permaculture advocate in Zimbabwe - too little/too much rain

Hi Rufaro,

I have been following your progress and it looks fabulous. Well done.

Earlier you posted about floodwater and soil being washed away. Someone mentioned napier grass, but I wonder if you have anyone using Vetiver grass instead near you? Vetiver planted in narrow hedges slows surface water and traps sediment and organic matter so that it can't be washed away. It also provides a massive amount of organic material that can be cut and used for mulching crops. It is frequently planted on sloping land to control erosion - natural terraces form between the hedges for planting. But it can also be used to protect teh gullies and waterways that you describe as building up lots of sediment.

So we decided to try and put a really thick mulch to add onto the grass we had thinly spread throughout the field. Well we managed to cover almost the whole field and my hope is that, for the whole of next year, the places that are covered now will still be covered throughout the year. With the rest of the areas that have a thin mulch, we will use the material from the field, after every harvesting, I do not think we will be hiring anyone to find us mulching material anymore, in the coming years (talk about small steps towards eliminating costs permanently). My mum's cousin gave us skins from nuts which is waste from his peanut butter making process. We put some of it on an area which is sandy, hoping the fineness of the material means it will decompose faster. We planted comfrey about two weeks back so exciting times ahead.
From 2015 the objectives have been

securing our water source

covering bare ground

So as to have have some control, better than before, over what our yearly yield will be. We will keep on developing the above objectives as we go, but the next big step is to now make the water from all the sources easily accessible for watering plants in the field. Instead of only using the space we grow maize in, only when the rains come, we should be able to use the space throughout the whole year. I tried to design an irrigation system a year or so ago but I got all clouded and overwhelmed. My sister has offered to help in the design process, and we hope to do this between now and end of March.

As we collected our mulch we noticed the difference between the places which had maize stalks, piled for most part of the year. The soil looks richer than the rest of the soil within the same field. There is a lot of burning currently as fields are being cleared and for those fields that have been cleared there is evidence of soil erosion.
I got the chance to build a rocket stove with Priscilla and Chengeto. Most people nowadays use electrical or gas stoves but the ladies I was working with still rely on fire for cooking. I learn't about rocket stoves when I visited two of my really amazing friends, Laurie and Brent, and the concept makes so much sense. With the help of you-tube videos we managed to build one and we had fun doing it.

Hi Rufaro

At night I read through this site to put me in a good mood for sleep. Your thread is one I have read through very keenly. I have been fascinated and impressed by your efforts, and your determination. It is a miracle to me that I can read about the life of someone on the other side of the globe, and from a different culture with a different language (credit goes to your excellent English). I guess gardening does connect all people from all parts of this amazing planet.
Looking at your soil, and the soil from your neighbourhood, I can see that it is quite fine and sandy. I am sure that the continual addition of mulch will improve things. Here in South East Queensland, Australia, I have the opposite problem. My soil is heavy clay, which is "hard as a bull's head" (my husband's phrase) when dry, and sticky when wet. It gets so sticky, it likes to hang on to your shoes, and there are times when you pull your foot out of a puddle and the shoe is left behind, buried in heavy mud.
Our rainfall is variable: we have a wet season, but in the last 2 years, the rains did not arrive then (Nov-Jan), and there was a horrible drought. (Well, no animals died, but I spent the whole time walking around looking at my plants and being upset over how shrivelled and bare they were.) The big rains arrived in March both years. I had given up on vegetables, and was using my precious dam water to nurse shade/windbreak trees. However, Mother Nature loves to be unpredictable, and this year we are starting summer with lots of rain. I have planted native trees and vetiver grass as a hedge to stop the horrible Dry Season (winter) winds, which dry everything, including the soil. I am about to start some seeds of Asian vegetables, which are more suited to the summers here than the European vegetables that traditionally have made up the diet of the non-Indigenous population here.
Your passion and commitment are obvious, and I am sure, if you do not get defeated by the low times that come in life, that you will emerge as a permaculture leader in your community.
Best wishes for your success.

