workshops

We held the second of the farmer's permaculture workshops today. Well they'd better be called permaculture / natural farming in the tropics workshops: while we follow permaculture principles we don't adhere to many of the design elements; our climate, soil and conditions don't fit the classic model. Rather we follow a blend of Fukuoka's natural farming, permaculture and traditional (ie pre-chemical) local methods.

The first workshop held earlier this month, focused on tropical soils and how the rainforest creates its own environment. We looked at the natural components of soil, dug around under enormous forest trees, kicked at fallen logs, looked at fungi and the role of mycellium and worked on compost. We looked at mulching, forest floor technology, micro ecosystems and generally had a fun morning in the dirt.

Today's workshop focused on propagation techniques: collecting, cleaning, planting seeds; root, rhizome, stem and tip cuttings; root, rhizome and plant division; ground and air layering, and grafting. We worked with edibles, fruit trees and various ornamentals. It rained buckets and we were happy for the coffee and cookie break. It was great.

The farmer says he doesn't like giving workshops and now it's my turn, so next month we'll do a fermentation and a fruit processing workshop. Hopefully we'll have fruit! Yes, we'll have mangoes and guayabilla. Love it.

compost

I'm puzzling over the complexities of compost. It's such a simple idea. Plants grow, they die, they rot, the creatures and microbes that eat them die and they rot, the rotting matter is in turn eaten and digested and becomes food for new growth. It happens everywhere where it is naturally allowed to happen. We humans seem to want to stop it by covering the earth with concrete, sweeping leaves into piles and burning, burying our dead in rot proof containers, filling landfills with organic material. Yet compost still happens.

In the forest it happens with grace and ease - things that were once living die and fall to the ground where other things slowly digest them into smaller and smaller particles and simple nutrients which can then be used by new living things. No one measures the right nitrogen carbon ratios, adds supplements, layers with straw or wood ash, mixes with a fork or turns the whole thing over. Yet in gardening sites everywhere I hear about the importance of turning compost, of the worry that it will stagnate and become anaerobic. It must be that the way we compost is unnatural: we pile everything in one large heap rather than spreading it around. We want compost quickly and thus go to great lengths to speed up the process - we want to control it. And that's okay, we control our gardens, we manage our land.

I read about a system of composting that's used in Nairobi. It must be the simplest 'bin' technique I've heard. Dig a hole slightly smaller in radius, and just as deep as a bottomless basket or bucket. Place the bucket or basket on top. Fill the hole and then the bucket or basket with compost and plant around it. Another version is simpler yet: in a raised bed dig a trench in the middle running the length of the bed. Fill with food scraps. This seems a great idea to me. I have a sample of the bucket technique going and it seems fine, it doesn't smell bad and the scraps - almost exclusively fruit peelings and coffee grounds - are breaking down quite nicely. But I'm not turning it over, is it anaerobic? It's a shallow hole, only 12 inches deep, so maybe the air can penetrate down that far. There are worms and grubs in and around it. The theory of course is that the roots of the plants will reach into the rich seepage of compost tea weeping through the soil. I'm waiting to see how it develops. I'm far more excited by the prospect of having a garden centered around several round oasis of bottomless buckets than having a big compost bin off to one side and orderly rows of vegetables.

Fukuoka and his Natural method of farming let everything be as close to the natural state as possible: no tilling, no weeding, no pruning. In his fields the straw was left to mulch down for the next season's crops. He at one time brought in chicken manure to add to his fields, but after some time stopped and instead introduced ducks to his land. I believe this was the only addition to what happened naturally in his rice and rye/barley fields. The people living with him must have created kitchen scraps and waste, I don't recall how he managed that. I'll need to re-read.

How do you compost?

farm chores

Working with Fukuoka’s natural farming method really keeps farm chores to a minimum. With no tilling, no spraying, no pruning we are left with time for other things. That’s not to say there’s no work to be done. There’s fruit and spices to be picked, flowers to be pollinated, paths to be maintained, seeds to be started, mulching to be done, and of course there’s plenty of work in the nursery.

My chores really though are centered around getting ready for the farmers’ market. Each morning I put on tea for the kombucha and while it’s cooling I rinse the mung bean and alfalfa sprouts. Depending on the day I’ll either be milling and soaking soy beans or preparing the tempeh, and checking on how the tempeh is coming along in the incubator. If it’s a Thursday I’ll be roasting cacao. And every other day I’ll be drying fruit, or prepping dried fruit for our fruit mixes. All in it takes about 2 hours each day to complete my chores. Not too bad, especially considering I work at home in a beautiful open air kitchen and navigate my way to and fro between our 4 happy handsome and often sleepy dogs