When to Water Your Food Garden

These tips come from Timeless Herb Secrets and they are correct for our climate here in Zimbabwe:

Drying out of the soil (or water loss) begins at the top of the soil and works its way down. Because you cannot see inside the soil, you need to test your soil to see how wet or dry it is. This will tell you whether your plants need water or not.

Before you apply water, test how dry or wet your soil is by doing the 'knuckle test':
Press your finger (up to the first joint) into the soil. If you are checking a seedling tray, scratch the soil in the tray.
If your soil is dry at this level, the plants have used up all the available water, so you need to water.
If your soil is moist (damp) at this level, your plants are getting enough water and you are watering correctly.
If your soil is soggy at this level, your plants are in danger of 'drowning', and depending on weather conditions and other factors, you can miss a watering session or delay it till later in the day.

With experience you will be able to check whether your plants need water or not, just by looking at them and your soil. Whenever you are in doubt, do the knuckle test as described above.
Remember: your plants need to dry out slightly between watering sessions. Just like humans, plants do not like to have feet that are constantly wet.
Make checking the water condition of the soil part of your morning routine. When possible, water plants in the cool of the early morning because less water is lost to evaporation and this will give you the peace of mind that your crops are supplied with this vital nutrient for the day.
In very dry hot spells recheck the watering needs once more during the day. Water at any time of the day when plants show a need for it. Don't wait till the morning.

Herbs are back in fashion!

Chinese herbal group sets roots in Zimbabwe
Business Reporter
One of the world’s leading suppliers of Traditional Chinese Medicine and nutritional herbal supplements, Tasly Group, is steadily making inroads into the Zimbabwean market.Tasly Group now has four distributor shops and almost six hundred individual distributors in Zimbabwe under the title Tasly World Zimbabwe and is geared to grow its distributorship over the coming year.The Tasly products were endorsed and certified by the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe. The Authority’s Registration Committee agreed that the Tasly Group could market its products locally pending a listing exercise of herbal medicines.Tasly Group Chairman and President, Dr Xijun Yan said they derived confidence in their products on the back of the testimonies from users of the products around the globe."These products bring forth results that people are looking for. They are the result of modern technology applied to ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine Philosophy and are the perfect marriage of the modern and the time-honoured."Many people today are in search of superior nutritional herbal supplements and feel a strong desire to enjoy personal financial freedom . . . Our world class product and equally superior compensation plan demonstrate our commitment to both," said Dr Yan.The distributor shops and individual distributors are found in Harare, Gweru, Bulawayo and Plumtree and all major towns in Zimbabwe and the Tasly Marketing Plan has ensured that they now are proud owners of thriving businesses. Under the plan one pays R237 to become a distributor and they receive a business manual, product manual, a Tasly Bag, Danshen Pill — an all-use pill which is effective in improving blood circulation and hailed as the best killer of cardiovascular diseases.They also receive a badge and distributor card which can be used in any Tasly Shop around the world. Once one becomes a distributor they can now sell up to 34 Tasly products, mainly capsules and teas to individuals and pharmacies. The products include those effective for healing Alimentary Tract, cardiovascular, central nervous system, dermatology, endocrine system, genitor-urinary system, muscular skeletal system, respiratory and sensory systems. The products’ prices range from R9 to R462.The Tasly Group takes the Pan-Health industry as its orientation and the TCM as its core business. It has a portfolio of business in plantation, healthcare products, health drinking and new package industries. It grew from scratch into an international Group of companies by upholding the corporate philosophy of "Harmonising Human and Nature, Improving the Quality of Life" and adhering to the mission of modernisation and globalisation of TCM.Tasly World Zimbabwe was established in August 2006 through its first distributor Mrs Jester Makopola who has been influential in the setting up of the other three distributorships. The Harare distributorship is run by Mrs Viola Mbengwa who launched it in March this year having been introduced to it in September last year.Mrs Mbengwa said she is now able to fulfill her financial dreams thanks to the innovative Tasly marketing plan which enriches every one who registers to become a distributor.Under the plan distributors enjoy retail profit, direct bonus, indirect bonus, leadership bonus, fast developing award and honourable award.All these accolades are there to ensure that distributors play a pivotal role in pushing volumes of products for the Tasly group and in return the distributors stand to win anything between 20 percent retail profit and or tours, brand new motor vehicles or villas.Apart from Zimbabwe, The Tasly Group enjoys a presence in South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Swaziland, Kenya, Cote D’Voire Egypt and Uganda. Globally it has business in all five continents.