23 Comments

Great piece! Thanks so much for letting me repost!

https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/did-the-ancient-maya-practice-permaculture

One question I have might seem like a quibble, but it's important to my Anarchist Victory Hypothesis... Why do you say that Tikal lasted until 1100 A.D.? That seems at least 100-200 years later than I would have thought. I'm definitely not an expert though!

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I edited the post regarding that Tikal date until I can look into it further, thanks for highlighting that.

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Thanks brother

I am not an expert in Tikal either, that date was based on two different books I was reading but they could have been off.

I’ll reach out to some of my Mayan friends in Guatemala and Mexico and ask what they think when I can.

Thanks for sharing my post.

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My pleasure!

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Great stuff Gavin and thanks for the deep dive on these farming methods. Offshoot did an essay recently regarding a similar practice in SE Asia:

https://open.substack.com/pub/agrowingculture/p/hin-lad-nai-a-successful-model-of?r=fhgru&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

I’ve been making biochar for a few years with our leftover coconut waste. I also make charcoal for our cooking needs. However I do believe in keeping a lot of my cut wood on the ground in my food forest where it sucks up moisture as it slowly decomposes and becomes home to fungi, insects and all sort of magic starts to happen.

So I think biochar is a great thing but I’m very wary of these saving-the-world (saving western civilization more like it) schemes of making huge amounts of biochar. (Sorry I didn’t view any of the videos so not making these comments in relation to anything you’ve said here)

One thing I do with my coconut charcoal/biochar is add the worm juice from my vermicompost system (which I just use for dumping our coffee grounds and occasionally feeding a banana trunk). I then use the biochar when I’m making new veggie beds (or reviving them). As I’m in the tropics, I’m hoping this slow addition of biochar may help improve the soil.

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Mar 31, 2023·edited Mar 31, 2023Author

Hello from the still frosty and rainy lands of Ontario! :)

That is very interesting regarding that practice described in the article you linked there. Seems like a pattern in many pre-industrial cultures that had developed an at the very least "sustainable" (and sometimes regenerative) relationship with the ecosystems that sustained them. It makes sense if one looks through the lens of seeing nature as a teacher that we would see a pattern of indigenous peoples using controlled burns to enrich soil and boost food production (while also maintaining/regenerating intact bio-diverse ecosystems) as this is what lightning and forest fires do when they are allowed to serve their purpose and important ecological role. Humans could have observed the verdant and plentiful growth that is apparent post forest fire and then decided they would emulate that action to direct that observable increase in growth energy for plants that occurs post-forest fire, into their choice edible crops. It is a very clever form of biomimicry when you think about it.

That is awesome you make your own biochar! I make some with a few of the trees that I coppice bi-annually in our little urban food forest.

I can appreciate your skepticism regarding those that are claiming to "save the world" with some scheme as there are a great many in the west (and all over the world) offering such promises when their so called solutions are in fact mainly to serve the purpose of selfish gain (and sometimes completely fraudulent all together).

Could you elaborate more on the "saving-the-world (saving western civilization more like it) schemes" you are referring to specifically in the context of this post (and/or elaborate on what part of the post made you feel compelled to express that)?

I am so glad you brought up the biology side of the equation when it comes to biochar. That is of paramount importance as without the beneficial micro-biology it is really just 'char' (and not "biochar"). Wood charcoal in and of itself may offer some limited benefits when added to growing mediums/soils in specific quantities (such as water retention, increased alkalinity for plants that prefer that range and some minerals) but the really powerful benefits it offers only come into play when it is applied synergistically with appropriate beneficial microbes.

I had mentioned "living soil" in the post above in an effort to emphasize the importance of the biological side of applying biochar but I have also now updated the post and added some additional info to re-iterate the importance of the biology aspect, thanks for highlighting that.

Worm castings and worm casting fluid extracts are amazing sources of beneficial microbes. I am especially impressed and fascinated by how powerful the photosynthetic bacteria (purple nonsulfur bacteria) which exist in worm castings are when applied as a foliar applicant or soil/compost conditioning application. I like to add worm castings to the mix when I am making actively aerated compost tea so I can scale up their populations in a liquid medium and then add to biochar before mixing in with the soil.

I love that they are considered to be "photoheterotrophs" (being capable of harvesting energy from the sun and soil heat and use it to convert exudates from root systems, soil organic fraction and gases such as ammonia into building materials of cells such as amino acids, nucleic acids and sugars). Thus, whether they are applied to seeds, the root zone, or the leaves, it is an organism that increases the photosynthetic capacity of the plant by at least 20% and also acts like a "pro-biotic defense system" fighting off other microorganisms that are pathogenic in nature (such as various molds/mildews).

When added to biochar these organisms set up shop permanently in the crystalline structure of the hollow wood charcoal material giving them a base of operations to symbiotically interact with and defend nearby plants. Some speculate that those types of photoheterotrophic micro-organisms were some of the main players that facilitated the creation of the Amazon's famous anthropogenic "Terra Preta" soils.