It has just started raining after a long period of scotching heat. This time some of the maize is not as green as the previous seasons, we have decided to put chicken soup (water that we soaked a sack of chicken manure in, for a week), with the hope of making the maize healthier than it looks currently. We did not have the actual way of producing this soup so we just soaked a sack full of chicken manure in a drum of water and even the dilution was from our head. This time the most difficult part has been sharing time with other things that need to be done apart from field work. The ability to properly plan is one of the skills I have to work on. I made a watering schedule with the intention of watering the maize if there are episodes of dry times during the farming season, inorder to avoid straining the maize. I had not watered the maize and I am grateful it has started raining again.  I will still target getting a minimum of 14 bags with a bench mark having been set by last year's harvest (from the plenty rain we received last season, we know what our field is capable of). If we manage to maintain a specific target in our yearly expected yields, I believe psychologically we will start believing that we have a certain ability to control certain outcomes, if we have the right knowledge and skills. This will help us prepare for droughts and be equipped enough also, in the good farming seasons. The ultimate result will be availability of food always and then the focus can then be changed to diversity and healthy eating.
As for now, I really need to work on the maize, because the field is not truly representing what I envision, if there is proper application of permanent agriculture principles. Below are pictures from different parts of our field as well as the neighbors' field which had fertilizer applied to it. Both farms have maize with different sizes and shades of green, but the one with the artificial fertilizer has most of the maize looking really green.
I know I have to create time for watering the field when the rain is not enough, but I am not sure of how to make the maize greener and healthier so that we get a good yield.    

It seems to me that 2 weeks is too long to  soak the chicken manure; it would lose most of ist nitrogen by then. Twelve to 24 hours should be enough.  Are you using the night droppings from the chickens or the the bedding/litter from a pen or coop?  The night droppings only need to be dissolved and diluted. The compost needs to be soaked and then the water kept aerated by pouring the water back and forth between containers to keep the soil organisms alive until it is put on the soil. The wet compost can then be put around the plants doing the poorest to increase the soil organism food around their roots.

Thanks. It is a relief actually, the chicken soup we made was so smelly.

We are slowly going back on course the maize is becoming greener and it is growing taller in some other parts which had stunted growth. Of course there is still a reasonable amount of feeding that is still needed in other areas, especially the sandy low level areas. But generally the look that is in the field now, is a breeze of fresh air. I managed to buy a hose pipe at some garage sale in Harare, so as to extend the already existing one, I suspect we might need to water the maize, because the rain pattern we have had, so far, is not consistent at all. Hope the hose arrives in time. I think I am still going to be hopeful that we will have a decent harvest if we put our hearts and energy into feeding and watering the place. I have not started on the drip irrigation system, I think it is important to make sure something acceptable comes out of the field.
This year my family agreed that it is not beneficial to rent the 2 acre area, which we used the conventional method to grow maize in. Below was the argument I put forward

managing two different places will be time demanding and we will not be able to focus on developing any of the two places to their fullest potential

the rented area is costly and yet we will not have any control what-so-ever on the outcome, which is not far from gambling with the resources we have available to us

from the past growing seasons the place which has proved to be more beneficial is the plot and this automatically made conservation farming at the plot a logical choice

It would be unfair on my family, for me not to try and make sure we get a good harvest, so I will do the best I can.

The plant stalks on the sandy part are doing a good job of shading the soil from sun and wind but they decompose very slowly so they do not feed the soil life very well.  If you cut the small grasses and weeds around the patch and put it in the plastic bag with water in the sun for a day it will start to decompose. then pack that around the plant in the pit. That should feed the soil and allow it to green up and grow faster. Every time you add water to the pit it decomposes more and continue to feed the plant.

Rufaro

First, I think your use of English far exceeds that of my 8th-grade child's advanced classes, here in Texas. High-five to you on that achievement.

