la chakra eco village, twenty minutes outside san juan, puerto rico

last week on a trip to visit her family in puerto rico, we had the awesome opportunity to visit a farm managed by her cousin alberto.  the farm was developed as an eco village—a small scale, self supported, sustainable living environment for a small group of people.  with the exception of one existing structure, everything on the property--from the conference room where they screen documentaries and held events for the community, to their ovens, and their tools—was handmade using only their natural surroundings (earth, wood, and plants).  after several years of hard labor and the intense emotional strain of developing a cooperative living environment with a diverse group of people, alberto toured us around his farm for what will be the very last time.  after all the hard work, the farm’s landowner is looking to sell the property, and they can no longer afford to lease the land.

it’s a bittersweet time to be on the farm.  the excitement of new opportunities and the unknown is lurking around the next corner, but at the same time the trouble of being forced off the land has become an exhausting burden.  last week, as we were standing amongst his crops—beds on a mildly steep hillside, cleared with machetes and not mowers, the soil never disturbed—alberto’s priority had switched to allowing his crops to mature in an effort to collect as much seed as possible for whatever new venture lays ahead.  some crops, however, will never be ripe enough in time for their seeds to be collected, like this heriloom zapote tomato shown below.  originally from the mountains of mexico, this seed has been cultivated on the island for about sixty years.

back at his house, his backyard is filled edge to edge with dozens of plants he pulled from the fields, potted, and is tending to while he looks for new land.  some tropical plants, such as the plantain and the pineapple, take from one to two years to produce fruit, making the time previously invested in them too valuable to leave behind. 

it was so amazing for me to see such productive farming and impressive depth of knowledge expressed on a farm with none of the standard tools, machines, irrigation systems, and facilities, etc which are standard fare on the farms I’ve seen here in the states over the last year.   things i totally took for granted as necessary.

impressive examples of sustainable solutions, and creative, functional uses of their resources are as follows:  walls, stoves, and ovens that will last essentially forever if protected from rain that are built of only dirt, water, sand, and a metal barrel.

vegetable trellises built from found branches and twine made from the inside of a banana leaf. 

composting kitchen scraps, composting horse manure from a nearby stable, and composting toilets--all destined for different uses. 

 

a wall of marigold flowers to deter insects and eliminate nematodes which attack plants and encourage the spread of virus.

intense intercropping—the layering of crops in the space where usually one is planted in effort to capitalize on symbiotic opportunities (ex:  cucumbers planted below sunflowers so they can climb the stalk and eliminate the need for a stake—while peppers are planted along the edge to suppress weed pressure.)

the short time I spent on alberto’s farm was forever memorable.  exposure to such creative ingenuity and use of resources has really given me a lot to think about for our future farm infrastructure, layout and design.