Flores Permaculture

This year we managed to clear the largest flat area on our farm and plant it with Sweet Potatoes. I planted five varieties and all did very well. Above the brush fire is still smoldering as we turn the twigs into ash for fertilizer.   In the photo above you can see the massive Eucalyptus trees that still need to be cut down. For now 'ring-barking' them makes the leaves fall off, allowing the sun to enter the gardens.   A freshly harvested row shows the fantastic forest soil we begin with, now just to keep the natural balance intact and the gardens will keep giving forever. Sabrina helps to unearth more rows of yummy food.  The leaves are also excellent to cook with. Mitra is a huge help at gathering all the sweet potatoes as they are unearthed and gently placing them in a bucket for transport. We dry them in the sun for a day or three, until going into storage. At the present we have to sto...

We got enough rain to turn up the hydro turbine and use the electric sander for a few weeks. Our wwoofer, Luka, did a great job sanding the beams that will be installed in the children's new bedroom that is under construction. Very dusty work, but great fresh air and sunshine with an amazing view to keep morale high.

After another heavy rain, we nearly had another disaster like the  2015 disaster. We had already built a spillway to accommodate the thunderstorms that seem to be increasingly frequent in the last 3 years. However, this was not enough to keep the rising flood waters away from our gardens and home. With the help of Fiona and Elisa, our two young wwoofers from France, we increased the drainage systems downhill from the spillway. After the soil is piled downhill of the new trenches, we planted the new berms with Taro for both erosion control and edible functionality.

Sylvia brought her awesome organizational skills to our farm and helped to plant and weed the gardens.

We were lucky to have a strapping young lad stay with us for a few weeks.  We put him to good work helping to fill bags with sand and gravel and then send them down the zip-line to the concrete mixer. Odin and Mitra had a great time wheeling the line back after the load was removed at the other end. Frank was a huge help in bringing the concrete blocks (CMU) from their drop off location to the building site. Thank you very much FRANK!!

After expanding the farm for the last five years, I am finally satisfied that Zones 2 and 3 are producing well enough to feed us through the winter!  This summer I turning my gaze again to Zone 0. The first step was to install a new zip-line to get materials to Zone 0 from our Zone 4 drop-off point.  The limitations of our summer-only dirt road dictate that heavy construction be done in the dry summer months only.  I asked my good friend Augusto to build me a new and improved post with a return wheel to bring the empty wheel and hook back after sending down a batch of building materials.  He used a recycled trike wheel as the base of his design that includes a brake to control the speed of the descent down the mountain.  Odin and Mitra love to help operate the brake! The first job is to build my boys their own private bedroom.  The original stone house had two dividing walls inside to create two bedrooms and a kitchen.  Those wall...