Mighty Maize

23rd February 2016:
On the surface this looks like a photograph of Rose and Florence showing our garden in  the Centre for Learning agricultural  project, to two representatives from a Self Help Cluster in the city.
What lies behind is easily the best patch of maize in the vicinity, so what?
It has been grown without fertiliser of any kind.
Two years ago we started with one piece of tephrosia, (behind the maize) our favourite plant which fixes nitrogen in the soil, has nitrogen in its levels and is an excellent pesticide. The piece where the maize is growing has one years growth.
This was possibly the worst patch after the factory was erected, as it had been well compacted.
However tephrosia is a type of Biological irrigator with its roots burrowing into the hard soil.
Then if the leaves are used as a mulch it has the same effect as Urea.
This is a mostly unused or certainly underused plant in Malawi.
Malawi is starving at the moment and certainly will get worse. The unreliable rains here in Mzuzu, due to reckless deforestation is a big contributory factor, BUT expensive and  scarce inorganic fertiliser is a a scandal. Tephrosia could help a lot, but an entrenched world does not listen.
In our agriculture we use only tiny  amounts of artificial fertiliser to supply specific nutrients, absent in compost or in our green manures, but we use no noxious chemicals
The ladies look great but they are only props to the real story behind them, sorry guys.