Bioconstrucción en Rancho Mastatal: respuestas cercanas a peguntas pertinentes

Por Amanda Calvo Santana

Llegar a un curso de bioconstrucción es una señal. Quien busca el conocimiento teórico y práctico en este campo, probablemente haya empezado a transitar un camino hacia el cambio de mentalidad y forma de vida; posiblemente muy pocas personas que aterricen en un curso de este tipo lo harán por azar y la mayoría lo hará como consciente consecuencia de su inclinación por un cambio de paradigma, de estilo de vida, por la búsqueda de coherencia entre el discurso y la práctica. Este fue nuestro caso.

Llegamos a Rancho Mastatal en febrero 2021 (con mascarillas y distanciamiento) para internarnos en el mundo de la construcción natural, guiados por los mejores profesores (Nic, Robin y Ali) como resultado de un proceso lento pero constante, que empezó hace años con pequeñas acciones (reducción de consumo, cambio de dieta, participación comunitaria, acción ecológica, entre otras) y aplicación de filosofías y métodos para intentar vivir en creciente balance con nosotros mismos y nuestro entorno. Sin duda, todas esas acciones originaron, al lado de algunas respuestas, cientos de preguntas, que aún estamos tratando de resolver. Una de esas preguntas fue: ¿Cómo deberíamos construir la casa en la que queremos vivir?

La pregunta es pertinente por varias razones. Por un lado, creemos necesario ser conscientes de las múltiples problemáticas globales relacionadas con la vivienda de las personas y, por otro, nos parece importante ser parte, aunque pequeña, de algunas soluciones.

¿Por qué considerar la bioconstrucción?

a. Contaminación

Según Tiwari (2001) y López-Mesa (2009), el sector de la Arquitectura consume más del 20% del combustible y el 40% de los recursos materiales a nivel mundial y se estima que genera al menos el 35% del total de residuos industriales en todo el mundo. Numerosos autores concuerdan en que las consecuencias de las actividades de este sector son realmente impactantes no sólo en la naturaleza, si no en la salud de las personas y de forma multidimensional en las relaciones económicas y sociales de nuestro mundo. Un resumen de algunas comparaciones entre autores se encuentra en el artículo “Evaluación de los impactos medioambientales de los proyectos de construcción” de Enshassi, A., Kochendoerfer, B. y Rizq, E. (2014), quienes expresan:

Shen et al. (2005) sostienen que la construcción es la principal fuente de contaminación ambiental en comparación con otras industrias. Li et al. (2010) concuerdan con Shen (2005) y señalan que cualquier proceso de construcción requiere diversas maquinarias, recursos naturales y que genera muchos contaminantes. Muchos escritores (Morledge y Jackson, 2001; Ball, 2002; Chen et al., 2004; Lam et al., 2011; Zolfagharian, 2012) resumen estos contaminantes como: contaminación por ruido, contaminación atmosférica, desechos sólidos y líquidos, contaminación del agua, gases dañinos y polvo. Por otra parte, los proyectos de construcción constituyen la fuerza impulsora de la economía nacional y cuyo consumo eléctrico, emisiones medioambientales e impacto social son muy significativos (Chang et al., 2011). (párrafo 2).

Del párrafo anterior, es importante resaltar que los autores se refieren a “cualquier proceso de construcción”, lo que nos lleva a pensar si en sus estudios habrán analizado los métodos y materiales que la construcción natural propone, y si habrán evaluado la diferencia en términos de impacto de su aplicación en torno a todas las variables (contaminación, extracción de recursos naturales, relaciones sociales y económicas, uso de maquinaria entre otros). Probablemente no.

Contaminación con polvo por actividades de construcción y demolición en Beijing. Imagen tomada de http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2015-02/28/content_34913197.htm (sin fecha)

b. Urbanización y sus consecuencias

Junto a los temas de contaminación por parte de sector constructivo, es importante recordar los temas de urbanización. Es en la urbe donde se visualizan los métodos constructivos más violentos, tanto por su densidad e intensidad, como por los materiales utilizados. En contraposición, es en la ruralidad donde se evidencian prácticas constructivas más apegadas al uso de materiales naturales y de fuente local (no siempre) y que muchas veces obedecen a conocimiento y tecnología ancestral.