Also, the efforts you have made to improve your growing opportunities has been very inspirational. I too have young children in my suburban neighborhood that are showing a little interest in my permaculture ways. Their interest has not happened overnight but they are now part of the small population of US children to date that can point out specific food plants/trees correctly. They even help me to compost, collect leaves, and plant bulbs just like my old neighbor taught me as a kid.

Their parents took 1 year to come around to my "crazy ways" but they enjoy the food benefits I share with them and I see them using the permaculture techniques when a new agriculture project is attempted. It is slow but very encouraging.

Keep posting and letting us know how you are doing. I love seeing and hearing about your progress.

We managed to soak chicken manure overnight and we covered almost a quarter of the field with the soaked manure. We added nut skins and shells in all the maize pits, so this will add to mulch and we hope due to the fineness of the material it will rot faster.

Our field looks beautiful now. A lot can be improved but from where we are coming from I will not complain. We have not had proper rain since christmas and the sun is blazing hot sometimes, from the weather forecast it is not promising to rain properly in the coming weeks either.
We compared the soil under the mulch vs the bare soil, the one under the mulch is so wet such that if you make a fist with it in your palm it forms a ball that holds.
Our watering schedule is now going to come useful. I have not yet made a plan on how to get our hose, but with what we have we can water the whole field though it will require more energy and time. There are used oil drums I bought as scrap from my old work place, 2 years ago, that we opened so that we can fill them up with water to make the watering process easier. It seems, what someone regards as scrap or a problem is a useful item to the next person.


So I went to a friend of my mum's looking for comfrey leaves to add to the feed for the crops and I got more than comfrey leaves. She mentioned she planted comfrey because someone told her it helps people with hyper tension. She tried it but it did not work for her. What worked for her though, is the fern. She said the balls from the roots of the fern are the ones she cut and soaked in water overnight, then she used the water for drinking. Is there anyone who knows a fern as a herb and how far true it is, that the fern stabilizes blood pressure?  
I am itching to share the images, but I guess I have to wait till I get a good connection.

Rufaro Makamure wrote:Hi everyone.
I am working on a 1/2 an acre piece of land, growing mostly maize with plans of inter-cropping it with beans. I started using permaculture principles in 2015 and my wish is to spread sustainability practices, through applying the principles and introducing an alternative farming method.

Generally the area is usually drought stricken, so we have been putting systems in place to have increased control over water availability. We have stopped using fertilizers and we are using compost to feed our plant. We also dug conservation holes and mulched the area.  From the weather forecast it seems like we are going to have a period where the rain might be too much. How do I deal with excessive rain in the most natural way.

Hello Rufaro,

Did you ever mention crop rotation?  I would echo that last author about mono cropping focus.  Maybe with what sounds like a monsoon area.  Might want to try spreading bio char at 1% w/w.  Try using it sparingly in one area first?  Swales are a great idea as a number of authors have mentioned, look at ways to capture water?

Good Luck.

The heat is getting worse and worse by the day. It had been predicted that from last Wednesday rains would have started pouring steadily, breaking a dry spell which as was mentioned, is as a result of a cyclone that happened in Madagascar. Well we only received some showers and a cool weather, but nothing that is enough to quench the plants' thirst. It is now so difficult to remember that we had near mud flows last year because of excessive rain. We have just watered our crop again today and the stage the maize is at demands more water so we will see if it is going to be possible to water the maize twice a week until the rains come. Having time with family is one gift this permaculture journey has awarded me and I am forever grateful for that.  
We have our income generating vegetable and the target is to make enough to enable us to pay the man who is helping at the plot fully, using money from the sales, so I got more skins to put in the beds that have the vegetable. The soil in and around the vegetable beds, is not yet rich but I believe with time it will be a lot different from what it is now.

Wow, it can take time for organic gardening to show results, but your maize looks fantastic compared to the ones without mulch. Well done! Surely your neighbours will start to look at your fields and see the benefits of your methods. I hope the rains arrive soon and give everything a good drenching. I know what it's like to wait for rain.