[Lapg] More on Perennial Vegetables for Miami

[Cory Brennan]

Dan, 

Always a delight to read your thoughts. We're going to focus on incorporating perennials in an edible jungle environment - jungle is the perfect system for Miami, with its "problem" soils - we've been just heaping organic matter on top of the sand in different Florida climates and stuff is growing really well.  At the Miami location, they also grow lettuce and some other annuals at the site. 

The water table is an interesting problem as well in much of low land Florida - we recommended chinampas to grow trees and veggies on at one site in central Florida that turned marshy in the rain. They were using drainage ditches to flow the water off the property! Coming from S Calif, that seemed almost sacriligious to me.

At Pine Ridge in S Dakota, with heavy clay/silt soil, we need to dig into and open the soil a la keyline to create the conditions for diverse prairie grasses and tree systems to flourish.  

Bamboo, yes! Extremely useful and beautiful. I'm wondering if there is a form of bamboo that would grow quickly in the harsh extremes of a place like Pine Ridge (100+ in the summer, well below freezing in winter, 3-4 months growing season free of frost).  

Best, Cory





--- On Mon, 12/14/09, Dan Hemenway <permacltur at aol.com> wrote:

> From: Dan Hemenway <permacltur at aol.com>
> Subject: More on Perennial Vegetables for Miami
> To: permacltur at aol.com, cory8570 at yahoo.com, scpg at arashi.com, lapg at arashi.com, johnvalenzuela at myway.com
> Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 5:09 AM
> 
> 
> 
> A
> second look at perennial vegetables. 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
>  In
> providing partial answers to the inquiry about perennial
> vegetables for the
> Miami area, I failed to question the question itself. Why
> perennial?  Why
> vegetables?  Is this just a knee-jerk response to the
> common misconception
> that permaculture is about growing food in ‘permanent’
> plantings, or are there
> reasoned considerations behind the interest. 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Mollison
> makes a good case against tillage of soil, though stopping
> short of ruling it
> out as an absolute crime against nature in all cases. It
> has been the standard
> mode of food production for centuries.  If it iscno
> good, why? 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Tillage
> and agriculture are twins.  The 
> 
> 
> 
> revolution
> in provisioning of food that enabled such abominations as
> urban 
> 
> 
> 
> society,
> large scale warfare, and wholesale ecological destruction
> was enabled by the
> coupling of the plow and the draft animal.  Slaves
> were also used to pull
> plows, but less efficiently. Turning the soil eliminated
> weeds and enabled
> rapid establishment of annual grasses such as wheat, that
> in turn provided food
> for far more people than needed to produce it. 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> In
> home gardens, tillage proved better suited to cool and cold
> temperate climates,
> where people’s access to traditional forest systems was
> curtailed by church and
> government institutions. One could at least have a small
> garden on a patch of
> land, sometimes. Turning the soil over in spring hastened
> warming, destroyed
> perennial and biennial weeds, and enabled rapid planting of
> the entire garden, 
> 
> 
> 
> quite
> advantageous in a short growing season.  In arid and
> semiarid areas, clean
> cultivation of various 
> 
> 
> 
> sorts
> eliminates moisture competition.  
> 
> 
> 
> As in
> tropical and subtropical situations, tree crops often best
> suit to 
> 
> 
> 
> these
> areas, if the is a more or less steady supply of deep
> moisture.  Wide
> spacing of plants diminishes 
> 
> 
> 
> moisture
> competition. 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Traditional
> gardening in moist warm climates has always been forest
> gardening.  Where
> cultivation is practiced, it is generally a case of
> following the wrong
> model.  While one can get away with cultivating soils
> in a cool climate,
> where organic inputs break down slowly, turning soil in
> warm moist 
> 
> 
> 
> climates
> can destroy fertility quickly. Organic matter breaks down
> rapidly 
> 
> 
> 
> enough
> in these climates, and when additional air is mixed into
> the soil, it 
> 
> 
> 
> almost
> evaporates.  No longer bound 
> 
> 
> 
> in
> organic compounds, the resulting fertility minerals leach
> away from the 
> 
> 
> 
> surface
> feeder roots, ending up for the most part in the aquifer.
> Perennials, 
> 
> 
> 
> and
> woody plants in particular, may pump nutrients from
> deeper soil than 
> 
> 
> 
> normally
> mined by feeder roots. (An excellent tree for this is
> Inga edulis.)  Some
> do; some don’t.
> Other woody plants may have a fibrous root
> system.  For example,
> citrus or sabal palm.  These intercept nutrients
> efficiently before they
> leach.  Citrus, for example, can take up large
> quantities of 
> 
> 
> 
> nutrients
> quickly, as available, and store them in the leaves. 
> (Defoliate a citrus
> tree and you get no fruit!) Trees that have a natural
> preference for river
> banks that flood, for example, are a good bet for such an
> ability, as the flood
> waters drop rich sediments around them, but the nutrients
> can be leached by
> rainfall and/or subsequent flooding.  So it
> is 
> 
> 
> 
> catch
> as catch can. I’ve not looked into this, but I would say
> that mangoes are 
