Mr Onion...

Mr Store has grown the finest onions in all Mziza for the past 2 years running. We hope he keeps it up.

Final meeting of the season

We have closed out the irrigation season with a final meeting at Mziza. While most people are still growing in their irrigation gardens, we want to encourage them to look ahead toward the next growing season as soon as possible.

Windmill

First look today: our windmill starts rotating on its own.

Pedal pump

This is what our new pedal pumps look like. We incorporated more bicycle spare parts and the frame is all galvanized steel. It can be made by a bicycle repairman with off-the-shelf hardware.

Farmers see first signs of success

Farmers in Salima are seeing the first signs of successful irrigation. Their 1 acre of maize has pushed through the soil. The sprouts have got them excited for what they will eventually harvest to suplement the rainy season crop.

Likuni Irrigation underway!

On Friday we began the irrigation training process at NAPHAM's new site at Likuni in Lilongwe. The irrigation club was well prepared for us, having dug a new well and cleared the first section of their field.

First, we went through the initial set up of the pump, a maintenance overview, and how to use it.

Then we began digging the first feeder canal which will carry water to the beds where maize, tomatoes, and onions will be planted. In this training, there is no main canal, so water is fed directly into the feeder canal. As the garden expands, water will first enter a main canal, flowing laterally across the top of the garden, from where it will be diverted into feeders, and finally beds or basins.

For the next two days (Saturday and Monday) we will return to help them finish the digging of beds and to oversee the planting of maize. Within two weeks we expect to see maize emerging in the field and tomatoes and onions coming up in a nursery. At that point we will need to expand the garden to accommodate the tomatoes and onions.

New Irrigation Sites with World Relief

World Relief, whose mission is to empower local churches to serve the most vulnerable, works with 30 church communities in Salima District, Malawi. In January we began training Ministry Team members in irrigation techniques at Siyasiya, Salima.

Later this month we will take the trainings to a new site. We are particularly excited for this phase of the project for a number of reasons. First, the new site is remote, which means the people are good farmers, excited to work with townsfolk like us, and rich in resources. The second exciting thing is just how rich in resources: we will be using spring water for the irrigation training.

As you can see in the above picture, that borehole flows without pumping! The means that many farmers don't need water pumps and other farmers can irrigate their gardens higher elevations.

We will begin later this month, working with the World Relief field coordinator to establish a resource management plan for the springs alongside irrigation and fish farming activities.