Pruning my bushes - Cultivating Firewood

So as many of you may know, we are working on agroforestry systems down here in Colombia. This is one of my hobbies, when I get up from the computer its often to take my machete out and chop something, whether low weeds, a branch or two to let in more light - or a full fledged pruning, which is what I am working on now.

Here is a shot from our cabin balcony, although its not the best one for this story, you can see that behind everything there are several rows of purple flower bushes reaching up into the sky.

One of my favorite species to use is a Tibouchina, in the Melastomataceae family. I am still not quite sure of its full scientific name of the variety I am using, today it looks a lot like this post on species clavata, but locally we call it 'Nazereno'. They are fast growers, and as you can see below, they branch out to fill all the space available and take up as much sunlight as possible.

For our uses, this is perfect, not only are they pretty, and provide pollen to someone (locally there is some discussion if the honeybees can actually get pollen from these), but their easy propagation from cuttings and fast and vigorous growth makes them ideal candidates for erosion control on steep slopes, which we have a lot of around here.

Apart from that, they also make really great firewood! The thin branches when dried make great fire starters, and as the trunks get thicker they make an excellent log to burn, leaving great carbon brasas with a pleasant smell.

Not everyone cares much about firewood, but I am fully convinced of the revolutionary power of firewood, and we will soon begin building a prototype machine for extracting several different resources from wood. Stay tuned to the blog for more on that.

After clearing out the branches, the space looks like new! This was a wind break, so likely we will feel the difference in our cabin for a while, but these plants will recover quick and spread again to soak up all available sunlight.

In the meantime, we have a lot of space to consider what to plant (or which natives to leave), something that can handle differing sun regimes is ideal. The coffee, for example, doesn't seem to mind going back and forth between sun and shade over the year.

Other ideas from our portfolio include Congo leaves and iris flowers or other ornamentals, but we are still experimenting and I think a slate of certain aromatic plants could easily fit in here as well. On a polyculture farm the experiments never cease - there are thousands of promising species to plant and that is one of the reasons we named our Farm - Centro de Investigacion Finca Buena Vista.

All the biomass that doesn't have great firewood potential, the upper/outer branches and leaves, are aligned into our contour. We are making these all over the farm, not too close together, but set to serve very specific ecological functions, related to 'ecosystem services'. They resist erosion by slowing water flows, which also increases moisture retention and prevents acidification of the soil. The are a fertility place, basically composting in place and letting the mycelia distribute the nutrients. They are also a biodiversity frontier - local birds perch on the things we plant and deposit local species of trees that add to the contour.

Here's a shot from below a different contour, these develop over time with our maintenance regime. These steep slopes are challenging to deal with - the 'modern' way around here is just to treat it like flat land, plant monoculture until the whole slope slips away into the river.

Our theory is that with proper management, even steep slopes can be used to achieve several goals, including production but also increased local biodiversity while providing other ecosystem services to the farm and all living organisms.

It can be sweaty work, but its really enjoyable seeing these projects come along over time. Its a lifelong journey, but the joy of progress is happening all the time, if we just stop to take a picture in the right place at the right moment, it can really be enriching to witness.

Currently with our new worker we are making great progress, and I look forward to documenting both images and videos as we close out the year 2023, which will mark our 10 year anniversary here in December. We have come a long way!

It is still my theory that with the right design, implementing the right systems, these sort of agroforestry models will be much more profitable than conventional monoculture. I guess I always knew that it would take years to get into place, and we have taken it slow, often working off the farm or in the digital world to sustain our lifestyle.

But some day soon, I think definitely within the next 10 years, I anticipate that our harvests will begin making the coffee farmers jealous, both in the quality of the bounty and quantity of different crops. Time will tell - stick around to find out!

Freedom and Friendship