[permaculture] mediterranean orchards, terracing and fire protection - continuing the conversation

Charles de Matas cdematas at hotmail.com
Wed Feb 6 12:54:00 EST 2008


 
 
Thanks for re-starting this topic, it’s the most important topic for me on this list.  Fires are my main problem.  Our dry season has started and I expect to get some fires on my land in a week or so.  I live in the tropics so what I say may not apply to other regions.  I think it’s important to identify the source of fuel for the fires.  In my case it’s grasses.  There an annual type which has dried down now on my land and will burn easily.  This will provide fuel for fires at the beginning of the dry season.  The fires at the beginning of the dry season are not very intense and the trees may survive them.  There is another type of grass, a perennial that propagates by rooting at nodes, which I think is para grass.  This will continue growing through the dry season and will accumulate a lot of biomass.  It provides fuel for fires at the end of the dry season. The fires at the end of the dry season are very intense and will kill practically any tree.  I lost most of my valuable trees last year in a fire at the end of the dry season.  I lost a lot of enthusiasm for mulching after that.  I may only mulch at the beginning of the rainy season from now on.  Last year I mulched during the dry season and it only provided fuel for the fires close to the trees.  
  I’ve been trying to do more composting instead. The dry annual grass would be a very good carbon source for compost.  I’m also harvesting tropical kudzu and composting it also.  Fire prevention is now a year round job for me.  I started my compost piles during the rainy season.  Norak is quite correct that during the dry season the compost heaps dry up and the biological activity stops and it becomes a fire hazard.  Every year I lose grass piles and compost heaps in fires.  I have to be diligent and hoe around the heaps and the trees to prevent fires from reaching them. Only bare earth seems to stop the fires from getting to them.  
    While I have some water from a small pond I’m going to use it to help keep my compost heaps moist.  My compost heaps are elongated and low to maximize contact with the ground to increase earthworm activity.  I keep the compost heaps moving by adding material at one end and pulling it forward at the other. This avoids the problem of just a small area of ground being enriched by the bottom of the heap.
  I tried digging a swale last year but I don’t think it has enough fire prevention uses to warrant the effort.  I don’t see any easy way to handle the problem of the para grass on my land.  I’ve resorted to hand-to-hand combat by grubbing out the roots with a  hoe.
 
Charles 
Trinidad  (10 N, 60 W)
 
 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<some more general questions that came to me:what about composting cleared stuff off the land? i dont like the idea of having to shred it cause we would have to buy the machine and then petrol for it but then my experience is that the piled up stuff just dries and becomes perfect place for weeds to grow, and then composting process runs only in winter when its moist and it can takae million years to compost. also its a fire hazzard in summer. i also thought of digging in the stuff but that again is too overwhealming a task with such a huge land that we have plus again causes more soil disruption... any ideas? also i had the idea of creating something like a swale specially designed to keep the fire out of the land, and place it around the perimeter of the land, anybody heard of/saw/did something like that before? ok so thats my thoughts for now, thanx to all!peace&pacenorak >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
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