The Finca Expands: Animals! and Infrastructure Developments

The past year has seen many new developments at Project Bona Fide. As the volunteer, service learning, and international educational programs have grown rapidly, we have added a lot of new infrastructure to keep up. With more people, we need more and better spaces for people to live, sleep, eat, play, shower, and, occasionally, have dance parties. In the past year, we have built or are in the process of completing a revamped kitchen, two new volunteer houses, showers, a freezer, and a well with a solar pump. We’ve also begun integrating animals into the systems here, and now have pigs, chickens, and pelibuey. The animals and increased infrastructure help expand our capacity both as a learning environment for Nicaraguans and international students and travelers, and our attempt to model sustainable, local permaculture systems.

New piglet

Infrastructure

We completely revamped the Bona Fide kitchen. The old stove was knocked out, which created a huge amount of space, and we built a rocket stove in the corner. The super efficient rocket stove will save us lots of firewood, and with a chimney, it eliminates smoke inhalation for the cooks.

Jan building the rocket stove

Video of the kitchen redesign

We stoned the floor of both the kitchen and added a roof and stone floor on the adjacent area, doubling the size of the kitchen and living area. We built a new tables, benches and lockers out of local wood to utilize the expanded space. The extra size came just in time - with our volunteer program full with 20 people in January, and over 35 people signed up for the permaculture course, we may have 60 people eating lunch at Bona Fide in February.

The floor being stoned

To keep with the ever-growing popularity of the volunteer program, we added two new volunteer housing spaces. The Casa del Sol is a traditional thatch structure, built out of wood, bamboo, and stone harvested from on site, and roofed with local grass. Lower down on the property, we built a six-person dormitory from our own stone, wood, and bamboo, nestled in the middle of our oil production plot. These combine to give us 10 more housing spots for future volunteers. We are finishing construction on a new, larger, more private shower as well.

The casa del sol

The new dorm, under construction

As the farm continues expanding, with ever growing orchards, gardens, and food forests, our water requirements keep increasing. This is somewhat offset by taking trees and bamboo clumps off irrigation as they mature, but, still, we need a lot of water. All our water currently comes from the same small pipe like every other household in Balgue, and, as anyone who’s been to the farm knows, water in the dry season in a big issue. To fix this, we recently dug a 5 m deep well at the bottom of the property, and installed a solar-powered pump that sends water up to the water tank in front of Chris’ house. This has multiplying benefits - not only do we have more access to water, we have multiple sources of water, increasing the farm’s water resiliency, and we will use much less water from the community water system, which is already stressed.

Well, solar panel, and pump

The other new construction projects are for the newest additions to Finca - domestic animals. Over the past year we have begun integrating pigs, pelibuey (short-haired tropical sheep), and chickens into our permaculture systems. These animals will play a very important role on the farm, recycling wastes, building fertility, weeding, and providing an abundance of products like meat, eggs, and milk.

Pigs

The pigs were the first animals to arrive at the farm, and live in an enclosed stone pig pen with a wallowing pit. We started with a pair of piglet siblings, eventually slaughtered the mature male, and replaced him with another male piglet as our now gigantic female goes on a series of romantic dates with pigs from town in an attempt to get pregnant. With a steady diet of fish bones, grains, leftovers, jackfruit, and mangoes, our pigs are pretty happy.

Pigs are perfect permaculture animals for us. They are great recyclers - converting food and crop waste into high-quality meat and fertilizer. Besides a small amount of sorghum, everything they eat comes from the farm. They give us a lot of meat - the pig we slaughtered produced over 100 pounds of pork, and we had pork roasts on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and for Clemencia’s birthday.

Pigs gorging themselves

A pig forage area is currently developing - a mixed fruit and nut orchard with a madero negro (Gliricida sepium) living fence border. The bottom layer will be filled out with taro, providing grass, fruit waste, and tuber forage. A movable electric fence system will also allow them to be pastured in different areas with abundant food depending on the season - during jackfruit season, they will be rotated through our jackfruit orchard, and during mango season, through our mangoes. Once we begin rotating them, they will become literal pig tractors - rooting, tilling and fertilizing land that we can then plant directly into.

