kadakuda Posted January 9, 2012 This year i have decided to turn our farm into a permaculture style food forest. Will be growing various ethnobotanicals but mostly food crops and medicine crops. If this turns out successful we will also be turning a piece of agriculture land into this type of thing in the mountains, but built slightly differently because a mountain slope has different attribute like water/light. For now here is the rundown on our land that this is happening on now. just a notch above 22 degrees N lat, very far south Taiwan. usually ab good 4-5 months of rainy season, 3-6 months of zero rain (except this year) and some variability in between. Typhoons hit us hard and we can see meters in a short time of rain. After 2 years of working the soil, we have gotten it so that it wont dry out ever in our climate, and irrigation is not really needed unless exposed dirt for annual veggies. Temps ar eusually in the 25-35 range day and night from late Fed to Nov. In december through early feb it can go down to the high teens/low 20s at night, and we get teh odd cold snap from northern winds. 8-9C happens a few nights once every few years. Soil is hard-almost-clay, but has been worked and is far better with more animal activity and lots of organic stuff for about 10-24" now. Here are 3 pictures i made to try and illustrate it to some students at a university i often chat with. open to any and all feedback. the goals: No refined fertilizers, only organics. limited outside resources (mostly in the form of raw plant waste we turn into compost) cheap setup sustainability without huge labor costs pest management (i think this will be hardest) organically. self reliance one thing that just came up over some brews a week ago was trying to get mainstream agri farmers to consider polyculture/permaculture etc. I was saying that probably the biggest drawback is labor and the fact many polyculture setups cannot easily get machines into the farms without sacrificing yield even more. very interested in learning any ideas you guys may have on this, these computer drawings were made without the though of labor. The idea is a triangle and species diversity. Fruit trees we would tend to want light on all sides, so we treat them as the middle peak, so they can yield well on a 360 rotation. the triangle face north/south, so on the south side it slopes downward meaning that side the platns get good light on their tops and one side, not the back. these rows would be more for leaf/bark/root etc type harvests, not fruit or at least not fruit that requires good light. it keeps sliding down to shorter plants until it gets to annual crops like many vegetables and some herbs, these will be put through crop rotation as is already standard practice here and works relatively -OK-. Behind the triangle, facing north, we have shade tolerant/loving plants. Starting at small trees/shrubs (like coffee) and working down to smaller ones. Always up for suggestions on other species to use, especially shade plants that can be grown in the understory and be useful in some manner. A trianlge side view A few rows of triangles An overview layout shot of a single triangle row. Here is a short list of some of the plants that will be grown wher eyou see the letter in the pics. Also open to any suggestions This list isnt complete, im just too lazy right now to retype every species we have lined up. the capital letters are the south facing ones, the lower case with a - sign (ie - means north facing, getting more shade. A - Large trees enjoying lots of light all around mango tamarind lychee longan durian rambutan/pulsan Artocarpus sp. B small trees, or trees kept small Fruit trees here are experiments and really just for personal consumption, ideally I know they should be spaced to get more even light. mangosteen citrus (pomelo) guava (maybe, they are pest magnets) kratom Cinnamon species including camphor wax apple jujube santol cashew (might get too wet??, so far they grow good here in the open) C small shrubs under 2m, will mostly be pruned short Annona species (cherimola, squamosa, muricata, montana) citrus (tangerine, lemon, orange) Mimosa hostilis iboga tabernaemontana species cacao D shorter perrenial plants around 1-1.5m tall. dense plants will be spaced more. miracle fruit pomegranate various ornamentals Alpinia speceis and also various gingers E bell/chili peppers the odd thinly spaced corn rotation egg plant artichoke tobacco F low growing annual herbs/veg. potato, carrot, lettuce/grens, yam/sweet potato, onions/garlic, peanut, bean, mints, lavendar, thyme, rosemary etc. For the shade -b small trees/large shrubs that are shade tolerant Pachira aquatica Piper species (grown on tall poles) Coffee -c Coffee Psychotria species -d Coffee Psychotria species -e through -g More of the same until i get more into searching out shade plants. The understory wil be littered with Psychotria, Piper and Salvia to start with, partly becauuse they will grow ok there in such dark, and secondly to try and supress weeds a little. Any suggestions/comments greatly welcome, Full planting gets put into the ground in March, though a lot is already done. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psylocke Posted January 9, 2012 How bout some fungi? Sounds like your climate would be well suited. A few species of edibles would be a great addition to the dinner table and likely bring a few bucks at market. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Distracted Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) That sounds pretty cool. I really hope some day I can get enough land to do something like that. I was just looking up some mushrooms you might be able to grow and happened upon this. Antrodia Comphomata grows from a symbiotic relationship with Cinnamomum kanehirai but will only fruit once the tree dies. This native Taiwanese mushroom is starting to attract interest because of the exceptionally high concentration of its triterpenoid compounds and their structural diversity. Other important bioactive compounds include polysaccharides, maleic/succinic acid derivatives, benzenoids and benzoquinone derivatives 1. In the wild A. camphorata grows solely on the tree Cinnamomum kanehirai, a species of cinnamon that grows at altitudes of between 450 and 2,000m in the mountains of Taiwan. As the fruiting body only develops fully once the tree is dead, in the past many trees were felled to supply demand for this unique and extremely lucrative mushroom (wild A. camphorata fetches up to US$15,000/kg) and this, coupled with the fact that C. kanehirai itself is highly sought for furniture manufacture, has severely depleted numbers of C. kanehirai, with the result that it is now protected by the Taiwanese government2. http://www.mushroomn...on.com/antrodia It shouldn't be too hard to introduce some culture to your soil either. Edited January 9, 2012 by Distracted Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Halcyon Daze Posted January 9, 2012 Awesome, a great dream you are working on. Have you considered planting timer trees for the future. Some are quite fast growing and many native trees can be incorporated to improve biodiversity. You may want to consider having a purely native section to be a good custodian of the land. You may even help improve connectivity between remnant habitats. Anyway, look up "Agroforestry" and "Mixed Species Plantations'' I'll post some links later. cheers! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LokStok Posted January 9, 2012 Very inspiring plans. Good on you. Perhaps consider a few bananas, Moringa oleifra, and more nitrogen fixing trees to go with the tamarind. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kadakuda Posted January 10, 2012 hey guys thanks for the feedback Mushrooms will surely be grown, they already are. but need to be a little careful. Ganoderma will infect living trees for example and in some places are considered a plant pathogen. I will be growing oysters to start, mostly for making good compost with the aid of bugs. and we love oysters. there are a number of mushrooms, some edible, that grow in heavy farm areas. This is a heavy farm area, no natural areas left at all, its all farms and houses. The area this little project is being done on is only about 3/4 acre. about 1/4 of the land will be kept for other projects. Timber i though about but gave up because it is not a good money maker long term with small land holdings, and it is very tall effectively cutting out the rest of the plants for light. a single good mango tree can make about $1000 US a year here, or as little as a couple hundred. native plants, yes for sure. Mostly understory and small plants, but there are a number of species i am mixing in that are not for much reason other than variety and hopefully pest resistance. i should have written more Noni are already growing there, but i think i need to remove them and plant new ones to fit the pattern. have lots of fabaceae, other than tamarind. About 14 species i think. does anyone have any opinion on planting plants that attract butterflies? i am wanting to plant a certain plant around the border on the N/NE side to make a barrier from the farms that spray, they have pretty flowers and attract butterflies like no ones business, but caterpillars are a fucking menace. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mauve Posted January 10, 2012 If you want to avoid weeds, don't plant any Alpinia speciosa ! It smells good but becomes a real pain very quickly. You forgot the vines ! Where are the caapi and bitter melon ? I suggest strong, tall and leathery leaved trees all around the property against typhoons, here in Okinawa (same climate and problems) they use Garcinia subelliptica (same family as mangosteen) for protection. If you succeed in producing mangosteen i'll come by plane every month for shopping at your farm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kadakuda Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) Hehe, for sure man. Im not sure if its warm enough here for mangosteen, they grow well, but they are too small to fruit so time will tell. I had to fly to thailand and get seeds cause the plants they were selling here turned out to be another Garcinia, which i have also collected on Orchid island recently. Actually winds dont worry me anymore, there is some damage, but especially in this kind of format i find group planting shield each other a bit. one big problem is flooding a lot of tropical plants cant do it. the most extreme cases with flooding and plant death i have had so far is iboga, cacao and some smaller herb plants. so there will be many raised areas for such plants. going to redo the trenches a bit, and make them wide to plant water loving plants like mitragyna in and use the dirt from those to raise next door for more water sensitive plants. I hear you on Alpinia, in fact it was one candidate for a border. they spread, but they are nothing compared to real weeds, so im fine with it all i need to do is tell people its organic and free and it will be down to the ground in days around moon festival don't know how i forgot to mention, bamboo will also be represented there. both for building material and for food. i am going to try it out on the shady side, any thoughts? i use bamboo a lot, harvest it a lot and hike through it a lot, but havent ever grown it much. Edit, have been doing a bit a plan to get things ready for spring and get an idea of numbers. here are some pics that are to scale and suited to our farm using the triangle thing. I am drunk so i am going to give it a fancy name so i can refer to it: triangles. each full section form -g through F (form one end to the other) i will call a pyramid so our farm can fit 5 pyramids comfortably and still leave me end room at the north end for greenhouse/pond/other stuff. Here is the general idea of each pyramid Here is the whole farm. these pics are really huge, so had to scale down for internet,so the letters may not be readable. Mauve, you know i have the vines goign too. Vines, being vines, are good at sneaking into cracks. But things like perennial morning glories (ie turbina and hbwr) along with other big perennial vines like entada and b. caapi will be planned somewhat carefully because they can all take over the trees too much....about the only vines i have really decided on placement are annuals like beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, Piper species etc. as an aside, we are not going to be farming animals for food. Mammals/birds anyway. I do have worm and snail projects going for a while, but may consider fish, we are still thinking cause they need some space as far as wasted ground space. I wonder if kratom grows as a perma marsh plant...meaning no dry out season...??? I have thought about small ponds/canals under the canopy for a wet pyramid. Edited January 10, 2012 by kadakuda 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