I would love to hear more about your veggie beds when you have time and I think it would be fun if I sent you some heirloom seeds that love the heat and then we could both grow them and compare results :)

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You’ve just taught me a heck of a lot that o didn’t know about my worm juice! Maybe I should also be using it as a foliage spray but a lot of the things I’d like to do are often more than I can manage (I’ve bitten off more than I can chew here on our property so many of the things I do are as lazy as I can make them!!). The biochar of coconut husks is in fact my method of doing something with the huge mounds of “waste” that result after a coconut harvest. I’ve spent so many hours relocating these husks to mulch around my trees and vanilla vines but burning them quickly in a biochar kiln seems to save me some work while getting some good benefits. I made a kiln following the design used by aqueous solutions (now trying to think of a way to get wood vinegar out of it without too much work (I’m not much of a welder/handyman, I do ok, but my creations tend to collapse and fall apart after a year or so). My veggie growing is pretty poor (beds get a lot of attention for a few months and then neglected and reclaimed by nature), mostly because I’ve focused on the food forest, but this year is my learning to be a good gardener year 😀. We use John Jeavons double dig method for most beds (though I don’t really have the enthusiasm/energy for it anymore so looking at a lighter tilling sort of thing).

Regarding the forest cleaning / biomimicry, here in the Philippines we have the typhoons that play a similar role (though I suspect within some years maybe fires will play their part as the souls continue to degrade and dry out and locals are very negligent with burning their rubbish).

Regarding my saving the world comment, it wasn’t anything to do with anything you posted about (sorry if I caused possible offense!). It’s more often seeing these schemes that the concerned elites call “nature based” solutions which often boil down to planting inappropriate monocultures of trees that will later be harvested and used for energy. Or cutting down forests to build solar farms and neglecting all the ecological benefits of a real forest. Even things like putting solar panels over lakes and rivers, what are the ecological effects of all these things done purely for the sake of keeping our energy hungry civilization going!

Thanks so much for the offer of doing a seed swap but I’ve had much trouble just sending seeds to a friend in northern Philippines. It seems when the postal service sees a white guy they insist on doing things properly and insist that I get the appropriate forms and permissions from the agricultural department etc. All a bit much for me haha.

Keep up the good work Gavin and hope you’re keeping warm! After having been here a few years on our farm I think I’d appreciate a winter where at least you can rest and reflect and take stock, it just seems to be round the year growth here (slows down a bit now, at the start of dry season).

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Apr 2, 2023·edited Apr 2, 2023Author

I learned a lot of that from Dr Elain Ingham in a soil science course, she has some great info on the ecological and potential horticultural/agroforestry roles of particular soil dwelling microorganisms.

I will have to look into that kiln design, thanks for referencing it.

Wow you grow vanilla?! Cool! Isn't the vanilla "bean" produced by a type of orchid?

I like to use whole vanilla "beans" when I make our own version of xocolatl (I share our recipe about half way down in this article: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/theobroma-cacao-mana-from-the-rain ).

That is awesome you focused on food forest first and veggies second, that is really the most responsible thing to do from the permaculture design/ethics perspective.

That is very interesting regarding typhoons in the Philippines.

Oh no worries about the saving the world thing, I was not offended, just curious. Thanks for elaborating on what you meant.

Thanks my friend, I am still wearing triple hoodies in the early morning at work to stay cozy but by the after noon I have to loose several layers and I even manage to get a little bit of vitamin D if I work hard enough to get down to shirt level :)

Thanks for the thoughtful comments and happy harvesting.

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Grrrr, I came back to comment about the Elaine Ingham course but got distracted by vanilla.

I did look at doing her course a few years back (bit expensive for us now and not sure I’d have the time to devote to it) and I know another internet friend who’s done it and who’s been great at educating me and others.

We recently bought a good student microscope for another reason (I’ve probably mentioned already, but I started Helminthic therapy and will be needing to harvest eggs soon!) but I’d love to get my girls interested in looking at stuff and I figure my compost piles would be a good start. But to be honest, I’m a compete newbie with a microscope thanks to my small country town education so not exactly even sure where to start!

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Triple hoodies! Haha oh no, it’s just so weird to hear that. Here it’s 20C in the mornings and for us that also means a hoodie and socks!! It’s amazing what your body acclimatized to.

I did read that cacao post and will definitely give the recipe a go one day in the future! We also have coffee trees and I’m sure between the two of them, as a morning drink, I could be quite the productive bunny (insert reference to Michael Pollan’s essay about coffee and capitalism)

Yes we have a few vanilla bean orchids, I think mine’s the variety from Madagascar. They’re very hardy plants though they are susceptible to disease. I’ve been planting mine near the trunks of a tree called Samanea saman. This tree is a really fast growing, huge canopy tree that grows abundantly here but it’s not a native. They tend to dominate and take over the farm if not managed. I’ve noticed that around the base of all these trees, in their shade, there are a lot of young native trees planted by birds. So I have been “hard” pruning the trees to 2-4m in height. They coppice really well (though I imagine it’s not the nicest way to treat such a beautiful tree) and I use the resulting tree as a prop for the vanilla vines. Plus it gives the natives their chance to shine. We don’t have many vines yet but the plants I hand-pollinated last February/March 2022 produced about 70 beans which sun dried and sweated for a few weeks and are now hanging in my hallway getting their final drying. So the whole process is quite manually involved and time consuming and it’s no wonder that it’s so expensive. The beans that were split will be made into vanilla essence and I’m hoping to make and distill my own alcohol in order to do this!

