Our garden, the beginning

For those who know me, you know I love plants. One of my life goals has always been to own a plot of land and plant a bunch of bananas, mangos, papayas and so on… Well, it’s happening!

I want to go further than this, I want to start my own forest garden which requires some planning and work. In our case, our land is quite compact for couple of reasons:

• Soil structure is mostly clay which has a small particle which means it is easily compressed.
• This plot was used as a rice paddy and later as pasture land so what better to compress something than a bunch of cows stomping on it?

This soil is bad for plants because it makes it hard for them to reach nutrients with their roots . A good way to fix this is by planting tuberous plants like potatoes, cassava, etc because they help aerate and loosen the soil. This is the list so far of stuff I’m going to throw (because I like them and it helps):

• Sweet potato
• Cassava
• Ginger

Bringing organic matter to a soil helps decompress it because bacteria, worms, fungus, etc thrive on it. Those organisms bore through the soil creating pathways in it and transforming the soil into something more organic through their excrements. To improve this part, I’m just throwing kitchen scraps/compost stuff in the area where I’ll start.

I was so excited to start this that I told everyone in the area. Because we are in tropical climate, things grow quickly and a lot so people just started giving me stuff they didn’t need or because they had too much.

I started adding a ficus benjamina and two banana plants I got from some friends.

Only to discover cows love eating them! The two banana plants completely disappeared while the ficus benjamina only got the main trunk and couple of big branches left 🤦‍♂️.

So naturally, next step was to put a fence to protect the plot of land I want to start with. I watched tons of videos about making simple fences with bamboo. Once I thought we were ready for it I bought one hundred 4 meter pieces (at a price of 1.2M IDR) and got to it machete on one hand and saw on the other.

Obviously what I did and what I saw in Youtube were not even close. It’s ironic that while I was building this, bunch of locals approached me asking what I was doing and among them was… the guy who brings the cows for pasture. He just laughed when I told him lol.

I decided to try a different approach by separating the vertical sticks by 0.5m and weaving small ones in between:

I felt so proud of this version and saw myself finishing the fence in the next morning. Next morning, a local friend came and said that the fence was too low and weak and that cows would jump over it. While we were talking, the cows guy came and also said the same…

Dude, I didn’t know Indonesia cows could fly. Seriously, jump over one meter?

Anyway, he offered to help and together with another friend we built a stronger/bigger fence. This time we aimed for 2 meters, using full bamboo as main posts and halves for the horizontal parts attached with big nails. A couple of hours and almost one finger less (I also learned how easy it is to get cut from bamboo), we had it finished and so far, still standing!

After the third version of the fence up and ready, the same friend who helped with the fence offered me to come to his plot and get some freebies from it because he had too many. I got:

• 6 banana plants
• 1 coconut tree
• 1 longan
• Bunch of cassava sticks
• 1 avocado

From these, only the bananas and cassava are good as starters for the soil because they are hardy and they help improve the soil. The others are a bit more picky.

However, I just planted all of them because I want things growing in there as soon as possible:

• I want organic life coming back to the area.
• I want as many roots breaking and aerating the soil as possible.
• Worst case, if something dies, I’ll just use it as mulch.

I also planted a 2-3 years old grafted honey mango tree (I’m so excited about this one!).

Reading and learning online I learned that mango trees have extensive root systems and grow a lot so there should be plenty of space between them and other high canopy trees. Something around 8 meters. I’ve planted the banana plants around the mango (~3m) because they will provide shadow at the early stages and soak in the water (mangoes are drought-tolerant).

Well, I’m running out of space for big trees already so will probably have to extend the fencing at some point and move the avocado and coconut (they are not the best in a food forest). For now though, I’m reading a lot about what to plant in between what I already have and I’m building a list:

• Pigeon peas as a nitrogen fixer around the mango tree to improve soil fertility and source of mulch when chopping it. The mango will overgrow the pigeon peas as they are short lived shrubs (3-5 years). Space around 2 meters.
• Ginger and Taro because they are nice and for the same reason as sweet potatoes and cassava, they help aerate the soil.
• Herbs and flowers on the empty spaces and edges like holy basil, lemon balm, lemon grass, marigold. Some of them for medicinal properties, for deterring pests (f$ck mosquitoes) and for attracting pollinators.
• I’m planning to get tamarind, ice cream bean and gliricidia cuttings because they are nitrogen fixers, fast growers and other good benefits. The three of them get quite big so will have to properly plan the spacing but the sooner I plant them, the sooner we get their benefits!