permaculture advocate in Zimbabwe - too little/too much rain

First shelled maize drying up. I have also included our front yard and kitchen garden which we are working on.

That's my uncle in his garden. I was blown away by his video. His garden shows clearly his efforts.

I found his place so similar to my mum's plot. A lot of effort and so much potential, without any benefit to the owner. I will right down the growth I have seen at my mum's and hope it will be even better at my uncle's.

I am glad he is willing to share his efforts. ( My video has an mp4 extention is there anything I do to it to be able to send it to this thread, it turns out mp4 videos are not allowed) .


If there is any other way of uploading without having to use youtube, please let me know.

Putting images of our kitchen garden is now a little embarrassing, looking at my uncle's garden. The kitchen garden and the flowers have been the most difficult to develop, maybe because of the attention that the two places require, more than the maize field. We have been moving back and forth with progress, and so we have decided to work on bite sizeable portions until we develop the places to what we want.

Instead of growing the whole kitchen garden we have started with half the portion and we are no longer doing beds, but we are making holes for individual plants.That way the watering is concentrated on each plant instead of the whole bed. I have been collecting grass dumped along the road side and laying it on the other half of the garden in preparation for when we will work on that side. We are mixing different plants close together so there is a variety even on the small space we worked on.

As for the lawn and the flowers, we are happy about the lawn, we have managed to keep it green to date since the end of the rainy season. I planted some new flowers which are still too small to be noticed. Around the lawn we have put rubble which we found at a neighbor's who is modifying his home. The intention is to eliminate bare soil in any of our properties, as much as we can and also the stone mulch is so as to reduce the area we need to weed. So far the weeds are not as much as they used to be, but we still need to work on the place to stop them from coming up completely.

I have included a view that shows a large portion of our street. I think, if we do a really good job we might see a change in that street, in the next coming years, so we will watch the space together. I see a beautiful space, waiting for us to work on it and bring out the beauty. The more we beautify the place, the more difficult it will be to dump garbage along side roads and that way we become a part of people fighting diseases especially those that result from garbage. We have had the city council remove dirt along road sides twice in the last year, but every time we see it crop up again.

It's amazing to watch what you're doing with so little water.

Looking at the pictures of your uncle's plot I noticed that he's working with raised beds almost exclusively. I'd like you to check something, if you could. Next time you're at his plot, dig down about a foot in one of the pathways and see how far down the water is. Compare it to one of the beds that hasn't been watered. My guess is the water is still present in the subsoil, but not so much in the beds. If this is in fact the case, would it be possible to use the pathways as garden, and the raised beds as walkways? I'm guessing they're done this way to mitigate flooding events? I know that too much water isn't really your focus right now, but if the beds are raised to direct floodwaters, how could you catch some of that water and direct it into the beds? Could you do half-circle beds that catch the water and sink it? Or porous dams at the end of the rows to slow the water and let it sink in? The more water you can catch during the rains, the less you have to find during the droughts.

I guess I am going to add images in the last thread when I get better connectivity probably tomorrow.

Looking at how my mum's place has grown since we started:

her plot as a whole, took from her financially and demanded of so much time and energy but had zero benefit. It only seemed like there was some output but in actual fact, it was a huge loss. The starting point, was to be clear of why that place existed and why my mum needed to invest in it, so we looked at cost versus the benefit. Realising it was a total loss, mum decided it was worthy investing in so as to prepare for her retirement. As for me, I believe every piece of land has value depending on how a person handles it, so I took it up as a dare and welcome challenge.

The crops grown are entirely mum's decision, all I can do is to offer advice and work my charm in convincing her otherwise and providing facts, if we have different opinions. Also we agreed we would concentrate on one thing at a time and increase our scope as we develop adequate skills. That is how we started with maize, and focused on half an acre. Cost reduction is the pillar;

so the first step was to find how to reduce input cost and we discovered compost making and got rid of buying fertiliser and this was a success. We lost a beautiful crop because of unsatisfied last minute water requirements, and this got us to step 2

securing water. We had water harvesting tanks installed and had a borehole drilled and also started mulching the field. It made a major difference, but once again, the next rains seemed okay, but the rainfall distribution pattern for the season, exposed the plants to moisture strain and we had to use buckets to water the field. We managed to get to the end of the season, and got a good harvest, but we knew that watering 1/2 an acre using buckets, was not a sustainable exercise, we needed an easier way and this led to step number 3

drip system installation. This also came with an addition of a tap, which is connected to the drip system pump. As a result the drip system was not only helping us in the field, but the watering of our vegetable beds was made easier because of the increased pressure from the tap water.

