May 2016

Rainy Season ending / Not quite harvest time.

Sunflower Big
God has blessed this rainy season with good rains. It’s coming to the end of the rainy season. We expect the rains to stop within this month. In addition to our restorative cropping this year, we did try our hand at Sunflower as we see a big market potential. We are pretty happy with the results so far. We still need to survive the birds as the sunflower heads dry out. But we are excited about it so far. (Sunflowers are growing in the “KT Additional farm land”. See the map below for Farm land locations.)
Pidgon Pea

Most of our fields have been planted with restorative cropping. Pigeon pea was planted first to give it ahead start. Then macuna bean, jack bean and lab-lab bean were relay planted in between. So far so good! (See the map below for Main Farm land location.)

Intern Duplex

InterDuplex 2016-04
We are still coming along with the first Inter Duplex.  This duplex will first be lived in by KT personnel.  After further property developments on the KT Farm land, this house will be divided into a duplex and will house interns for the internship program. (See the map below for Intern Duplex location.)

Well & Water on the Farm Property

Service Road blockage  KT 1st Well 
We are having some access complications to our farm site. The location the village council showed us and allowed us to put in a road to our site happens to go through a parcel of land belonging to a elderly man in the village. This man has been bothered with us driving on his property. We, of coarse, had know idea. But one day we discovered lots of plants planted right down the middle of the road. So we are trying to work things out. The issues is really for the village council to sort this out, as we only did what we were told to do. But since the older men don’t hold much value in the younger village council, matters like this can take a while to sort out. So while we have prepared the second well site, we can not bring a large truck on to the property at the moment.(See map below for well locations and service road.)

Seed Bank & Warehouse

Seed Bank Hole Done
It’s been a few months now, since we completed the excavation (by hand) for our under ground seed bank and ground level warehouse on top.  However, this project is on hold due to funding and shortness of staff. (See map below for seed bank location.)

Beekeeping

Beekeeping 04
We have four bee hives in local forested land. It’s bee swarming season and we are hoping to catch a few swarms.

New Staff Housing and storage construction

  Staff&Storeroom 
Out Staff & Storage building is complete and being lived in now.  This building is in full use.  This past month we added the big awning over the back side to use as a work area.  After other developments are complete, this storage room will eventually become a Farm Supply store.  This will help local farmers have access to much needed supplies as well as providing an income for KT in the future.  In the mean time this is sort of an all purpose building. (See map below for Staff Housing and storeroom location.)

Demonstration Plot

 
The demonstration plot is now in full service.  The fence keeps the goats and cows out.  Mulching keeps the moisture in. This plot is ideally located half way between the village (North to South) and on the main path headed up the hill to the west where every one in the village has farm land, including KT.  This location will be very visible to all residents of Mchinga Mbili village.  However, before KT owned this property, there was a major village path right on top of it.  The path has now moved to the side, which is great, but it will take a season or two for the soil structure heal and nutrient levels to come back.   We will have more demonstrations on our main farm land up the hill to the west, but this plot we hope will catch everyone’s eye initially.  (See map below for demo plot location.)

Map of how KT is growing & developing

KT Google Map-2016-04

Click on the map to the left to enlarge.

Click again to zoom even more.