Desde inicios del nuevo milenio, la mayor parte de la humanidad habita en centros urbanos. “En América Latina, los procesos de urbanización se han intensificado en las últimas décadas” (Narváez, Durán, Menoscal & Jiménez, 2019:1, en: González y Calvo, 2020) debido al rápido crecimiento poblacional y los cambios acelerados en las dinámicas económicas y sociales, que caracterizan a los modos de vida impuestos por el contexto de la globalización (Pujol & Pérez, 2012:1 en: González y Calvo, 2020). Indudablemente, la vida de las personas en las zonas urbanas se ve afectada por la intensidad y rapidez de su crecimiento, resulta sencillo comprender que las relaciones sociales y la cosmovisión de los habitantes son notablemente diferentes entre el campo (zonas rurales) y la ciudad (zonas urbanas). Aunque por naturaleza humana existan similitudes, ambos sitios promueven diferentes ritmos de vida, afloran diferentes satisfactores, distintos miedos, diversas interacciones y muy diferentes soluciones a similares problemas. Para nosotros, una pareja citadina que desesperadamente intenta salir de la lógica citadina y encuentra en la ruralidad de Mastatal algunas respuestas, esto fue bastante evidente y no hizo sino aumentar nuestra inclinación por vivir en el campo y construir con tierra. Dos más a la cola.

En las ciudades en crecimiento, se encuentran dos procesos simultáneos de relocalización de las poblaciones en función de su capacidad adquisitiva: se intensifica la segregación debido a la expansión periférica y se instauran procesos de gentrificación como resultado indirecto de la renovación de áreas centrales de las ciudades. En consecuencia, las ciudades buscan “recuperar el patrimonio arquitectónico y promover el turismo y el desarrollo de actividades terciarias en áreas degradadas o en proceso de tugurización” (Marengo y Buffalo, 2019:10, en: González y Calvo, 2020), aumentando así la plusvalía del suelo urbanizado y promoviéndose el desplazamiento de la población local.

Imagen tomada de https://www.diarioextra.com/Noticia/detalle/308996/vecinos-de-precarios-sin-acceso-a-bonos-de-vivienda?fb_comment_id=1085312144880326_1085411618203712, Septiembre 2016.

La cuidad de San José, Costa Rica, no ha sido la excepción a estos procesos. Con un origen de pequeñas ciudades y poblaciones rurales, la Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM) de San José, ha experimentado una importante transformación del uso de suelo en las últimas décadas, debido, según Pujol y Pérez (2012), al crecimiento poblacional, el relativo aumento de los ingresos económicos familiares y una motorización creciente. Ello, acompañado de insatisfactorias regulaciones locales y regionales, ha causado “importantes externalidades ambientales negativas” y procesos de desplazamiento y sectorización económica cada vez más marcados. Pareciera lógico pensar que, así como la GAM, sus habitantes, o al menos una parte de ellos, experimenten en paralelo cambios en sus ambientes internos, tal vez de manera no siempre consciente, que en el caso personal han dado al traste con la sensación de confort y satisfacción, generando nuevas preguntas, posiciones y acciones, todo esto acompañado por la incertidumbre que a casi todas las personas costarricenses no persigue: ¿Cómo generar el dinero para la tierra, cómo evitar endeudarme para la construcción, cómo mantener mi vida de esta manera? Más preguntas en proceso de resolución. Para quienes, como nosotros, buscan una tierra donde sembrar sueños, este proceso significa una evidencia que nos insta a volver la mirada al mundo rural y nos hace analizar sus potencialidades al tiempo que nos confronta, pues no se trata de invadir el campo, si no de entrar en su lógica y balance, empezando por “el nido” que queremos construir.

Imagen tomada de laciudadparalela.com (http://i1.wp.com/www.laciudadparalela.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/la-ciudad-paralalela-planificacion-urbana-san-jose-costa-rica-invu.jpg) sin fecha.

Ante el escenario de un San José que no para de crecer y con cada vez menos zonas verdes y más lejos de los alimentos, es necesario utilizar estrategias que amortigüen los efectos y promuevan la construcción de sistemas de vida que resulten menos depredadores y más proveedores. Rescatar prácticas y elementos que aboguen por la sanidad de las relaciones interpersonales y de las personas con su entorno en un sentido amplio es crucial, incluida la forma en que se construye la casa. (Adaptado de Gómez y Calvo, 2020).

