David West
Mekong Sustainable Farming Forum
Newsletter January 2015
1- Chris's Monthly Message
2 – Seed Balling from Doug
3 – Links to interesting articles and videos
4 – Encouragement to write
Chris's Monthly Message
Thanks to Chris
Hi All
I hope you all survived the excessive consumption of this time of year and are looking forward to the opportunities that 2015 has to offer. We at Tamasard farm have a number of projects that we hope to finish before the rains bring all major projects to a halt till around the beginning of September when the rain eases up.
So
before I get too carried away with next year I would like to cover
the successes and learning opportunities of December. The big one was
the building of a water storage system made from one meter diameter
concrete drain pipes. If anyone would like an in depth detail, of how
to do it, just contact me directly. The reason for using concrete
pipes is that it is a whole lot cheaper than either plastic or metal,
and all the materials are local. The tricky bit is of course is
having the muscle available to lift the sections on top of each
other. We did it with four fit young fellers and some timber
scaffolding. I assumed that the pipes would not leak, which was my
first mistake. This meant we had to put a waterproof plaster around
the outside. So for
the
next lot, I will tell them the mix I want to use so we don’t have
to plaster.
Another project was to build a chipper, as I have an engineering background; I thought it would be a doddle. I did not get far as the local workshop noticed the ATM I had forgotten is stamped on the forehead of us foreigners. In the end I found a basic cassava chipper made in Vietnam that you can put your own motor on, and have upgraded the blades using the Makita planer blades. I have not used it yet, so I will let you know next month how effective it is and if I have to make any other modifications.
The other thing I want to talk about this month is soil. I think of all the things that I learnt doing a Permaculture design course last year at Panya, was the importance of the soil, to the successes or failure of your planting projects.
Soil needs to be a living medium. That is to say you need beneficial micro organisms that can recycle the organic matter that has finished its life cycle and can now be turned in to food for the growing plant life. Bacteria are the most common and makes up over 80% of the micro organisms in a compost pile. There are estimated to be 2.3*10000 per gram of soil and there frenzied activity is the reason a well built compost pile will reach over 60 degrees C.
Fungi is another organism found in a healthy soil and is most commonly on dead trees, as it gets its nutrients from the decaying tree cell structure. One of Permaculture methods of dealing with old tree trunks is to cover them with soil and plant things in the soil that covers the log. It speeds up the decomposition of the log, and you get the benefit of the plants.
Another interesting organism that can be added to your rice paddy is blue-green algae. It can be grown along with your rice crop and will actually “collect” 40-80 kilos of nitrogen, per acre, out of the air, and dissolve it into the water. There are many other elements to a healthy soil, which will enable you to grow healthy plants year after year. The important thing is to watch how nature works and assist it to function the way it used before the modern farming system was invented. I can’t think of anything you can buy in a bag that is going to do a better job in the long run than some leaf mould from the forest, to get you garden/farm working effectively again.
So next month, I will cover some things about weeds and worm farms, as well as the progress at our farm. We will be getting a couple of pigs to add to various other animals. I have an electric fence from New Zealand that I will use to allow them plenty of space to roam and plough our fields.
Lastly a reminder of the Permaculture course we will be hosting from February 10th to the 17th.
The course will be led by Rico Zook of i-permaculture.org. Contact me directly on chrisperkins30@hotmail,com if interested.
Chris
Seed Balls are food for all
Thanks to Doug
I have had an interest in Gardening for over 30 years now, I came to Asia and was overwhelmed by the biodiversity of plants. I began to Garden. Gardening in the tropics is far different to that in Europe, so I began to research.
During this research I came across seed bombs, the idea being to encase seeds in a clay and compost mix, the seeds being protected from birds and insects by the hard clay . I researched this further coming across https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVrALGcCe5Y this video inspired me further, it discussed the decline in British wild flowers and how seed balls could bring back these road side wonders. This hit home to me as I have personally seen the decline in wild British flowers.
This idea is not new, first being used in Japen by Mansanobu Fukuoka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0
(PDF Copy of The Oner Straw Revolution available free – contact David)
I began to produce seed balls and bomb waste areas of land, hoping this action would produce food for free and somehow address the extreme poverty within Laos, I began to promote the idea and to network. Initially my idea was to introduce this into Lao temple schools and the Vientiane International School. My idea was community building, the children would be asked to bring in seeds from home “seeds which would normally be thrown into the waste” the more homes sending in seeds the more the diversity of seed, they would then be shown how to dry the seeds and produce seed balls, these balls would then be divided amongst the children and sent home for them to bomb areas near to their homes. And produce food is then for their community. “A sharing of seed resources”.And having some fun getting dirty and feeling your doing something.
Becoming excited by this idea I handed out seed balls to others, with the words “here is some food”. They would smell it... “Oh it is not food yet you have to throw it away” and I would explain, each ball I handed out gained the effect I was looking for.... they threw it away. The ball laying on the ground protected, come the rains the clay in the ball will disolve the compost providing food for the germinating seed.
On one occasion whilst having a drink in the L'atmosphere, I was talking to a friend about this idea, standing next to us was a couple who were discussing the problems they had in producing food for Elephants in the forest, our conversations combined, They explained they were from The Elephant Conservation Center in the North of Lao, that they use 106 hectres of forest for their elephants, however, food within the forest is in decline, they have eaten most of it (foods which they like) Elephants consume somefv 220 – 450kg a day. I explained my idea could be used to regenerate these foods and regenerate the forest.
I was invited to the Center to teach them how to make theses seeds balls, collect seed and use resources they had there. Seeds balls were produced using clay powder (supplied free by a local brick factory) rice husk and buffalo dung. I suggested a test seed bed be used within the Center to test the balls, show that they work. These balls will now be produced on a weekly basis and dispersed within the forest by the Mahouts.
On my last day, whilst waiting for transport, a Mahout rode upto me on the big bull elephant, he said “Mr Doug you leave today? I want to thank you for what you have done”. I saw this as respect. Explaining this to staff, they told me they had always believed that this Mahout coud speak English but he would never do so, but by the hard clay speaking to me from the bull elephant it was respect. I was fulfilled I had done something good, I had come to asia to garden, I now garden 106 hectres. And I have done my bit to help the Asia Elephant which now only numbers some 400 in the wild.
Also please see: I am a ninja Gardener
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9ziRMimgFDD858RyG5wpQ/videos
A few links to interesting articles
Bathtime during Doug's seedballing at the Elephant reservation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQb6p8Ne6Js
Five reasons to grow your own food.
http://www.naturalnews.com/047998_home_gardening_food_preparedness_self_reliance.html
Seven things you should know about Permaculture
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/7-things-you-should-know-about-permaculture/
Civilisation is boring
https://botanicalinterests.com/articles/view/30/Microgreens-For-Winter-Mealshttp://www.monbiot.com/2014/12/09/civilisation-is-boring/
Permaculture & The Tipping Point.
http://permaculturenews.org/2014/12/03/geoff-lawton-permaculture-the-tipping-point/#comment-1996882
Microgreens for winter meals
https://botanicalinterests.com/articles/view/30/Microgreens-For-Winter-Meals
The success of this forum depends on receiving articles from members.
Could anyone who is working on something releavant to MSFF (and who isn't?) or who supplies products or services relevant to permaculturists then please let us have a brief run down of what you are doing.
Special thanks this month to Doug for helping out with his seed ball article