Pelibuey

We also have two pelibuey - hairy sheep from tropical Africa that can withstand the intense heat here. They are rotated through pasture with a solar-powered electrical fence system at the bottom of the property. During the wet season, a month or two into the dry season, there is plenty of ground cover for them to eat. However, pasturing animals here is difficult here because for the final three months of the dry season, there is no groundcover. No pasture. To prepare for this, we have planted large forage banks of Taiwan grass and created an alley pasture system lined with ojoche (Brosimium alicastrum) and moringa trees. This system will take a while to mature, but in the short term we have plenty of leguminous trees and Taiwan grass as dry season animal fodder.

The peliguey require little maintenance in the wet season - watering twice a day and rotating once a week. However, once the dry season hits, they time required to feed them twice a day begins to add up, and we are starting the think that the pelibuey outputs (meat) do not outweigh the labor and space needed to help them thrive. So, we are thinking about getting a cow and calf at the start of the next wet season. They’ll require the same amount of labor, and more food in the dry season, but give us fresh milk daily and a huge amount of long-term meat. As they rotate through the pasture fields, and through our rice, corn, and sorghum fields after grains are harvested, they constantly fertilize the soil. Short rotation animal grazing is one of the most proven and productive methods of building soil fertility, which would not only help our annual fields regenerate more rapidly, it would also provide a model of regenerative cattle rotations to the local area.

Chickens

Chickens are a brand-new addition to Finca Bona Fide, with 11 arriving in the past two weeks. We should have over 20 laying hens in the next few weeks, which will provide eggs for the kitchen, fertilizer for the garden beds, and can be utilized in our chicken tractors for garden bed preparation and weeding.

The chickens will spend most their time in our new chicken coop, built with materials from on site. We are currently finishing building their cob nest boxes. As our animals mature and are slaughtered, we are going to have a plethora of meat here. While we plan on experimenting with different drying and preserving methods, we are also building a a new structure at the bottom of the property to house a meat storage freezer.

Our new chicken coop and chicken tractor

The introduction of animals at the Finca has been a lot of experimentation and a lot of work. As our understanding and talent with animals keeps developing, the Finca will be that much closer to meeting its goals of modeling sustainable, local food systems, minimizing off-farm inputs, creating high quality food, and developing potential sustainable business options for both the farm and local community.

2011 Plantings

We had a very productive planting season at Finca Bona Fide. We planted over 5,000 trees, shrubs, grasses and tubers since the beginning of June. These continued to fill out emerging systems and began developing new ones. The plantings filled in the understory and empty spaces between trees in our establishing orchards, began developing 1) an animal forage system, 2) a native nut orchard connecting two patches of remnant forest, 3) a small citrus orchard, 4) a native fruit tree orchard, 5) a "show and tell" banana plantation that will transition into a native fruit orchard, as well as starting a greens business, planting windbreaks, and scattering hundreds of nitrogen-fixing trees to continue building fertility on site.

Overall, the numbers are:

• 350 coffee shrubs (Coffea Arabica)
• 150 chocolate trees (Theobroma cacao)
• 145 coconut palms (Cocos nucifera)
• 125 native fruit trees (Pouteria campechiana, Chrysophyllum cainito, Pouteria hypoglauca, Annona reticulata, Pouteria sapota, and Spondias purpurea)
• 300 ojoche/Mayan breadnut trees (Brosimum alicastrum)
• 250 Okra tree/Moringa (Moringa oleifera)
• 1100 nitrogen-fixing trees (Delonix regia, Senna siamea, Leaucaena leucocephala, and Acacia mangium)
• 800 bananas and plantains (Musa sp.)
• Hundreds of pigeon pea/gondul (Cajanus cajan)
• 400 pounds of taro (Colocasia esculenta)
• 200 katuk shrubs (Citrus sp.)
• 100 jackfruit trees (Artocarpus heterophyllus)
• over 100 Surinam Cherry/Pitanga shrubs (Eugenia uniflora)
• 600-700 plugs of Vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides)
• hundreds of clumps of Taiwan grass (Pennisetum purpureum)
• 20 plus Ackee trees (Blighia sapida)
• 150 Neem trees (Azadirachta indica)
• 15 plus Guava trees (Psidium sp. (4) species)