Sin duda, la rápida urbanización es un fenómeno multidimensional complejo, como también lo es enterarse de que el fenómeno en sí está ocurriendo, valorarlo con objetividad y buscar respuestas diferentes a su convulso y acelerado modo de imponerse. Para quienes, aun en medio de la expansión de concreto, ruido y humo, sea posible pensar y poner en práctica formas alternativas de vivir, de construir sus hogares y producir sus alimentos, podrían aflorar posibilidades de regeneratividad social, pedagógica, emocional, política y cultural. En eso estamos.

c. Evidencia para bioconstrucción

La evidencia de la factibilidad y eficiencia de las viviendas construidas mediante métodos de bioconstrucción es tan difícil de encontrar como la evidencia en su contra. A pesar de que se suele escuchar que “es insegura, poco duradera, peligrosa y prohibida” en algunos círculos de arquitectura convencional, existe casi nula documentación que corrobore estos elementos, e incluso no hay normativa en Costa Rica que prohíba su uso, si la construcción se comprueba antisísmica, cosa que la madera bien usada desde los cimientos puede solventar.

El tema tiene cada vez más atención y se ha vuelto toda un área en desarrollo dentro de la disciplina de la Arquitectura, incluso, se han publicado modelos metodológicos para certificación de bioconstrucciones (Carvalho, 2016), análisis sobre el discurso (Montesinos, 2014) y propuestas para la recuperación arquitectónica (Torres, 2017) desde hace años. Existen muchos sitios que proveen listas de revistas, artículos, libros y blogs que pueden demostrar la creciente en el interés y la práctica bioconstructiva, fundamentados tanto en la consecución de modalidades sostenibles de desarrollo como medio de protección de la salud humana y planetaria como en la inaccesibilidad del mercado de la vivienda en general. Algunos de estos sitios los compilan Soto (2006) y Etbul (2012) en los sitios http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/aracne/aracne-090.htm y http://caminosostenible.org/mediateca/construccion-natural/ respectivamente.

Sin embargo, las mejores evidencias se encuentran en las casas y comunidades que existieron desde tiempos inmemorables, algunas de las cuales siguen en pie hoy en día. Desde Grecia y Egipto, hasta Latinoamérica y Asia, civilizaciones antiguas y vivientes han utilizado materiales y tecnología local para construir sus viviendas y ciudades, como piedras, madera, arcillas, mármol. “Incluso las clases menos privilegiadas, a lo largo de la historia y el desarrollo de la Humanidad, han empleado materiales como el carrizo, el lodo, las hojas de palma, para construir viviendas apropiadas para todo tipo de climas, templados, fríos o cálidos.” (Oseguera, Trinidad, Guerrero, Guerrero y Reyes, 2011)

La arquitectura sostenible o bioconstructiva es un tema que tomó relevancia desde principios del siglo XX. Nader Khalili fue uno de los vanguardistas en retomar y adaptar el tema, creando el concepto y técnica del “súper adobe”; aprobada por los altos comisionados de la ONU en materia de vivienda sustentable y digna. “Este modelo de construcción ha sido tomado en cuenta para edificar de manera sustentable no sólo en la comunidad rural, sino en la ciudad con materiales de reducido impacto ambiental.” (Oseguera, et al, 2011)

Fotografía de Rose Marie Hernández Vargas. Casa de Adobe en Santo domingo de Heredia, junio 2012. Tomada de https://semanarioextensionista.blogspot.com/2012/06/198-herencia-cultural-casas-de-adobe-de.html

Fotografía de la casa de campo del expresidente de Costa Rica José María Castro Madriz, en El Salitral de Desamparados, que data de los años 1800, declarada patrimonio histórico arquitectónico desde 1982. Fotografía de Kevin Piedra en https://www.tec.ac.cr/hoyeneltec/2018/06/06/bienal-arquitectura-premio-talento-tec (junio 2018).

Para nosotros, la mayor evidencia se encuentra en las calles de pequeños poblado de Heredia, Escazú y otros lugares de Costa Rica, rurales y urbanos, en los cuales aún permanecen las casas de Adobe y Bahareque entre edificaciones de concreto, cemento y metal, así como las hermosas casas construidas en Rancho Mastatal, unas más viejas que otras, que permiten conocer no sólo el proceso de evolución que esta comunidad ha vivido a través de la experiencia, si no la durabilidad y sensación de bienestar que las mismas edificaciones representan.

Fotografía propia de la primera vivienda de Tim y Robin, construida en Cob y de la cual surgieron muchos aprendizajes sobre el ambiente local y las mejores prácticas constructivas para garantizar durabilidad en esta zona de Costa Rica.

Fotografía propia, de una parte de la fachada del cuarto de estudiantes, en la que e aprecia un gran corredor, paredes más delgadas y amplias ventanas para contrarrestar las altas temperaturas de la zona, así como un techo alto.

Fotografía propia: hermosas formas curvas como parte de un baño con cimiento de concreto y paredes de ladrillos de adobe.

