Occasionally we have requests for tree plants. We will post a notice late September and take orders early November.
We also made contact with a resident of Maguru, which was once a hamlet in the village of Mwasa where I worked in the 1980s. Both mayors are excited about the project. We plan to visit next week. These two villages are about thirty kilometers from Kilosa, on the railway line that leads to Dodoma.
This year it seems that the villagers have decided to burn all surfaces. When I returned from Dar es Salaam yesterday, I was even announced that a fire had been lit in the eastern part of Chole, arriving close to our neighbor’s house, six hundred meters from here. "A young man sick from fire obsession", told me my neighbour. "We’ll catch him one day".
Fires are more abundant this year because the heavy rains have generated a huge vegetation cover that has now dried since the end of the rains.
Fires on the southern flank of Mount Ikamba. Burnt fields in Jumbebibi.
Fire in the evening that will burn a good part of the night.
The neighbour burned his plot, which caused intense heat on four
mango trees
and the litchi tree. If mango trees are going to resume, their mangoes have dried on foot.
We started the repair of the Chole bridge. The existing structure had to be destroyed, a part of the concrete blocks was used for the base. A mass, an axe, a shovel and a bucket ...
The wire mesh could not be recovered.
The stones are broken to the ground and then brought on the shoulders from the hill overlooking the hamlet.
The giant passion flower is in bloom. Seven pineapples grow at their own pace. Two plum trees each gave one flower.
Peaches are ungrafted varieties, with very small fruit without much juice. They gave some flowers, but these flowers had aborted last year. Not having seen beautiful peaches on market, it is possible that only this variety exists.
Mulberries produce some fruit at their base but the full season
will take place in two months.
The grenade tree produced two flowers.
It is always a pleasure to harvest and cook our own vegetables. Especially at this time when they are produced without pesticide. In December and January, locusts can devastate a plot in a few hours.
During my stay in France the person responsible for watering found too much work elsewhere and left without warning me, even though I had left him a phone that allowed communicate by WhatsApp. More than half of the grape plants have dried, and there was only one strawberry plant left. The aubergines have also dried but I managed to make them start again. The trip to Dar this week was fatal, the young man responsible for watering went to a funeral on the day he was to water.
I Could bring back from France a variety of beans that from Armenia. We have baptized her Armenia, the word quickly become Amenya in Swahili. The plants have been attacked by mosaic, a virus of this kind, and had to be treated. They are now in good health.
Beans grow in wisdom and beauty. On the right picture you can see the lower leaves of mosaic.
The bottom of the store tank that collects the rain had collapsed, so we rebuilt it. The tank supplying water to the home, connected to the pump, threatened to fall in forward, in the direction of the slope, due to the erosion of the base due to rainwater runoff. We have therefore consolidated the store tank and builds a small base for the top tank.
The tank of the store and the one of the top, distributing water to the house have had their bases consolidated.
The stream still flows, unlike last year where water was only circulating in the soil. Irrigation is much easier this year, no fighting for the water shifts.
Last year, the third year after planting the first grafted mango trees we had mangoes with the inside black, infested with vermin. After consultation we sprayed insecticides and fungicides, which is practiced at flowering. We are recommended three treatments at two weeks' intervals.
Mango trees produce many flowers, few are viable.
Early varieties already produce small fruit.
The small yellow mangoes, at the bottom of the picture, are
actually soft and will abort soon.