permaculture advocate in Zimbabwe - too little/too much rain

The lawn has been nicely ridged it looks beautiful (will include images when possible). I ended up getting more blocks to cover most of the ridge, the salvaged ones had paint on them and this, the builder said was not good for the proper setting of the plaster. We only used just a few on the remaining part.We will continue working on the rubble surrounding the lawn until it looks neat and also until we succeed in suppressing all the weeds.

A cousin of my mum's, who is staying outside the country, has been following up on my mum's progress at her plot and is impressed and because of this, he sent her some money. His wish is to come back and retire in his home country and seeing a progressive project gives him hope of future stability. I am so proud of my mother because of how she has decided to use this money. Since things have been going up it has been difficult to keep up with especially stock feed prices, and she has decided to buy in bulk. The thought of her thinking of stocking up for an existing project is great, the tendency is when one gets some income, always there is a new project to try out and as a result all projects never get attention beyond start up point.

The other decision she has had to make is to choose between concentrating on egg production for resell, or hatching the eggs and selling the chicks. She chose chicks, because thy sell for more and she will sell just a few eggs as she tries out the chicks market. I think eggs have more room for growth, because they are not too demanding and also the market for these is certain and consistent. Also because we are still amateurs both in agriculture and "business" eggs would give us so much more room and time to make mistakes without too much of a cost. I think right now it is not just a product that is going to get my mum a stable source of income, but if she manages to offer a fair and affordable, product with an almost consistent price, she will hold a permanent place on the supplier's side now and in the future. For this to be possible it is going to take some patience and a lot of sacrifice. Otherwise in so far as to suppress input costs, it is very possible if we look for alternative feed.

Trying to become sustainable is like peeling an onion, trying to solve one thing, makes you see more and more of areas that need fixing.

I got feed back from my uncle in Hurungwe. He calls the raised beds fertility trenches and he chose that method because it is easier for him to feed his soil and also they are good for draining too much water. He mentions that it is not always too dry though it is getting drier by the years. He started his garden in the early 90s and then it was a lot different from now.  I asked him how he makes a living out of this because in the rural area, money is not as common as in towns and usually people grow grains which they can feed on, the whole year. He said he usually barter trades his greens for maize and he sells for cash to teachers from nearby schools. He will send images of how he goes about his salling and of how much he can get in  certain period.

Rufaro Makamure wrote:Trying to become sustainable is like peeling an onion, trying to solve one thing, makes you see more and more of areas that need fixing.

But it is SO worth it!

Rufaro Makamure wrote:I got feed back from my uncle in Hurungwe. He calls the raised beds fertility trenches and he chose that method because it is easier for him to feed his soil and also they are good for draining too much water. He mentions that it is not always too dry though it is getting drier by the years. He started his garden in the early 90s and then it was a lot different from now.  I asked him how he makes a living out of this because in the rural area, money is not as common as in towns and usually people grow grains which they can feed on, the whole year. He said he usually barter trades his greens for maize and he sells for cash to teachers from nearby schools. He will send images of how he goes about his salling and of how much he can get in  certain period.

So the raised beds are essentially a flood control device. I wondered if that was the case. Since he's doing what amounts to a market garden, he can grow the items that grow best under these circumstances, things that he might not eat a lot of but that will bring the best return. If the items he sells are deep rooted, they would pull the water up from underneath. Out of curiosity, does he keep the trenches mulches as well, or just the beds?

IT IS MOST CERTAINLY WORTH IT !

For the success of the past season I would like to thank my family, friends (Lea, Mark, Memory, Sarah) and this forum for the support.

The beds are the ones referred to as trenches by my uncle, will verify this though. I suspect this is because of how he makes the beds which I will ask him to also take us through. I do not think he mulches in between his beds, but uses the lower sections as paths.

One of the things we did, to increase time on things we had no time on, was to put order that we all agreed on, in the house. It took months, but now rearranging items is a forgotten chore and we used to do this every other week. Next on the list is being able to put things in their rightful place as we go on with our day , for example putting shoes in their proper place right after removing them. EASY.. right! No...wrong! It is proving to be one very difficult task. We are sure this will cut down on house cleaning time so we are determined to master this habit.

We had more time when visitors came to our house to just talk and this time thanks to the crops and garden the conversations were generally very positive and constructive

With my cousins as we checked out the garden, l made them visualize a Shelf on the veggie section in pick'n'pay one of the big super markets, we started going down the aisle together, a section filled with onions, and we picked enough to go and use, and this was in the garden, carrots, lettuce, beets, potatoes... etc, each plant in the garden represented a section. So sometimes it is not about how big, but it is about functionality. Instead of the big beds with one crop small holes in a small space with various plants could actually serve a better function. We ended up sharing seeds.

