Green Manures/Cover Crops in Kaberamaido

I got to go to visit some demonstration gardens in Kaberamaido, where one of World Renew's partners is doing a project promoting green manures/cover crops (gm/ccs).  The point of a green manure is to use leaves and plant material as a living manure to fertilize your soil.  It doesn't require transportation or spreading and just grows itself in your garden.  Cover crops help to keep the soil covered to keep weeds down and to keep the soil moist even when it is not raining enough.  The gardens that we saw were pretty excellent.  Here is some mucuna, which has been growing for only a month.

The farmers planted several different kinds of gm/ccs in plots next to each other so they could compare the growth habits of each one.

The overall consensus of the different farmers we talked to at their various demonstration gardens was that mucuna and lablab were the gm/ccs that they were definitely going to use in their gardens, once the seed was multiplied.

We also saw a few people who have been taking mulching to heart.  They want to mulch around their vegetables to keep soil moisture there and to prevent erosion, much the same reasons as using a cover crop.  One farmer mulched around their cabbages with banana leaves and maize stalks.

And another farmer used the stalks from sesame (which is usually just discarded) as mulch because they didn't have access to enough grass.  It made me happy to see these creative ways of mulching.

And on a less happy note, here's a guy spraying his tomatoes with not enough protection.