permaculture advocate in Zimbabwe - too little/too much rain

Rufaro Makamure wrote:The female flowers on my pumpkin plant turned yellow before even flowering. I am putting a shade as its very hot these days and it could be the reason why. Both the female flowers had no bite or prick on them, also the white mould is not as much as it was, so it's encouraging.

That's very common in the hot dry season. If they continue to drop the fruit when your shade is over it,  then just eat the leaves :-)

They grow for many months, so if you keep it alive until rainy season it will produce.

For my pumpkins, the first female flowers often fall off. Sometimes I can see a reason (lots of rain, they rot, or more often wind/storms) but sometimes not.
I agree with Nathanael- once they start going, I might get 6 fruit off the same plant (and I don't bother pinching/pruning or anything else, just cutting off the leaves that show mildew).

John C Daley wrote:Rufaro, I saw your note about lots of rain a while ago and no water for the maize.
Can you capture any of that rainwater to use later?

We have 2 * 5000l tanks that capture rain from the roof, a pit for harvesting water and we designed the raised bed area to fetch as much runoff as is possible. I do admit rain water collection is something I need to learn more about as we progress, maybe by visiting different places with good systems and also doing a lot of searching on the internet to see how we can best take advantage of when there is rain.

It's just started raining and its so much wind and a lot of rain with hails stones. The switch from the high heat is insane.

I thought writing personal stories would show that little, seemingly irrelevant actions, are actually the things that shape us. I also thought it would help those that are making some decisions see how valuable their efforts are in the present time. I was wrong on this one. I still believe in this, but the effect of doing this is far from what I expected.

I seem to be hitting brick walls a lot these days.

Last week's plan was to push the selling of peanut butter as much as we could. We had to stop, before even starting, because although Apo had managed to get peanuts, he didn't have enough bottles to package the peanut butter in, for us. The ones we want are the original $3 bottles which are a lot bigger than the ones that are being sold in the streets these days. Since Apo promised to keep the size of our bottles big, he is willing to go an extra mile for us and look for the size we want, even if it means an extra cost to him. He brought them and we received our peanut butter. We now get to see if we can grow our market.

I have included in the pictures, the different bottles that are used in the market. The one with the red cap is the small one which is in the market for $3, the one with the yellow cap is the big one and is the original $3 size.

I now only have one pumpkin plant out of four, remaining. I am excited about a female flower that looks healthy. There are soo many pests. One morning I saw a slug on the female flower and from then on, I put mint leaves over the flower over night. I also saw a tent caterpillar eating the make flower and I physically removed it.

Mai Kumbi brought our monthly revenue yesterday and it's not much. The beans she planted were cut by some caterpillar. She did plant on a different space and they have started sprouting. She is all in now, I didn't call her, for her to come with progress, or revenue. She now keeps the monthly date we agreed to meet and she could choose not to meet with me because she is not forced to. The thing is, for now I have run out of ideas. I know where we need to be, but I don't know yet how to get there. I am just glad that when so many things are creating monsters, we have started building a system that has increased trust and faithfulness.

The peanut butter sales are slower than I had anticipated. For now, I am just letting go, I will put effort in sales and I will open my mind up to any idea that will allow me to grow the plot project. As I do this I will work on the pit at our house for the dog waste. I am working on growing mint around the walls I built around the pit I am hoping this will lessen the stench.

I am grateful also for the fact that I feel beautiful even though I feel I see the world completely different  from so many around me, especially in things I look at as success. This influences where I put my energy. I was around so many ladies a week ago at a friend's bride price event, and where I used to be overly self conscious, I felt pretty just like everyone else around me. I got oversized heels that I could not change, and I rocked them, well only for the pictures. I think I am accepting the side of me that really wants to be pretty in a conventional way. I wonder if it's acceptable in permaculture or regeneration. I would verbalize that it's okay to want to be pretty but there is some guilt in me, or maybe there "was". It was so easy for me to wear some shoes that I had which fitted well, which were not the gold or nude color that had been requested for. I spent the day concentrating on whether the day was going well for my friend, rather than questioning myself whether I fitted in or not. She had a great time.