Permaculture advocate in Zimbabwe - too little/too much rain

I left plenty of onions for seeds, I am not leaving any chances to not getting onion seed from this season.

Rufaro Makamure wrote:We also saw a very beautiful praying mantis, its the first time ever that I have seen one like this one. We are used to plain green or brown ones.  

What a beauty! That guy (girl?) is going to get rid of some annoying pests as well. Win Win!
I've read through your posts and I'm really impressed with you ingenuity, perserverance and willingness to grow personally. It's always lovely to see people working with nature instead of against it. I'm sure this will help you realise your dreams for a better future

Something I forgot to ask: have you ever tried/ heared of 'lupine beans'? The beans are high in proteine and could serve as an alternative to soy beans. The plants ask very little with regards to soil and moisture and are pretty disease free. Maybe you could grow them on the sandy part of your land that you've had trouble cultivating?

White lupin flourishes in the same climatic zones of maize, although lupin, except at the beginning of the growing season, requires little water, because it has a long tap root.[4]

I was wondering if this might be something you'd like to grow. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupinus_albus

I do not recall ever hearing about lupine beans, it sounds like a good plant to grow.

I came back fromthe Serendipity bootcamp, and I am honored to have gotten such an experience. It's a journey I am taking seriously and I would like to always be in a state of awareness. It was an emotionally filled event.

The maize at the plot has started germinating and it's exciting. I am now working on the garden beds I put on the sandy part. I am raising them, and I drew an overview of what I want the place to look like. I intend to put wood thick and old looking logs, as the frame for all the raised beds which will give the garden some character, in the long run. For now, I saw a zero cost way of raising my beds using waste plastic bottles so I will be using these for this time to get the functional benefits of the raised beds, and develop the place as we grow.

I got vertiver grass from where I did the bootcamp but lost my parcel on my way home, I will have to make another arrangement.

I managed to get an A-frame made. The guy who helped me make the frame thinks I am crazy for going to such lengths to harvest water. This did not bother me at all, because I know that whether he understands the importance of water harvesting or not, he now knows there is something like this and who knows what the future holds, it might just come in handy.

My plan is to divert any excess water from the runoff that will fill up the compost pit we dug, into the whole field. So I plan to make swales 'kind of' that run though out the whole field. I say kind of because I intend to take the soil I dig out as I make trenches, and use it to fill up the veggie beds that I want to raise, instead of forming a berm. Then as for the trench over flow if it ever does occur, I will have the end of the trench feeding into the mouth of a termite mount that has been giving us a headache (maybe I can get also get rid of the termites without using chemicals). I will have the end slightly raised to allow enough water to sit in the swale but low enough to prevent damaging overflow. Any help on this is mostly appreciated. Will insert a drawing to help show what I am saying.

As for being in the present, I have decided not to plait my hair in rows. That was me trying to be at least kind of formal (lack of better way to express this), so that I do not deviate too much from the norm, I am so far already so I thought wearing my hair a certain way makes me a little like normal. But now I really don't care, the present moment is all I have and I am sure my hair is the least of anyone's worries.

From what you say your plan for swales/beds is a little like Heather Staas was doing on her small rented plot here : https://permies.com/t/180515/Allotment-plot-ideas#1427443 That seems to have worked for her and I think will be good in your area too.

Thank you Nancy. That thread is a really helpful one.  I got lovely ideas for the raised bed veggie patch. I will send my original idea which had multiple openings at the edges, I will close those up and remain with an inlet and outlet or just an outlet .  I also really liked the planning, execution and progress of Heather's plot in relation to time, She did quite a lot in such a shot space of time.

The swales I meant are for the field, maybe let me call them trenches with a level base. These will be in-between maize rows, so they can only have a maximum width of 50cm. The depth of the inflow trench will be less than that of the outflow, when the pit fills up water will only go into the trench that leads to the field.  

Ngoni finally took his family. I managed to finish planting maize on the remaining part of the field. I now have time to concentrate on the water harvesting system and the raised beds properly. Rain is predicted to come starting from tomorrow. I have to move soil that's on the side of the pit where I expect the runoff to flow through (when we dug the pit it was meant to be a composting pit and we did not want excess water into the pit, now it's the opposite). I moved some and opened up a portion that will hopefully allow water to flow into the pit, and I transferred the soil to the slope side, to protect the maize that comes after the pit.

I now have to include watering of beds in my schedule, I cannot wait for the rain, it will make things easier and I will be able to balance things; raise beds and all the other things on time.

We got our first showers today, it's actually showering outside. I continued to open up the pathway for runoff into the pit. I also put soil, grass and ash in a drum close to one of the pit's corner where I will put a banana tree. When the rain season passes, I will remove the drum and add soil and connect the tree to the edge of the pit, so that it's roots can spread nicely.

The showers came when I had just started leveling the veggie paths and using the soil to fill up the raised beds.

I have been following your progress since you began this thread. Wonderful progress!

I think you once wrote about drying cowpea leaves for market. Do you harvest these throughout the growing season, or only for the early season? How do these get used in a meal?

Also, at the international food shop, I have seen dried sweet potato vines. I've dehydrated some myself but have no idea how to make a meal with it. Do you?

We harvest the leaves throughout the growing season, we just take the tips which are tender and boil and dry these. They make a tasty veggie dish. They need time boiling when you are recooking them and you can add peanut butter.

I have tasted fresh sweet potato vines once and I liked them. I haven't added these to my regular meals, but I will and I will share how they are cooked once I get the hang of it.

I filled up a section of the raised beds with soil and I like how it looks. I am using what's around, the cost so far is zero. I pick up bottles from nearby shops and I am taking anything I can get my hands on that I can use as an anchor for the bottles. For temporary measures I cannot complain much. I have to put watering in my schedule... Maintenance, things are not my favorite, but this has to be done, ( I like taking up projects).

I have been working on the veggie patch, the last 3 days have been easier because we got a substantial amount of rain so the ground was moist and soft. I decided to concentrate on shovelling the soil onto the beds and finish the outer box. I will then put the bottles as I find them, to secure the soil.
I am a lot slower today, but I still need to raise almost the other half, the slope is so visible, so I will engage some people to help.

I found the vertiver grass, so my target to plant this during this season's rain will be met.

I don't know if anyone has experienced losing track of time in the manner I did. All this while I was doing things mechanically, like knowing when to plant maize or being at events. I was confused when it started raining continuously, at the core of my brain, I was stuck in September. My planning was behind, but I managed to finish the veggie section outer trench, I don't think I will do nice shapes this year and I will be lucky to do the inner trenches this season. I also finished weeding the maize and planted cow peas on half the field. I had to get help to do all these things. The maize field looks good now and pretty soon there will be a beautiful green cover from the cow peas.

I am scared of staying alone at the plot, so I am looking   for someone who is struggling to pay rentals so that they can stay with me and water the veggie beds. That way I won't have to pay anyone to stay at the plot and also whoever I get won't have to worry about money for rentals.

I managed to find a family to stay at the plot and it's such a relief. I used money from the plot sales to pay for half of the help I got for weeding both the field and a few of the vegetable beds.  Currently sales are coming from choumoullier, I have to plant suckers in the old vegetable beds, to replace the old unproductive plants before I continue with my raised bed project (still working on the planning which is holistic).

These are the onions I left to flower, that I harvested.