Now we are concentrating on the vegetable beds. Most of the money for growth was from our past savings and help from family and friends, the vegetables sell fast and the intention is to use this money for any costs related to the running of the plot and any of its development . The maize field no longer takes up most of our year planning for. We even have more time to work consistently on the kitchen garden as well as making our home look beautiful.

This is the growth linked to money and productivity on the plot. The need to adjust our lifestyle to create an atmosphere that promotes growth at the plot, made us grow in other areas not directly linked to the plot. We have grown also in home care and as an individual I have improved in some soft skills and other areas and I will share these in one of my next thread.  

Dear Rufaro you are, as ever, an inspiration!

Why in such a dry climate is your uncle using raised beds? If it is for flooding, having more roots in the ground will increase drainage and give more life to the soil

Hi Rufaro! I read the whole thing just now and I'm impressed with what you've managed to do; I love seeing your photos and your progress is tangible! I'm glad to hear that others are taking notice also, I'm sure that if many people throughout the world follow a similar path then we can truly have better resilience against climate change. I have a few random thoughts that may help, we've been working mainly on establishing trees / fruit trees in the chaparral desert, our conditions are sandy soil with good infiltration, 250 mm of rain a year concentrated in only 4 months of the year and 35 C heat in the summer with frequent, heavy wind gusts.

I think productive trees in the outer areas will be a good strategy to help create a microclimate, shade the soil, protect from the wind and to increase biodiversity in your case; that's pretty much agroforestry. Also, if planting trees, why not add some nitrogen fixing trees or shrubs that will help enrich your soil? I think someone mentioned pigeon pea, that's a good one that provides beans or if you have some of those native trees that can do the same thing and provide other benefits at the same time. For example, we're using mesquite - Prosopis glandulosa, Leucaena Leucocephala, and Tamarind - Tamarindus indica (this one is native to tropical Africa). Mesquite offers firewood, tasty mesquite pods and leaves that can be used for cattle feed; you can do the same with leucaenas, they grow VERY quickly and provide a lot of biomass for fodder; tamarind is used traditionally in Mexico for making candies, beverages and has other medicinal uses as well, it's a very productive tree with delicious fruit!

We've been using wick irrigation to get some trees established with very little water. I started up some shade trees to "test the waters" and we were able to keep some trees alive under 35C heat and drought administering only around 1 or 2 liters of water a week or so. Here's where we got the idea:

Wick irrgation from agroforestry website

Here's a picture of one we made using an oral electrolite botte, a straw and some nylon rope; its partially buried to keep it in place and to protect it from the wind:



You mentioned something very important: you have to grow soil. That's why it's so important to have roots in the ground to keep the soil microbiology intact and to retain humidity as well. The trees all around should help a lot with that. If anything else comes to mind ill post it here, good luck and keep us updated!

I did not know that raised beds were for flooding areas only, I thought they were just a different method of managing a garden bed. I will find out from my uncle why he chose that approach. I was so impressed by how his garden looked considering where he is and I forgot we need to focus on how we can make all the elements work for the benefit of the garden. I have drafted some questions for my uncle, to find out more about the "why" to his decisions in his garden. I am so eager to find out where he got the concept of raised beds, unlike me he is in the rural areas and his exposure is very very limited, I doubt if he even knows he has made raised beds. I have not been to his place since I was a small child, his place is about 412.9km away from where I stay, I am hoping I will visit him soon. I will also ask him to send images of his surroundings as well as other gardens. Following is the list of questions,

what do you call the beds you made in your garden

why did you choose that approach

apart from mulching is there any water conservation method, you use in your garden

Rufaro,

First of all,  YOU ARE DOING AWESOMELY!!!

I had a thought about the  Nyovhi (traditional vegetable).  I was surprised to learn a while back that many of the field weeds in my area (Ohio valley in the United States) were originally domesticated local plants (hundreds of years ago).  I knew that when the european settlers arrived, the native americans were growing their own crops, with corn, squash and beans as the trinity that supported them.  The new settlers adopted the corn, squash and beans and ignored some of the others.  What I hadn't realized before was that before corn, squash and beans were introduced into the area from the south, the local native americans had a whole different set of crops, like dock, and had bred them for larger seeds, etc.  Many of these abandoned species are now major field weeds, although the seed size, etc has reverted.  It's an interesting idea, but 500 years ago, your people were probablly growing some completely different crops, and it may have been long enough for them may have passed out of living memory.  (most of the ones you've mentioned are either european or western hemisphere).  It might be interesting to find out what 'survival' wild food species there are in your area.  

