Dear Rufaro and mom, I am so happy to hear things are going well for you! Welcome to the life of the farmer, where you work so hard for a good crop and then you have to work even harder to protect it from everybody who wants a share without doing the work!Jealousy can be a terrible thing.
The only way I know with monkeys is to keep a man with airgun (or a catapult) on duty in the very early morning. Hit one or two monkeys (not fatally of course) and the rest tend to stay away. I used to have the same problem with crows on my almonds but animals learn quickly and go seek easier pastures.
In a way it is such a pity that your neighbours are discovering the virtues of mulch, but in another way it shows that your methods work. Congratulations! It is also bound to assist you in the long run, since your ecosystem will benefit from a healthy ecosystem next door. Here where I live we are smallholders (one hectare each) but my neighbours when they saw how well my olive trees were doing they decided to plant olives too. So now i am surrounded by groves to the south and west, in different guilds of course, but I can see how as an area we are managing to reforest and hopefully dong our bit to attract rain.
I had the same problem with horse manure, when the stable owners realized how well I was doing off their manure (which previously they had to pay to cart to the dump) they almost always thought they could start planting vegetables themselves. By the grace of Godde horse people tend not to be gardeners and so after a few months I would go back and start hauling free manure again :) So be patient and think of the ways in which your ecosystem will benefit from
permaculture neighbours.
It does raise the matter that you need to think of cover crops for winter, which you can cut at flower (leaving a tiny patch for next year's seed) and leave to rot in the field. Basically what you are doing is that you are using plants to harvest
solar energy which you can store for summer. I am very fortunate in the western Cape where winter is our rainy season so all my summer beds get planted up to duff peas or fava beans and I do no more to that plot until cutting time. What I am saying is that there be may be a month or two in late winter or early spring where you can squeeze in a cover crop. But also in the spirit of making the most of global warming i am trying to plant summer crops earlier and earlier so that they can catch the last of the winter rains. It does mean that my cover crops have to be cut earlier, and I make up for that by planting in a guild. Pumpkin is a big help as it covers the soil between the mealies and if there is a drought the pumpkin will die off first and its leaves will provide a mulch when it is most needed. Since winter is rainy season my soil collects its nitrogen from the air then, that is, the cover crops will be of peas and bean species, but if I were growing in summer rainfall I would try cow pea or marama bean between the rows. This last one (Tylosemma esculenta) is a great one which grows wild on the family farm in the Namibian semi-desert and forms a central part of my heritage. It is being trialed for agriculture in both Botswana and Texas and really deserves to be planted more because you can eat every part of the plant. The seeds and
roots make great human food and you can feed the leaves to your chickens:
https://www.daff.gov.za/daffweb3/Portals/0/Brochures%20and%20Production%20guidelines/marama%20bean%20production%20guideline.pdf
This system is called the Three Sister system and was invented by
native Americans where the mealie and the pumpkin we eat today came from. It only works with traditional varieties, though, the modern hybrid green mealies have large leaves which tend to take up to much space and sunlight. Your field looks so wonderful that i am sure you are planting a very robust variety.
There may be other local species of bean that I don't know about, but I am sure Rufaro's mom can think of plants that used to be grown when she was young that are not grown any more. The thing you have to remember when considering this is that intercropping is a great way to get more harvest from the same area but it does mean a drastic change to the way you grow. Principally it means more work, it is hard to hoe the mealies with plants growing between them and you will find yourself doing much more hand weeding. On the other hand by mid-season everything is up and running and you will find your crop needing less water because the ground is shaded. Plus you harvest more food per square metre, what you don't eat is for the chickens.
Also what I do is save all my ashes from the kitchen fire and spread that on the ground of my guilds, squeezing in more plants in the same area does require that you keep your fertility in tiptop shape. If it is in small quantities it won't hurt the plants and water well afterwards. But perhaps you are doing that already?
I am so impressed by your tree! Well done! Ultimately trees are your solution in terms of cooling the air, attracting rain, shading the ground, and providing biomass for mulch, so each one is a victory. It will get easier as you go along.
With the consulting of course charge! Your knowledge is something you have worked hard for and taken all the risks by being a leader and showing how things must be done. It is worth money. I get at least one inquiry a week, especially now that black people are getting more land and starting to become smallholders. So I charge, it has taken me many years to get to where I am and should i hit a life crisis or a bad harvest it is good to have a safety net. If the people who want to work with you don't have a lot of money then suggest taking a portion of your fees in a share of the crop for the first couple of harvests, that shows that you are confident of your abilities to grow more and better. I make a sharp distinction between business and philantropy, I make sure the business end pays and then end of the month and end of the year I decide how much I can afford to give away to people who are working hard and just need a leg up. Confusing the two is bound to get you into trouble. So rather charge people what you are worth and then decide on a person or NGO who can get a free course, as you are able.
Well, those are my local approaches. I have no idea how these would translate in Zimbabwe but am sharing the general principle in the hope that you will find a local solution. I look forward to hearing how it goes.