> 
> 
> 
> a
> good bet for adventitious nutrient capture, judging from
> where I’ve seen them
> growing, both planted and more or less unattended in places
> such as Mexico,
> Paraguay, and the Philippines. 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> OK,
> we want to conserve soil nutrients, take up nutrients
> quickly when they are
> available (to avoid leaching), and produce useful products,
> including
> food.  If perennial vegetables help with
> this, 
> 
> 
> 
> fine. 
> Though specifying vegetables 
> 
> 
> 
> may
> channel a mindset of single use, a mindset that we avoid
> in 
> 
> 
> 
> permaculture. 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Since
> the question pertained to the Miami region of Florida,
> cursed with soils that
> both are coarse (leach rapidly) and intensely calcareous
> (developed from
> coral), we have additional concerns. We want plants that
> tolerate extremes of
> moisture and drought, and that tolerate a high soil pH with
> excessive soil
> calcium. LOL 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> The
> problem is not a shortage of books!  One could fill a
> good size library
> with books that deal with tropical food
> plants, 
> 
> 
> 
> or
> just with books that deal with food plants for tropical
> islands, which 
> 
> 
> 
> commonly
> have nearly identical soil conditions to Miami’s.
>  
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> A
> permaculturist might hunt down some of these books. But not
> as a first course 
> 
> 
> 
> of
> action!  One needs to shut off 
> 
> 
> 
> the
> computer, get off his/her ass, and get out and walk
> around.  What is
> growing in the area already? Do 
> 
> 
> 
> we really
> know all its uses?  Is it 
> 
> 
> 
> edible?
> Is it a nutrient pump?  Is 
> 
> 
> 
> it a
> nutrient net?  What are its 
> 
> 
> 
> multiple
> functions? How much work is required to keep it growing and
> producing?  Does it depend upon
> external inputs? If
> so, to what degree? 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> South
> Florida has some of the best warm-climate botanical gardens
> I know about. 
> Probably no one person is familiar with all of the plants
> in any of them.  There is a
> botanical garden
> specifically aimed at fruit and spice plants in the nearby
> Homestead area
> (which has quite different soils from the Miami area).
> There is an amazing
> variety of food presented in open air markets and ethnic
> markets in the
> area.  Often, a grocery purchase nets seeds as well as
> food.   
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> The
> first principle of permaculture design is conservation. A
> core concept derived
> from this principle is Mollison’s dictum, ‘Seek the
> most benefit from the least
> change.’  This translates, in part, 
> 
> 
> 
> to
> “Use what you’ve got.”  To do that, you have to
> know what you’ve got, what
> is growing right around you. For example, I was amazed in a
> visit to Miami to
> see a mulberry tree producing 
> 
> 
> 
> prolifically.
> It tolerated the heat.  
> 
> 
> 
> It
> tolerated the calcareous soil. And it produced despite
> competition 
> 
> 
> 
> from
> a lawn!  (I took cuttings, but 
> 
> 
> 
> it
> was the absolute worst time to take cuttings and only two
> made it.  One I
> donated to a permaculture 
> 
> 
> 
> demonstration
> design by some of my students at New College at
> Sarasota.  Maybe you can
> get permission for some 
> 
> 
> 
> cuttings
> of your own at the right time, in about a
> month.)  Mulberry is more
> than a tree fruit.  It is shade,
> firewood, 
> 
> 
> 
> cover
> and forage for poultry, and a vegetable. 
> Cooked mulberry leaves
> taste fine.  (I wouldn’t eat them raw, as they
> contain a latex). OK, a
> bearing mulberry tree wasn’t hard to recognize.
>  
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> So
> you have more plants than you can deal with now, you just
> have to get your
> people out checking on them, looking them up in Facciola,
> etc. Talking to folks
> in ethnic neighborhoods will save a lot of time, and
> watching what the kids
> forage 
> 
> 
> 
> helps. 
> In Massachusetts, I was helping to set up a little demo at
> a college in Roxbury
> and noticed, again, some 
> 
> 
> 
> mulberry
> trees.  This was early 
> 
> 
> 
> spring
> and they hadn’t even leafed-out yet.  Some kids were
> watching us. 
> “Hey, kid, which of these trees has the best
> mulberries?”  “I don’ know
> about no 
> 
> 
> 
> mulberries,
> mister.”  “Don’t worry. 
> We want
> you to eat them. I just need to know which is best so we
> can grow more of
> them.”  “Yeah.  That one over there is pretty
> good.”  How do you
> get that kind of information from a book? 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> OK,
> why vegetables? Why not fruits and vegetables, as they are
> nutritionally
> interchangeable?  Moreover, many 
> 
> 
> 
> fruits
> are used as vegetables too, either the leaves, as with
> mulberry or 
> 
> 
> 
> papaya,
> or the immature fruit, e.g., mango and papaya again. 
> And, besides the
> obvious vegetable, plantain, you have green bananas,
> essentially a different
> variety of the same crop, used the same way. No family can
> use up all the ripe
> bananas from one plant before they go bad.  So one
> starts with the green
> bananas, cooked.  (And there are strategies for
> hastening or, alternately,
> delaying ripening to spread the period of ripe fruit over a
> longer, and
> therefore more useful, interval.) And why do we call banana
