ukuGalesha – Expanding from past to present to future
How were things in the past?
Watch this YouTube video opens the discussion on living waters for supporting life and plant growth.
How can harvesting rainwater and ukuGalesha improve soil-moisture retention in heritage food gardening?
How are things today?
Did you know?
Most drains are designed to take storm water away quickly but this normally causes problems downstream. New suburbs are now designed to have retention drains that take the flood waters away but slow them down into basins that hold the water for a few days. This allows it to slowly seep away into the groundwater.
These wide drains are ideal places for planting wild wetland and grassland species that will attract back many of the species of birds whose habitats were lost when houses were built in the area.
Wide drains are important to stop local flooding, but they can also become wetlands with the right plants to suck up more water and provide a habitat for interesting birds and insects.
What does this mean for us today?
What does this mean for us today?
In the warm, dry winter season in Africa, rivers dry up and become green puddles that are important feeding grounds for insects in the spring. Market gardeners apply the same principle when they put a small bag of chicken manure in a drum filled with water to make liquid manure. A good indicator that the nutrient is not too strong is that tiny water organisms like water fleas thrive on clean, nitrogen-enriched water. If the nitrogen in the liquid manure is too concentrated, then the conditions are not suitable for living beings, and the liquid manure can become too concentrated or polluted, so more fresh water should be added and the amount of chicken manure reduced. In this way, gardeners are able to provide nitrogen-enriched water for healthy plants and tiny animals living in the water, show the farmers that the concentration of nitrogen will support animals in the water as well as plant growth in the soil.