4 Comments

Always love sticky beaking other peoples places (without the horror of getting on a plane). You are doing amazing work.

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Nov 5, 2023Liked by David B Lauterwasser

My gawd yes the rainy season really wipes out all that mulching work. Even on our barely sloping property, if there’s a rain that over saturated the soil, we lose so much of it. My plan for this has been like yours but also to one day plant a lot more thick grasses to try and catch the sediment before it leaves the property. I did realise my neighbour puts his corn and veggie crops right in the area where most of our sediment leaves the property, so at least it’s not completely wasted 😂

Great update, looking good!

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Nov 25, 2023Liked by David B Lauterwasser

The Archidendron we have here is jiringa, locally known as jering. The big seeds are edible young or mature, raw or cooked or sprouted. They all taste different. It used to be more commonly eaten but now less popular and priced than petai (Parkia).

One of the staples around the Malay region before rice was sagu, a forest palm. Not sure if you have it up north there. I have not heard of anyone planting it here, or even seen it!

Good points about slash and burn. I read that the orang asli here would only slash and burn an area that is fertile enough, one of the indicators being the trees are too big to hug. They would plant hill rice after, which apparently needs very high fertility. And they only plant one round after the burn.

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