Flores Permaculture

Jungle clearing is a labor and time intensive process to do correctly. The goal is not to kill the jungle, but to make it a useful space. This land was abandoned to nature over 50 years ago. Below, the dark forest is seen in the background of the fallen giant.  With no sunlight available, not much vegetation occurs under this canopy. The first step is to cut all the smaller incenso trees (pittosporum undulatum) and canna ( Hedychium gardnerianum)   plants from the area, in order to expose the fallen trees blown down in previous years. The insenso is then stacked for drying and future fire wood use.  Below, a nice stack is prepared.    Below Beatrice separates the branches into one pile and the logs into another for drying and compost. Thank you Beatrice for helping to collect and stack all this wood! The giant eucalyptus trees are carefully cut one at a time, as seen below.  With the inceso cut to a meter above grou...

The foundation has set and now Phase II begins.  Phase II involves building the  concrete columns that will support the solar panels and rotating axis. The north column stands nearly three meters tall, so a pedestal is required to strengthen the structure and minimize bend or cracks. Also do to intense winter wind loads and the fact the uppermost solar panel will stand four meters above ground level, it is crucial that the structure cannot topple and land on our roof.  This iron reinforced bench will add 1700 kilograms of weight as a counter force. I decided to us natural stone as a functional form, rather than wood or blocks.   The bench should seat four people, one at each of the cardinal directions.  This will be ideal for watching the sun rise from the ocean. It takes a little more time to select and align the field stones, but I want this to be Art as well as Engineering. The bench is nearly at the final height and ready fo...

Our off-grid home is powered by a Hydro-Turbine.  In the winter months we get more than 500 watts of output non-stop.  During the late summer months we start to get less rainfall and therefor we get less wattage.  As global warming shifts our system of winds and ocean currents, we anticipate drier summers.  As a result we are adding an additional 1,000 watts of power to our  system.  In the winter we will have more hot water and heating during the day and we will maintain our current standard of living in the summer when the rains stop and the sun beams down. The tracker is designed to maximize yearly output of solar power by following the sun's path from East to West daily at  a constant 23 degree angle. The first stage of the project is to accrue all the building materials and get them to the site.  Not a simple task without a 4 wheel drive truck. All the sand and gravel must be bagged up and then hand carried to the top of th...

This year we had a great harvest season for Strawberry Guava. Odin and Mitra were eager to lend a hand to gather berries, one for the bucket and one for the mouth. We developed a good system with the boys relaying the full cups picked by our woofer helpers to the master bucket. Below Stan and Mitra team up to get the job done. Vince also lent a hand to gather fruit on our family farm. After a hard days work, Mitra puts his feet up to enjoy the biggest and best fruit gathered. And when there are enough fruits to fill a large vessel, we engage in the ancient and sacred art of fermentation.

So far we have cleared about 15% of our available land so far.  It is difficult and dangerous work. Below Kristina gives some perspective to the scale of our jungle. After clearing out the underbrush, we can find the larger trees that need to be cut down to compost over the next years. The smaller trees that are in good health can be left for future firewood harvesting.  We remove all crooked or damaged trees as we clear. Finding cliff walls and old retaining walls made of stone helps to illustrate the value of this land for agricultural use. Below Stan tackles one of our worst invasive species, False Tobacco.  It is a plague on our ecosystem. From inside our Zone 3, we can look out to our Zone 2 and the Wwoofer Cabana across our valley.

Our Zone 2 is steadily growing and improving as we clear more jungle from the adjoining  Zone 3 and replace it with edible plants. Below Kristina transplants young seedlings around our newly established Golden Bamboo . We added 7 new Tamarillo trees in addition to the 5 that are now producing fruits. Below Konswan stands in a garden that was only underbrush earlier this year.  Already she has harvested from this land several times and now has freshly replanted it with Winter crops. Below is the upgraded garden that we began clearing last  April .  What was a scrubby mess a few months ago is now abundant in Eggplants. Another newly created garden has just had the onions harvested and is now replanted with Red Mustard and Shiso . Our  Mulbeery Trees  are thriving in the chicken enclosure along with the  Strawberry Guava , both excellent for humans and foul alike to eat. Konswan is tying up her plants in ad...