Each area attracted a different crowd. From the maize harvest, as my uncles helped with the shelling, in their silence I could feel their judgement on my lifestyle softening. This year most if not all rain fed fields had zero harvest and here they were shelling.

We talked at length about how wealth is actually created by nature and capital only aiding in the ease of access to what nature has to give.

We tried to get feed for the birds yesterday and we just missed the window as the feed went up yesterday morning. It has tripled in price since January. We are now looking into buying grain from the open market, something we were planning to do after finding out more about chicken feed alternatives.

We already have been looking into substituting some of our dinners with non corn based meals, so as to adapt to the quantities our plot offers and maybe share our corn with the chickens as the years go by and diluting the importance of maize will make crop rotation a whole lot easier. We had pumpkin and milk last Sunday night and we were surprised at how filling it was, without sadza or rice. The pumpkin was from the field, it is the only one we got. We are also substituting bread in the morning, and we had a breakfast almost for free, with a filling from the garden as well as avocado that we got from a friend of my mum's, I saw this recipe when I visited a friend and it was then when I realized that we can cut costs by adding variety to what we put on our table. There are some food stuffs that are not considered that important because they are not "staple" or common in the daily meals, so they are not too expensive and this is working to our advantage.

Grain prices are going up all over, and it's unlikely to stop any time soon. I assume you already feed your chickens the food you don't eat, anything left over. Corn cobs and bean pods as well, and pumpkin rinds as well as the seeds you're not going to plant. When you harvest your beans, feed the chickens with the plants then use their manure in the plot. And so on. I'm pretty sure you have that down.

Another thing is (assuming you have your chickens in a dedicated "run") to plant food bearing plants around the run where they can get to the berries/leaves but can't tear out the plant itself. If you have things that always take over, plant those inside the run and see if the chickens keep it under control. Put their run under a tree where the fruit will fall directly into the run. Etc. Find ways to extend the grain, whether that's feeding them your weeds or creating a bug trap and feeding them the insects.

Ooooh..! I had no idea we can make chicken feed from, cobs, we have been using those as firewood.

We do have two mulberry trees in the free range area and we have been throwing Russian comfrey leaves together with weeds sometimes.

Variating your diet is a HUGE step toward sustainability. Bravo! I love your squash and milk meal.

If you're looking to produce grain for your own food, why not try some of Africa's traditional crops of sorghum and millet? They are much more hardy and drought tolerant, and they are much less demanding on the soil. They taste almost like corn :-) You could could try just one row to see how you like it...

Nathanael Szobody wrote:If you're looking to produce grain for your own food, why not try some of Africa's traditional crops of sorghum and millet? They are much more hardy and drought tolerant, and they are much less demanding on the soil.

Or plant them outside the chicken run as your test. The chickens LOVE this stuff. Hang a head of sorghum above their heads and watch them jump for it. :)

I have been enquiring a lot on why millet and sorghum are not popular since they are drought resistant and indigenous plants. The reason why maize meal overtook the two is because of ease in processing corn into mealie meal. There is also more time needed during its growing especially when keeping birds away. It is still being grown but mostly for brewing beer, maybe I will be able to get the processing of sorghum and millet and share this. If we are lucky we will get some from the market for the chickens and successful use could be a good enough reason for planting it in our field and its availability will make its use in our home limitless.

Our roses have not been flowering and I added water amounts now it's a matter of time till we see flowers

Rufaro Makamure wrote:I have been enquiring a lot on why millet and sorghum are not popular since they are drought resistant and indigenous plants. The reason why maize meal overtook the two is because of ease in processing corn into mealie meal. There is also more time needed during its growing especially when keeping birds away. It is still being grown but mostly for brewing beer, maybe I will be able to get the processing of sorghum and millet and share this. If we are lucky we will get some from the market for the chickens and successful use could be a good enough reason for planting it in our field and its availability will make its use in our home limitless.

Our roses have not been flowering and I added water amounts now it's a matter of time till we see flowers

True: sorghum and millet take longer to ripen. However, there are short varieties of sorghum that ripen as fast as corn. I have a 70 day variety.

As for processing, I'm pretty sure sorghum is simpler: After cutting the heads they are layed on the ground and beaten. The chaff is winnowed out of the grain. The grain is then processed into flour just like corn grains.

