TIM WIGLEY REPORT ON SOMPONDO - OCTOBER 2012
Sompondo village 8th October 2012
Visited with Winnie, Ernest and Nothemba.
Fifteen people were at Mrs. Nokwanda Skenjani’s house to meet us.
I shared how I had got into Natural Farming and my experience of sharing it with people.
We then had a session of questions.
Q - How do we cope with cutworm, moles and millipedes?
A - Firstly it is important to realise that the problem with pests is really not the pests themselves. If pests attach a plant it is an indicator that there is something missing in the garden. Pests only attack stressed and unhealthy plants. So the first thing to do is to figure out what is missing and add this to the garden, then the pests will leave your healthy plants alone. However you will not get to the perfect conditions straight away so use a pest repellent such as khaki weed fermented in water. This is much better than a poison which will not only kill the pests you want to kill but many useful predator insects or reptiles like frogs which eat the pests and so keep the numbers down.
You also need to understand the pest and how it lives. For instance, cutworms eat dead roots. If you dig up grassland you will find many cutworms but they are not harming anything. However if you dig up an area and remove all the plants there will be no dead roots for cutworms to feed on. So they then cut down your seedlings so the roots will die and give them a new source of food. When you have lots of different plants all growing together there will be some old ones with dying roots or there will be roots left behind after you harvest something. Then there is plenty of food for the cutworms and they will not have to cut down your young plants.
Q - What should we do about weeds? If we just leave them they choke our plants and they cannot grow properly. A - Again you need to first understand the nature and the purpose of weeds. Weeds do not just grow anywhere; they grow in disturbed, bare soil. Their purpose is to repair and to cover the soil so life can flourish in the soil. Different weeds grow on different soils. The kind of weed that will grow on any soil is the one that has the ability to collect whatever is missing from that soil. So if you do have to pull out weeds do not throw them out of the garden; rather leave them to rot on the soil so they can give to the soil what they have collected to heal the soil.
It is true that too many weeds will choke your plants and prevent them from growing properly, so if there are weeds you will have to cultivate to stop them growing. If your soil is well mulched there will not be a problem with weeds because weeds only germinate when the sun shines directly on the soil surface.
Q - How do we stop moles from destroying plants in our garden?
Moles can be chased away by putting fresh pig manure into their holes. The smell frightens them and they move away from the garden.
We then visited eight gardens including the community garden.
OBSERVATIONS
At one of the gardens we visited there were a number of poles that had been cut out of the forest up on the mountain. These are hardwood poles that make long lasting fence poles and are highly valued; even Ernest expressed an interest in buying some. My concern is that the indigenous forest is under threat. In fact people spoke about the fact that the stream flowing past the community garden is strong and flows throughout the year. Well the reason this stream is so strong is that the forest is there. The rest of the mountainside is badly eroded and so contributes little to the underground water feeding the springs. If the forest is lost the water supply will dry up.
This is a sensitive issue but it is important to raise awareness. It is also important to provide alternative sustainable sources of poles and timber. For instance, there is a need for wind protection around the community garden which at present is very exposed. We could be planting honey locust which provides termite resistant fence poles as well as pods which are good animal fodder.
Mazotsho village 9th October 2012.10.09 Seven people met with us.
We had some discussion about how they plan to use the donation from MATE.
To return to the Sompondo Committee Page - click HERE.
Visited with Winnie, Ernest and Nothemba.
Fifteen people were at Mrs. Nokwanda Skenjani’s house to meet us.
I shared how I had got into Natural Farming and my experience of sharing it with people.
We then had a session of questions.
Q - How do we cope with cutworm, moles and millipedes?
A - Firstly it is important to realise that the problem with pests is really not the pests themselves. If pests attach a plant it is an indicator that there is something missing in the garden. Pests only attack stressed and unhealthy plants. So the first thing to do is to figure out what is missing and add this to the garden, then the pests will leave your healthy plants alone. However you will not get to the perfect conditions straight away so use a pest repellent such as khaki weed fermented in water. This is much better than a poison which will not only kill the pests you want to kill but many useful predator insects or reptiles like frogs which eat the pests and so keep the numbers down.
You also need to understand the pest and how it lives. For instance, cutworms eat dead roots. If you dig up grassland you will find many cutworms but they are not harming anything. However if you dig up an area and remove all the plants there will be no dead roots for cutworms to feed on. So they then cut down your seedlings so the roots will die and give them a new source of food. When you have lots of different plants all growing together there will be some old ones with dying roots or there will be roots left behind after you harvest something. Then there is plenty of food for the cutworms and they will not have to cut down your young plants.
Q - What should we do about weeds? If we just leave them they choke our plants and they cannot grow properly. A - Again you need to first understand the nature and the purpose of weeds. Weeds do not just grow anywhere; they grow in disturbed, bare soil. Their purpose is to repair and to cover the soil so life can flourish in the soil. Different weeds grow on different soils. The kind of weed that will grow on any soil is the one that has the ability to collect whatever is missing from that soil. So if you do have to pull out weeds do not throw them out of the garden; rather leave them to rot on the soil so they can give to the soil what they have collected to heal the soil.
It is true that too many weeds will choke your plants and prevent them from growing properly, so if there are weeds you will have to cultivate to stop them growing. If your soil is well mulched there will not be a problem with weeds because weeds only germinate when the sun shines directly on the soil surface.
Q - How do we stop moles from destroying plants in our garden?
Moles can be chased away by putting fresh pig manure into their holes. The smell frightens them and they move away from the garden.
We then visited eight gardens including the community garden.
OBSERVATIONS
- There are a number of productive gardens with a variety of vegetables and fruit trees planted.
- Fruit trees do well in this area, especially peach and figs. Most gardens have some fruit trees growing.
- No Mulching is being done.
- No water harvesting techniques are being used.
- People are all using manure to fertilise the soil.
- Very few people make compost with their plant residue.
- Seed saving is not being practiced.
- The community garden is very open and unprotected from the wind. No trees planted in or around the community garden.
- The community garden could be supplied with gravity fed water if water is taken from further up the stream that flows past the garden. At present water is pumped up to the garden.
- The garden committee will approach the municipality to ask if water can be tapped off the pipeline that passes just above the community garden so they can have a tap inside the garden. If this request is refused they will let me know and on my next visit I will bring a dumpy level so we can see where water could be taken from the stream to gravity feed a tank at the garden.
- On my next visit I will bring a projector and show pictures showing how trees are grown together with vegetables in gardens in Cala.
- I will do a demonstration of how to mark out a swale using an A-Frame.
- We will also talk about correct placement of trees in a garden so that they support the vegetables and do not compete with them.
At one of the gardens we visited there were a number of poles that had been cut out of the forest up on the mountain. These are hardwood poles that make long lasting fence poles and are highly valued; even Ernest expressed an interest in buying some. My concern is that the indigenous forest is under threat. In fact people spoke about the fact that the stream flowing past the community garden is strong and flows throughout the year. Well the reason this stream is so strong is that the forest is there. The rest of the mountainside is badly eroded and so contributes little to the underground water feeding the springs. If the forest is lost the water supply will dry up.
This is a sensitive issue but it is important to raise awareness. It is also important to provide alternative sustainable sources of poles and timber. For instance, there is a need for wind protection around the community garden which at present is very exposed. We could be planting honey locust which provides termite resistant fence poles as well as pods which are good animal fodder.
Mazotsho village 9th October 2012.10.09 Seven people met with us.
We had some discussion about how they plan to use the donation from MATE.
To return to the Sompondo Committee Page - click HERE.