Filling in our Food Forests

As many of the orchards planted in past years at the Finca begin to mature, we start to see spaces between the crowns of trees that let sunlight in. We went through these spaces and planted understory trees and shrubs that are either need or tolerate shade, and coconut palms that will eventually rise above the crown of our fruit trees. In the understory spaces we planted 350 coffee shrubs, 150 chocolate/cacao trees, and a handful of kandis/gamboge trees (Garcinia xanthochymus) and salak palms (Salacca zalacca), matching the available light and space with the characteristics of each species. In the very narrow spaces between emerging crowns, we planted 145 coconut palms, as their narrow trunk and relatively narrow crown creates little light competition with the fruit trees as the palms mature.

On paths throughout the Finca we planted hundreds of Surinam Cherry/Pitanga shrubs (Eugenia uniflora), taking advantage of the sunlight and edges created by the paths. This delicious snack fruit produces fruit multiple times a year, so planting them on paths ensures that we know when they are fruiting.

Throughout all of our orchards, bananas and pigeon pea/gondul were planted. They were often planted as part of an establishment guild near 1st year fruit and nut trees to provide shade, mulch, wind protection and a yield of bananas and gondul's edible pea. Gondul is an excellent plant in an establishment guild: it fixes nitrogen, rapidly provides shade to protect tender 1st year fruit and nut trees, produces edible peas in about 8-9 months, and is extremely drought tolerant. While gondul shrubs/trees can live for many years, at the Finca they are generally blown over by wind after one or two years.

Finally, nitrogen-fixing trees were scattered in open spaces throughout the farm. Nitrogen-fixing trees are the essential to maintaining productivity and fertility on the farm – they fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil, making it available to other plants, and, after 2-7 years, can be routinely pruned to supply biomass and nitrogen-rich mulch. They also cast a layer of shade, which preserves soil moisture, extending the growing season of plants and lessening the effects of our 5 month dry season.

Native Nut Orchard

On the western edge of the property below coconut alley, patches of forest have been left alone to regenerate themselves and are now beginning to develop. To connect these two forest patches, over the past 3 years we have been planting an orchard of ojoche/Mayan breadnut (Brosimium alicastrum). This orchard will create a habitat for wild animals, forage for domestic animals, and a low-maintenance zone 3/4 tree-crop orchard of the highly nutritious ojoche nut.

To protect and aid these young trees in their development, we planted hundreds of nitrogen-fixing trees around them as an establishment guild to provide nitrogen-rich mulch, biomass, shade, and wind protection. Chris has noticed in over the past few years that even 7 year old ojoche trees were susceptible to falling over as the intense December trade winds pound the farm from the northeast. To mitigate this, we planted a multi-species windbreak that protects the developing ojoches. Directly north-east of the orchard, there is a line of fast-growing Taiwan grass as a short term windbreak and animal forage bank, followed by a row of wind-resistant native fruit trees, a densely planted line of the incredibly resilient neem tree (Azadirachta indica), whose leaves and fruits make an organic pesticide (and spermicide!) and will eventually provide quality timber, finally followed by a line of jackfruit until our annual grain fields begin.

Rotational Grazing System

Near the bottom of the property, below our annual fields, there is an area that had been left to regenerate itself for the past 10 years. However, there has not been much regrowth taking place, and the forest is struggling to reclaim the area. As this past year has seen the birth of integrating animals into the Finca, we decided to turn this space into a rotational grazing system.

Rotational grazing here is difficult: for the final three months of the dry season, the ground is patched and all groundcovers have died. So in our system, we planted alternating lines of ojoche, moringa trees (Moringa oleifera) and melinche/flame of the forest (Delonix regia), creating pasture alleys between the lines. All three species have evergreen, high protein leaves that make great livestock fodder, and moringa leaves have been shown to boost animal milk production. As the system evolves, they will be pollarded above cow and sheep browsing height, and will serve as our animal fodder bank for the end of the dry season.

