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...

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...

We currently have 20 laying hens, 2 roosters (because one always needs a spare cock), 2 helmeted guinea hens, and 2 helmeted guinea cocks. We now have a fenced in area for the fowl, so we can find all the eggs they lay and keep accurate records.  Every time we purchase a new bag of chicken feed, we start a new column of  eggs collected daily.  Below you can see the results of 5 sacks of 50kg chicken feed.  We average between 10 to 20 eggs daily. The chickens seem to enjoy their habitat and use the laying boxes as well as the fodder crops to hide their eggs.  Below is a clutch of eggs hidden inside the Perennial Kale crop.  We planted Tagasaste and Kale for them to eat and to provide shade during the hot summer months.    Both crops provide a high protein seed and leaf combination that is ideal for fowl consumption. We also planted White Mulberry trees, which  produce a protein rich fruit for the fowl to en...

With short days and frequent cloud cover, most of our crops go dormant from November until March; but not all of them. We have lots of Perennial Kale. We have Tree Tomatoes, Lemons, Limes, Grapefruits and Sweet Oranges.  And of course, Spicy Peppers to keep us warm!! Now is the time to prune all the fruit trees in anticipation of them breaking dormancy. Our apple trees are making many spurs now, so with a good summer we should have fruit this autumn. Our figs will be mature enough to produce fruit this year also.

About 5 years ago, we installed two tubes that allow the water in our ravine to flow under the roadway that connects our house to the nearest dirt road.  You can view the project at http://magnusandkonswan.blogspot.pt/2010/10/road-building.html  . Both tubes got blocked with debris and thousands of liters of rainfall diverted down the road and into our gardens around 5 am following thunderstorms. According to  Flores Weather Archive , we received between 25-37 mm steadily throughout the entire day of October 13, 2015.  When the drains work, no problem, it was the 3 am blockage the wreaked havoc until daylight allowed me to clear it. Nothing like being woken up in the dark to the sound of a mudslide in your backyard. The morning after! Our safety fencing slowed the mudslide and kept our roof from being buried. Our stairway is gone completely!  Big stones vanished. The water is back where it belongs now, sliding down the ravine walls. ...

Micro greens. Purple Taro. Chicken forage area with citrus and figs.  Green Taro patch. Our second wwoofer arrives. Our wwoof-er home, dry and cool with the water flowing under the roadway. Tomato harvesting begins in earnest.