The idea here is to test and develop methods for doing things very cheaply. There will be a focus on low cost stuff, but I doubt I'll be able to resist some electronics for automatic plant care etc. We are making progress (see my dad's work in the second latest project log) and there are many more things to write up!

More systems are described in some power-points (located in the files section) which have much more info on how to make various things.

Contents:

Some of the most interesting content is in the files section, as powerpoints (which will later be added as logs or build instructions). Logs of note:

Motivation:

Team member @Richard Whitaker has begun a vegetable gardening club at the school where he teaches, and has also taken on a few 'apprentices' this holiday to continue coming up with ideas and teaching people. He describes the plan as follows:

In a nutshell we want to contribute to the alleviation of malnutrition in Zimbabwe.

Our motto is “Learn – Practise – Teach.”

We want to learn as much as possible about growing food with limited space and resources – specifically within an urban environment. We then want to design and test various systems to establish their efficacy. When we come up with systems that are effective, we want to teach others how to duplicate them.

Our target groups are;

  1. Teachers in charge of agriculture projects/gardening clubs,
  2. Gardeners within our school community, and
  3. Grounds staff living at various schools within Harare.

At a later stage we hope to start an outreach program where we teach people to teach people to teach people…

I am making instructional power point presentations of any systems that work for people with access to computers. I am also making brochures for people without access to computers.

I anticipate that composting is going to be a stumbling block due to its huge demand for water and/or materials.And so I am really keen to investigate how to improve “poor” soil using liquid fertilisers like worm tea, chicken manure tea, comfrey smoothies and especially bacteria generators.

Water conservation is also going to be extremely important and so I am investigating all sorts of ways of being “water wise” as it were.

That is the educational side of the project.

We also want to produce nutrients for a specific target group – the school children in the adjoining districts around Chishakwe and Humani in the Save Conservancy.I use the term “produce nutrients” as opposed to “grow food” because we want to add value to our produce by processing it – mainly by drying.

We hope to grow two types of crops in our own veggie garden at school – fancy, income-generating crops to be sold to the school community. These will be things like salad materials and herbs and fancy vegetables. We might also make money by building and selling systems to people too lazy to build their own. I am designing and making all sorts of fancy little “salad garden” and “herb garden” type systems.

And then we are going to grow as much as possible of whatever proves to be the best source of a balanced nutrient package which we can send to our target schools. I am very excited about moringa trees! But I am sure there are other very valuable crops out there as well.

Once our drying and processing systems are up and running we also hope to mop up what I would call “gluts” within the school community.For example, someone produces more spinach than they can possibly eat so they bring their excess to school and we process it - or avocados, or mulberries, or peppers – anything with a nutrient value that can be preserved by whatever means and sent to where it is needed.

We are also surreptitiously planting food around the school – granadillas, paw paws, water melons, gooseberries etc..