser, mix at least a wheelbarrow (if you are using livestock dung) with the soils that you got out of the pit.
You can use chicken droppings in the same quantities. Plant the seedling and then cover the pit with the mixed soils.
After two years, it will start fruiting. Some of the grafted varieties can produce 500 to 1,000 oranges a year. A grafted orange seedling costs sh3,000.