We currently have a electric fence rigged up to a battery and mini solar panel. Two and a half peliguey - the female is pregnant - live in this area and are rotated weekly by volunteers. Future plans may involve cows. At the edges between the pasture field and the forest, we have planted lines of native fruit trees canistel (Pouteria campechiana), nispero (Manilkara zapota) and caimito (Chrysophyllum cainito).

Taro: Underground Food Storage

After years of experimenting with taro (Colocasia esculenta), a shade-tolerant understory tuber, we are serious about using this crop for its ability to store more or less infinitely underground. This year we planted 400 pounds of the starchy tuber, which will multiply itself underground to over 1,000 pounds. Much of it will be left in th ground as a "survival bank" - emergency food in the case of natural (or man-made) disaster, and will also be used in our kitchen to replace potatoes. Taro, plantains and cassava will now provide all of the starch for the volunteer kitchen from on site.

Taro reproduces many new baby plants from its corm and is very easy to propagate. We plan on covering much of the understory layer of the farm with taro - to supply tremendous amounts of food, fill in the understory of our orchards, and use taro's large leaves to act as a living mulch, protecting soil and retaining moisture.

"Show and Tell" Transitional Plantain Orchard

Near the bottom of property, very close to the road where many villagers pass daily, we planted a "show and tell" demonstration orchard. Over 800 plantains were planted in a field, resembling a normal plantain monoculture, but with a variety of native fruit trees as well. The idea is to model how to transition from a plantain monoculture to a diverse plantain-fruit tree polyculture over time. As the fruit trees mature, the bananas will be thinned and mulched until, over a decade, the system transitions fully into an orchard.

Small Citrus Orchard

Every year we plant a small orchard of about 25 citrus trees (Citrus sp.) to test new varieties and seedlings. These are organized in small blocks of 20-25 trees in order to isolate and mitigate pest and bird issues. In this way, we are hoping to develop more resilient varieties of citrus for Ometepe.

The Other Land

Finca Bona Fide's property is broken up into two plots - our main 26 acre property, and then an 19 acre property to the east, with our neighbors Ben and Sarah in between. Because the other land has no water access and is a bit far to carry buckets of water, we are experimenting with resilient and drought tolerant varieties of trees. This year we planted a range of native fruit trees canistel(Pouteria campechiana), caimito (Chrysophyllum cainito), cinnamon apple (Pouteria hypoglauca), custard apple (Annona reticulata), sapote rojo (Pouteria sapota), and jocote (Spondias purpurea), jackfruit, ackee and moringa trees to test their drought tolerance. We also cut a handful of neem trees and used the timber in our construction projects, which has opened sunlight for many young trees to grow and thrive.

Other various plantings:

• We planted a triple line of jackfruit below and east of coconut alley to serve as a windbreak to protect and emerging nut orchard. Jackfruit is an excellent windbreak tree, and because it bears fruit on its stems, fruit production is not strongly affected by winds. The jackfruit also provides and animal forage, pig food, long-term timber, and potentially an orange dye that can be used in a sewing co-operative that is developing at Mano Amiga.
• Over a thousand nitrogen-fixing trees (Delonix regia, Senna siamea, Leaucaena leucocephala, and Acacia mangium) have been planted to build edges with fast growing species, create shade edges as a rain stretching technique, and fill in open areas in our agro-forests as the overstory matures which will provide nitrogen and biomass for mulch in years 2-7.
• A line of ojoche was planted on the banks of our cebrada, or seasonal stream, to build a riparian buffer strip and reduce erosion, while extending a wild-life corrider as well.
• Hundreds of cutting of Taiwan grass were planted as both windbreaks and dry season animal fodder, and over 500 plugs of vetiver grass were planted in areas we noticed water runoff and soil erosion taking place. Vetiver, an amazing grass, has an incredibly dense and deep root system which can limit runoff and erosion by more than 70 percent.

We had a great planting season and achieved all of our main goals. Now, as the dry season comes on, we are turning our attention to watering, gardening, and harvesting.