Our second harvest this year, of green matter from our banana plant. I made compost for the flowers as well as for the kitchen garden.
We have set a day with my mother on preparing sorghum meal, we will see how that goes.

Second sucessful non sadza/rice meal

I am believing in miracles more and more everyday.

We have not been able to stock feed for the chickens for a number of reasons and I was getting worried that we will fail to prepare properly for a worst case situation (the most recent one was at the beginning of the year when all shops were closed for some days). It is safe for us to have some reserve feed for 'rainy' days, not that we wish for anything bad to happen. Just when I had run out of ideas, a guy who had some money of mine ( should be from 2013 or 2014), send it. I have been reading on how cow peas can be used as feed for chickens and I will buy a sack of this. If it works it is going to strengthen the reason for growing cow peas together with maize (we have been talking about replacing sugar beans with cow peas, since we have not managed to get the pole beans, my mum says they used to grow cow peas successfully in their fields back then). With time we will find use for other crops and then we can have stronger reasons for crop rotation, then soil fertility and disease suppression, will hopefully prove it is a worthy move if we do manage to crop rotate.

The man who is staying at the plot has started clearing the field. On Sunday when we got to the plot, we saw that he had started burning some of the dry weeds from the field. I cannot even begin to explain how it felt, I quickly calmed down when I looked at my mum, and I saw she felt the exact same feeling and she commented that we had overlooked telling Solomon that we do not burn anything from the field. With soil care and minimum or no burning, I am now positive we now have the same values with my mum. I remember the first years it was difficult for my mum to think of not adding a little artificial fertilizer to  the compost but last year she gave away a sack which she had kept for two years in case our method fell short somewhere.

The second miracle, my uncle from Hurungwe called last Friday, saying he was expecting the barbed wire for putting around his garden, sometime during the past weekend. I had gotten some money (in February), from a friend to buy some barbed wire. For free transport we decided to use my cousin's truck that goes to my uncle's place periodically, as they have business in that area and that way we could use all the money to buy the barbed wire. They are finally making that trip, crazy things were now crossing my mind. I am yet to hear feed back on whether they managed to make it.

Thirdly, my sister called me and said I could share on my thread some developments, in her life, which I partially link to the exposure my family has had to sustainability and regenerative agriculture and lifestyle. I had asked her before, so as to prove that small things can have ripple effects and can make positive life changing decisions starting from individuals going into families and can spread even to bigger groups. So she will share in her own words. Speaking about that, I watched one of our neighbours' sprinklers in his field and how most of his discussions and my mother's are leaning more to what they are growing. These fields used to be green mostly in the rainy seasons, now there is more and more life even afterwards. It might be different farming approaches, but the fact that there is more growth of food spread throughout the year at a small holder farmer level is so good for food availability. It will be a matter of time until they start sharing different farming practices, and I guess the most successful and affordable one is what will be borrowed. I think I am watched a new culture being formed.

Lastly I had a great time with a 7 year old on Sunday. We were feeding the chickens and the little boy, Wayne, was so full of energy and he was chasing the birds from the moment he got into the chicken run. My fear was he was going to be attacked by a cock and it would get us all running. My fear came into reality and I pointed to him one cock which was preparing to charge and I was telling him it is time for us to move out of the chicken run. He just looked at me and turned towards the cock and chased it. It vanished within seconds. I know it will take me time to have that much courage, but I just thought maybe this is the courage life needs, just being fearless. It seemed like he did not even notice the cock was about to charge!

Oh my god!!! A woman who stays nearby just brought tomato seedlings... she says she has seen me in the garden...! It is a very good day, I am dancing to this song because it really feels like we have had a bumper harvest this year, not necessarily in the field



In the shona culture the song "Mawere kongonya" was sang and it's meaning as given by some scholar is shown below

The people are sharing with the rain spirits the image of crops ripening and baboons coming down the mountains to feed on them. When the baboons have fed well they walk in style (kongonya, i.e. how the baboons walk) up the cliffs at the end of the day. Thus the people are looking beyond the provision of rain to the kind of harvest that should enable them to feed both their livestock and wild animals.  

and the above song is a modification of the song and I like it because it is a happy song

Got a chance to sample wick irrigation with one of the tomato seedlings. I will see how wet the soil will be tomorrow, before I use the method on all the tomato seedlings.

Most of my flowers dried up and I am going to try out wick irrigation as soon as I manage to grow some roots on some 'stem' I decided to cover with soil while it is still on the parent plant, that way it will not die on me.