Flores Permaculture

Spring is upon us once again.  Time to shake off the cold and the cobwebs and get back to work. The Guinea Fowl that were bred last year all survived the winter and are healthy and noisy as ever.  Watch the clip below for an earful of their amazing alarm system.  Our first woofer for the new year arrived, Sofie. We taught her how to catch trout in the front yard of our farm, along with many other skills. We butchered our Sheep from the previous summer.  Very tasty mutton. Our second woofer joined Sofie to help clear some jungle and plant new gardens.  Sofia and Sofie, what are the odds?  :) As usual, Odin observes the work and offers helpful observations. The strawberry patch overwintered well in the newly cleared jungle and is ready to explode with growth now. Sofia and Mitra plant Kale in a sunny location that was jungle a few weeks earlier.  The large trees are left to decompose on the ground and pr...

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!!