Healthy Bodies Healthy Planet
With all the problems caused by traditional agriculture, from the destruction of the environment to it’s highly unsustainable reliance on harmful pesticides and hebicides, there has been a growing interest in permaculture and natural farming worldwide. These systems seek to utilise natural methods of growing food that is not only regenerative to the planet but is a much healthier source of nutrition for our bodies as well.
Here in Trinidad, we are blessed with warm tropical weather all year long which means a continuous growing cycle. Natural farming and more so Permaculture really shines in a tropical climate.
Our garden uses both permaculture and natural farming techniques to grow food. For example we don’t just grow one type of crop, instead we do heavy intercropping. Bananas, plantains, papaya, taro, zucchini and a wide range of fruit trees, among other things, are intercropped throughout our garden. This allows us to use little to no pesticides. Also we opt to mechanically control weeds through brush cutting and hand weeding as opposed to herbicides. Our garden is also designed using swales and pits that seek to store water in the rainy season, while making it available to the plants in the dry season.
A “food forest” of our main crops. Zucchini, plantains, taro and papaya all intercropped together.
There is nothing better than watching the sun rise amongst a forest of food!
One of our many “banana circles”. The pit acts as a reservoir for organic material and rain water. Reducing a dependence on artificial fetilizers and making the plants much more drought tolerant in the dry season.
This technique is used successfully in India and Africa where there are harsh dry seasons and and really wet rainy seasons.
Our experiment with Dioscorea trifida or as we trinis call it “cush cush”. Growing on a bamboo trellis rather than a tree, allows for better access to sunlight and therefore better production.
Beautiful zucchini plants growing amongst young plantains.
Another one of our experiments. We’re using dried plantain and banana leaves as a natural, permeable mulch for our zucchini.
Not only does it stifle out noxious weeds, it protects the soil from drying out and decomposes into organic matter while it rots.
Every permaculture design should include a zone 5 and this is ours. Essentially it’s the wilderness (ie) we let nature take do her thing and we learn from it. What we observe here we try to implement as much as possible on our commercial plot.
This area was planted in the 60’s with cocoa, cofee and citrus. Scattered throughout are fruit trees like cashew, breadfruit, pommerach, and monkey pot (brazil nut for us trinis). Cedar was planted in the early 2000’s and now acts as a canopy. We especially love the ground cover of calla lilies. It has been virtually untouched for the past 15 years and we’re always amazed at how well nature does without any human interference.
There’s a squirrel climbing on one of the cedar trunks. He’s one of the many critters that benefits from our zone 5. We also regularly see agouti, iguana and the occasional deer.
