permaculture

["Débora U. Barocas e Peter J. Webb" <petedeby@terra.com.br>]

It's all a case of where you are geografically. LabLab being a tropical legume obviously will go a bit overboard if you let it, but on a bamboo fence it looks really nice, allows a lot of pruning for green material as well as the beautiful white flowers and seeds ( which range from black to browns through to white.) I've had problems with Lab Lab too, but it is basically a question of management. You can't let it get close to anything vertical like young trees, or as Robyn mentioned, it will take over. For me here in SE. Brasil, it isn't a perennial ( the brown seeded variety), although it will reseed itself. Lab Lab has helped me enormously, together with Guandu and Crotalarias to return fertility to the soil in a few years. The mass they produce as green manure crops is wonderful. Try keeping Lab Lab to a fence and just clip it with some garden clippers every now and then.........your plants will be happy, the bees too.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions regarding cattails in our pond. It's going to be pretty impossible to deepen the pond that much (2-5 m) as it is in a low lying area and we have no machines....needless to say, the Guarani indians are not into the type of work it would take to dig out to those depths.

The pond hasn't always been choked by cattail, but due to wash outs and erosion over the years the pond has become shallower and the cattails have quickly taken advantage. It use to be where they would take a dip and fish occasionally, but as with many native nomads that are corraled up, they tend to loose track of the dynamics of their space; there is less natural stimulus.

There are some eels, frogs and turtles living there at present.

Once we manage to get the cattails retreating a little I will try some tilapia and see if they manage to keep the new shoots under control.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

It is so good to feel part of a world family; it's something I live with always in my heart, but it's so good to know that you are all there.

 

Pete