Falling down this food-fermenting-farming rabbit hole has made me realize so much how intensive so many of our common foods are to produce and how exploited the peasant farmers are.

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Sorry, some typos. “Soil” not “soul”.

I imagine the idea of being able to grow stuff year round is pretty awesome to those in higher latitudes such as yourself!!

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Sorry to keep adding, another reason why I only use the worm juice as a biochar inoculant (and not yet make use of the vermi cast) is that the African night crawlers are obviously an invasive species, while here in the Philippines we obviously have our own native species (there’s a few massively long ones!) so I feel if I was to use the vermi cast as a potting mix in my nursery area then I’m doing the natives a disservice. Maybe I should solarise or bake it to kill off any worms/eggs but then I assume I would also kill off all the biological benefits. But as a sterilized potting mix I imagine it’s still good. Maybe I could bake it and then add the worm juice back in. Haha I’ve just created a whole bunch more work for myself with that idea/dilemma

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I love how you not only share delicious-looking recipes but the history behind the food. I just got some fresh cilantro from one of the farmers at the market, so... :)

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Mar 29, 2023·edited Mar 29, 2023Author

Thanks! Much of the culturally specific horticultural info I am sharing with these recipe posts is material I ended up having to cut from my book due to printing budget constraints, so it means a lot to me that it is appreciated here :)

I would love to hear how the soup goes for you. If you do make it, when you are adding the lime juice, just as a little bit at a time, stir it in and taste before adding more. I love mine tangy and exuberant, but some I have shared it with prefer just a light touch of lime.

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I'll keep you posted! It may take me a while to get around to it. I'll have to scale it down for one person. I'm getting pretty good at doing that. Studying Ayurveda ruined the joy of leftovers for me. :( Have a beautiful day, Gavin! ☀️

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Sounds good :)

Ahh now you have piqued my interest and curiosity.

Could you elaborate on the Ayurvedic perspective regarding leftovers? Does it have something to do with the left over cooked foods having less Prana?

If so, that makes sense, as I can sense the difference (energetically speaking) when I have a fresh handpicked garden salad/smoothie vs a freeze dried or frozen meal of garden left overs. I think scientifically speaking, there may be some connection to the 4th phase of water worth exploring in freshly picked raw foods vs frozen, dried or processed foods (as far as explaining why the fresh ones make you feel so much more alive and invigorated) as well.

What is the Ayurvedic perspective on fermented raw foods? I know some Indian cuisines feature fermented preserves and staples but I do not know it that aligns with Ayurvedic practices or if those traditions developed independently of the Ayurvedic perspective in India.

Thanks for the comment and I hope you have a beautiful day as well soul sister :)

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Hi Gavin, See - you knew before I even had to weigh in. Yes, less Prana.

Once food has been cooked, cooled, and then re-heated, the life force/Prana has left the food, and our bodies have to work much harder to digest it. The same goes for frozen, canned, microwaved, or packaged food. The fresher the food, the greater the Prana and its healing properties.

When our food is not properly digested, ama (undigested food particles/toxins) builds up and begins to clog the channels in the body, setting the stage for disease. Even cutting in half the amount of frozen food or leftovers you eat will have a significant effect on your health.

Here's a good article about Ayurveda/fermented foods: https://www.banyanbotanicals.com/info/blog-the-banyan-insight/details/ayurveda-on-fermented-foods/

And, I got a response from Diana's editor! I will email it to you! :)

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Wow, YUM.

I grew up in San Antonio, and visited Mexico several times... I LOOOOVE the food.

I love Tortilla Soup, and soup, generally.

Can't wait to try this! GRACIAS!!

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I am so glad you are exited to try, it can be a full meal all by itself if you add the rice, beans and avocado.

You are most welcome, please let me know what you think of the recipe once you get a chance to try making your own version :)

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The Brazos Valley... my absolute favorite part of Texas!

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Mar 29, 2023·edited Mar 29, 2023Liked by Gavin Mounsey

There's a LOT of Texas to love! I want to move back... Cheers. ^_^

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Mar 29, 2023·edited Mar 29, 2023Liked by Gavin Mounsey

I'm in great anticipation of your book becoming available in a print version.

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Me too! :) I am working on it but I am back working full time at my landscaping day job now that the snow has melted where we live so it may take a while.

Thank you for the thoughtful comment Anthony.

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