Flores Permaculture

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.

Magnus has been working diligently to remove the jungle and debris from a great location on our farm for several years.   The first steps were taken in earnest last year and recorded at  this blog post from 2016. With the help of AviChai, Magnus managed to get the "Super-Bowl Garden"  cleared of large trees that had accumulated over the years. This year with the excellent help of Anne and Matts, the garden if functional and beautiful. Above Anne uses cut Canna Rocha ( Hedychium gardnerianum) to mulch around freshly planted Taro . While Anne mulches, Matts pulls all the cut wood out of the stream bed and stacks it for future compost. Above, the scope of the garden can be seen, with a beautiful spring fed stream running through the center. Banana trees are planted near the mountainside, with Taro in the boggy areas and fig and avocado in the dry areas. Young Taro transplants are growing their true leaves now and harvesting the sol...

Magnus has been working steadily to stabilize the bridge that connects the farm to the rest of Flores Island.  Using a cement mixer and some help from friends, the project is stable now. A special thank you to  José Carlos,  Elisabete,  and Fernando  of  our local government  for providing materials and transport of those materials to our site. Over 6,000 pounds of sand, gravel, iron and cement were placed to create a massive spillway in times of flooding.  This is a continuation of  the spillway project  previously blogged. Iron reinforcing bars binds the concrete into a single mass to resist erosion and allow heavy vehicles to pass safely over the tubes. Odin and Mitra are happy to apply water to the curing concrete while  it hardens. A temporary stairway allows easy passage to the gardens. The project is nearly finished, only a bit more materials to fill in the exposed tubing and to guard ag...