> a fruit
> anyway?  It is interchangeable nutritionally with
> potato. We call a tomato
> a vegetable, but it is a fruit, botanically. Why not
> banana?  There just
> isn’t a reason.  We draw the line arbitrarily, by
> custom, not reason.  
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> While
> I am aware that the common misconception is that
> permaculture is a system of
> growing food.  We should not support that fiction. So
> we want plants that
> fulfill our need for fruits/vegetables and that have
> multiple functions.  
> 
> 
> 
> Yesterday,
> I mentioned chayote as a vegetable with several
> edible 
> 
> 
> 
> parts. 
> I first encountered chayote 
> 
> 
> 
> in
> 1984, teaching a permaculture design course in a little
> village, Otates, in 
> 
> 
> 
> the
> highlands of Veracruz near Jalapa. In checking out the
> area, I encountered 
> 
> 
> 
> chayote
> plantations all trellised like commercial grapes and over
> bare soil 
> 
> 
> 
> cultivation.
> This was winter, relatively cool and dry in that region. My
> first 
> 
> 
> 
> thought
> was that they could get a crop of winter wheat out between
> the chayotes. 
> Harvest would be slightly awkward, but manageable. Then I
> thought, why not run
> chickens under the vines on a rotational basis, harvesting
> wheat, wheat grass,
> weeds, and insects. The chickens would need very little
> purchased feed. No
> fertilizer would be bought, only chicken feed. What the
> chickens passed would
> become fertilizer. If one grows broilers in batches,
> chickens could be marketed
> before the spring flush of shoots, which would be
> vulnerable to pecking and 
> 
> 
> 
> scratching,
> and a new batch introduced when all was safe.  I
> didn’t work out the
> summer cover crop, but it might be evident from among the
> weeds. Or legume
> cover crop such as cowpea might be grown.  Running
> trellis wires between
> rows would create an arbor effect, making better use of
> sunlight, and providing
> shade for chickens or maybe turkeys would be a better
> summer crop. Mob stocking
> could create more or less bare soil just before reseeding,
> or one could use a
> Fukuoka-type system of planting through the previous crop
> (after removing the
> birds!).  So we go from a simplistic concept of
> perennial vegetable to a
> system of multiple plant species, animal species, greater
> yield of our 
> 
> 
> 
> primary
> crop, a second highly profitable crop, and less expense for
> labor and 
> 
> 
> 
> fertilizer.
> That is how a permaculturist looks at a ‘perennial
> vegetable.’ 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Finally,
> it seems that we are overlooking a lot of obvious
> options.  For example,
> no on has mentioned bamboo 
> 
> 
> 
> shoots.
> I’ve already cited plantain above. Cassava is a plant
> native to nearby regions
> of the Caribbean, with both edible leaves and root. Palm
> hearts are fine food,
> though a little labor intensive to harvest.  Where one
> needs to cut a
> sabal palm anyway (the Florida state tree), you might as
> well harvest the
> heart. The tender portions are surrounded by fibrous but
> also starchy material
> that is good feed for ruminants and especially rabbits.
> (And it is one of the
> most weedy plants at our site and very difficult to
> suppress once germinated.)
> You can get lists of palms with multiple stems for palm
> heart gardening. 
> Some of these also bear useful fruit (and terrifying
> thorns!).  
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Good
> luck!  And productive observations! 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hemenway 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> Barking
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Frogs
> Permaculture Center 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> PS  There are excellent USDA agricultural
> stations in Puerto Rico and Hawaii with many useful
> publications.  
> 
> 
> 
> There
> are also university publications from each.  Also in English are good publications
> from the
> Philippines,  
> 
> 
> 
> Australia
> (which has a large subtropical to tropical zone), and
> probably from the
> American territories in the Pacific (e.g. American Samoa).
> Many African
> countries are
> former English
> colonies and have
> English as one of their official languages.  For example, in Kenya, ICRAF
> publishes in English. In Miami,
> you should be able to find permaculture-oriented folks
> fluent in Spanish, which
> opens up papers and books published from Mexico
>  
> 
> 
> 
> to
> Argentina for you to mine.  For
> example,
> someone should run down the library of INEREB, long since
> defunded, but doing
> exactly the sort
> of research
> that pertains to your
> needs. (Disregard their paper on chinampas, which is
> wrongheaded.) There are
> permaculture movements in these
> countries, as well as Brazil
> where many permacultrists speak English fluently. So
> information exchange can
> help develop your info base.  
> 
> 
> 
> But
> knowing about a useful plant is of no value if you
> don't have a way to get it.
> Using what already grows around you avoids that
> problem. 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> PSS  I forgot to mention that we always
> encourage someone in a region to develop a permaculture
> nursery.  If someone already has
> a 
> 
> 
> 
> nursery
> and is interested in permaculture, that is way better
> because you don't learn
> nursery operations overnight. 
> 
> 
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