I’m not interested in defending permaculture, nor defining it; not in an encompassing way at least. It is certainly not a silver bullet and it certainly has its flaws. It will not save the world.
What I am sharing here is why I believe permaculture and specifically permaculture education is useful in this complicated world. I am writing this article to move you closer to action, to change, to crossing some threshold where you trust your hands and their impact.
As we look to find niches and stack functions in our tropical permaculture homesteads, one often overlooked group of plants include the edible flowers. With a focus on Costa Rica, this blog, authored primarily by Katie Browning, a certified herbalist, explores the many common and uncommon edible flowers available to us in the tropics. Most of these plants fit comfortably within the principles of permaculture and they can be described by the following set of patterns:
I have a university degree in economics, but my studies did not touch upon the etymology of that word—derived from the Greek oikonomia meaning “management of the household.” My studies set me to master Microsoft Excel, to calculate complex regression analysis, and prepared me for a job in finance. They did not, though, prepare me for what to do with so many bananas.
The third principle of permaculture is fair share. This implies an open source ethic with regard to knowledge and information. It is with that in mind that our team at Porvenir Design is has put together this guide for sourcing plants, seeds, soil amendments, consultants in all fields, and much more. It is a guide that has been compiled over our four years in operation as a permaculture design firm based in Costa Rica. It has been put together with the help of many colleagues and deserves to be a free resources for everyone working in Costa Rica on building soil, improving water cycles and growing food.
Luego de organizar y participar en nuestro primer taller de agricultura sintrópica en el 2019, nuestro equipo en Porvenir Design sabía que necesitaba encontrar al cliente adecuado para implementar un sistema a una escala mayor y aprender más acerca de estos conceptos. Finca Luna Nueva nos presentó esta oportunidad pues buscaban expandir sus plantaciones de cacao y recientemente habíamos empezado a administrar por completo su finca.
After organizing and attending our first syntropic farming workshop in 2019, our team at Porvenir Design knew that we were looking for just the right client to implement a larger scale system to learn more about these ideas. Finca Luna Nueva presented that opportunity as they were seeking to expand their existing cacao orchards and we had recently taken over full administration of their farm.
This article is about Holistic Management and decision making as a tool and how we use it in our business, Porvenir Design.
“Hi, I found your website researching vanilla. I want to know if you think my property would be good for growing vanilla to sell. I don’t need to get rich, I just need for it to cover the property expenses. I’m located near Quepos. Please let me know if you can help me set up my vanilla farm? Thank you!”
What to make of a client inquiry such as this? In some ways it is quite a simple question: can we help them set up this farm enterprise? There is a problem, though.
Brave Earth or Tierra Valiente is a young shareholder based community located on a 35 hectare property in the La Fortuna area of Costa Rica. The project was founded in 2016 by a large group of friends who were connected through their activism and the larger healing arts and medicinal plant communities.
The project is squarely in the early experimental phase of development.
The vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia) is one of the world’s most interesting plants. Of the nearly 35,000 species of orchid, the second largest botanical family of plants, vanilla is the only species that produces an edible fruit. True vanilla is a sought after product, usually the second most expensive spice in the world, yet we associate the word vanilla with plain, boring, and commonplace. Native to Mexico and Central America, the vanilla vine is well suited for any tropical homestead. Yet vanilla is a particular plant requiring special care, in particular during pollination where every flower must be hand pollinated.
A few months back a series of clients began asking me questions that I didn’t have the answers to. I knew just enough about the topics to know what I didn’t know. One client wanted to know about building restrictions around a small body of water, another needed information about opening up land for a road through an existing forest, and a third was seeking support to enroll in the FONAFIFO Environmental Service Payment program.