For us it is not too long ago when people relied on what nature provided. In my mum's early ages, she talks of a completely different menu, sadza (thick corn porridge was not a daily meal), even meat was not eaten as often. They did not know beetroots or other exotic vegetables. They had different food stuffs depending on seasons and we are lucky in that we can tap a lot of knowledge out of her generation.

My nyovhi seedlings are actually ready for planting. I deliberately planted vegetables that are associated with the well to do families and then in the mix, I will put nyovhi. Otherwise a vegetable bed in most households should rightfully be called a chomolia bed, since this is all that is grown. The main aim is to put a point across that, such a plant is not a choice only when one has run out of options and class has nothing to do with such plants, but it can stand as a healthy and nutritious option which adapts pretty well to our climate. I hope to keep on adding an indigenous/ wild  plant  to the common domesticated plants, one plant at a time.

A continuation on benefits of the work we have done so far at the plot:

As we tried to keep working on improving the effectiveness of our efforts in the field, it was difficult to ignore the other areas intertwined with the progress in the field. These include home management, as well as a deeper understanding of money, time and energy as resources that we can manipulate.

We managed to reduce the time we spend doing household chores. There are some tasks that are repetitive that we do not always need to concentrate on and we have put them in a fixed daily routine which  further reduced time spent on activity planning.  Instead of having everyone do one thing, we have divided tasks among each other and this has helped in getting more done. It is as if we have managed to stretch our day.

We have increased time to read and this is coming in handy as it is helping in developing common goals, and this makes decisions easier, since we are building on similar values.

As we continue reflecting on the last couple of years we cannot help but notice that we might not have so many things, but of the things that we already have, we have not yet acquired the best skills to utilise the resources to the fullest and we might be under utilising what we have and living a quality of life less than what we potentially could be living.

I have included an image of a piece of wood with nails hammered into it which I am now using to help with the shelling. It was of zero cost as I got everything from home, but it has made a huge difference, the shelling is faster and this time I have shelled two full 50kg bags by myself and I got help on the third bag. This is an example of how we keep on improving, using what we already have. The bundle of chomolia is what I bought from the shops and less than 10 leaves are going for 50 cents.  A kg of carrots is going for over $8, 4 medium sized onions, and also medium sized pepper is over $3. Items like these which seemingly are unimportant are what we have managed to keep fairly constant cost wise in our kitchen, as we no longer buy them, we get from the garden.  

Tiny improvements make an enormous change over time. I love watching your progress.

Raised beds are used for a number of different reasons, but one of their main drawbacks is that they lose water more quickly than in-ground gardens. Water evaporates from the sides as well as the top. The sides tend to hold heat so they can be excellent in cooler areas. They can be fabulous for absorbing excess water if the soil goes down to the ground, so flood mitigation is one advantage. They are easier to plant, tend and harvest because they're higher, but also more difficult to maintain the shape without external supports.

We managed to get 7 bags of maize this year. We are three bags short to reaching our targeted minimum of 10 bags. We managed to channel all the harvested water during the rains, so we had zero overflow from the water harvesting tanks. We are still going to strive to get to 10 bags of maize, as we know it is achievable even with the amount of rain we got in the past season.

We need to make a few adjustment on the equipment we are using.  For example looking at the best way of clearing the water for the drip, to avoid blocking of the filter. The filter got stuck for most of the time while at he same time clogging with mud after one watering session, so managing this can help us water any time we need to, then lastly our pump needs to be upgraded and we have already started saving up for this.
As for our planning, we have to make sure the time the rains come the whole field should be cleared for whatever crop or crops that will be desired for the rainy period. We still had winter maize on the portion that usually gives us the best ears and these were replaced later on in the season,  the ears had barely matured at the time of harvest. Also the area that had maize stalks as mulch had a poor germinating percentage as compared to the rest of the field. We did try to replant as we went along, but the mulch was too thick and it was difficult to keep the mulch from covering the holes, thereby suppressing proper germination. The one thing we are proud of is we are moving away from relying on getting a yield by chance, and we are increasing on certainty. We are using the cob( the part that remains after shelling), for making fire for heating up our bathing water and we will use the ash for our compost. In addition to maize we got almost 3kg of beans from the same field.

As I shelled I continued to find time for the front yard. The lawn is looking great and it is growing over the ridge we made, so we decided to raise the ridge. Yesterday, we managed to get a bag of cement and close to half of the blocks needed for making a neat and higher ridge for the lawn. We have some blocks we salvaged from the home that was being modified (where I got rubble), so we will see if the builder can use these to cover the other half of the ridge.