Otros contenidos sumamente interesantes del curso son los cimientos, los pisos de arcilla y sus acabados; las herramientas y los materiales, los cuales merecen realmente un extenso texto, pero que a la vez se encuentran disponibles para quienes tomen la decisión de aventurarse en este fabuloso curso, altamente recomendable y de increíbles alcances. Es sin duda uno de los procesos de aprendizaje más motivadores que hemos podido tener, con la total certeza de haber contado con los mejores y más experimentados profesores del país, que además resultan ser personas encantadoras y dispuestas a compartir sus conocimientos. No está de mas decir que en Rancho Mastatal se come delicioso y muy saludable y que, sobre todo, se encuentra una atmósfera de vida esforzada y pacífica que reconforta en todo tiempo.

A través de la participación en este proceso de aprendizaje una puerta se nos ha abierto, ya la construcción de nuestro hogar de una forma coherente con nuestro discurso, que nos permita un balance y una sensación de bienestar en nuestra forma de vivir y relacionarnos con todo lo que nos rodea dejó de ser una idea y empieza a tomar forma de realidad, poco a poco, con la seguridad de que no somos los únicos, ni los primeros en buscar las respuestas sencillas y eficientes que la naturaleza guarda y con la certeza de estar bendecidos en un camino de paciencia y libertad.

Fotografía propia de una habitación en una de las casas de Rancho Mastatal, que muestra un hermoso fresco aplicado sobre repello de cal en paredes de Bahareque. El piso es de arcilla, sumamente fresco al tacto, el techo alto y hay varias entradas de aire que permiten una estancia fresca a pesar del calor y la humedad.

El curso de bioconstrucción

El curso de Natural Building (Bioconstrucción) en Rancho Mastatal aborda temas amplios y específicos, complejos y sencillos, en una semana intensa y de mucho trabajo práctico. Entre los múltiples contenidos, algunos que llamaron fuertemente nuestra atención fueron los repellos y las paredes.

Las clases empiezan con lo que más tiempo y persistencia representa: los repellos, para poderlos trabajar y mejorar a lo largo de toda la semana. Los repellos son capas de mezcla, que pueden contener diferentes proporciones de arcilla, arena y fibras vegetales; o cal, arena y fibras vegetales, dependiendo de la durabilidad, acabado e impermeabilidad que se quiera obtener. Desde repellos crudos de cal o arcilla, hasta la hermosa y codiciada técnica marroquí del tadelakt, todas y cada una de las distintas posibilidades toman un considerable tiempo de práctica y paciencia, para poder garantizar un acabado que proteja y embellezca el trabajo constructivo interno, ya sea este de cob, adobe, bahareque u otra de las técnicas de construcción con arcilla.

Fotografías propias: paredes de práctica para las personas participantes del curso, sobre las que se aplican capas ya sea de arcilla o cal, en concentraciones diferentes, para aprender sobre la permeabilidad, secado, duración y belleza de estos acabados. En la segunda fotografía se aprecian acabados finales de arcilla, cal, tadelakt y fresco.

Para la construcción de las paredes, se hace necesario entrar en el detalle sobre los tipos y cantidades de los diferentes materiales a utilizar. En la técnica del bahareque, básicamente se utiliza una mezcla de arcilla, arena y fibra vegetal que se vierte con las manos sobre un trenzado de madera delgada o bambú. En esta técnica, las posibilidades de tratamiento para la mezcla son amplias, desde fermentar la arcilla con o sin materiales como la caballaza o el estiércol, hasta utilizar fibras más o menos resistentes para crear un nivel de adhesividad que permita construir mejor. En este sentido, siempre será necesario considerar el ancho de la pared y las condiciones climáticas de la región.

Fotografía propia: pared de varios paneles de líneas de bambú rellenadas con mezcla de arcilla, arena y fibra, todo rodeado de marco de madera.

Fotografía propia: interior con paneles hechos de madera, bambú y mezcla de arcilla, arena y fibra.

Fotografía propia: mezcla de arcilla, arena y fibra lista para aplicar en las paredes.

Para la técnica de bioconstrucción con ladrillos de adobe, se utilizan los mismos materiales, pero en distintas proporciones. Los ladrillos de adobe tienen un grosor mucho mayor al de las paredes de bahareque y por tanto deben contener mayor cantidad de arena, para garantizar resistencia no solo del techo, si no de sí mismos, pues por lo general no se usa un marco de madera que sostenga la pared. La forma de prepararlos es sumamente divertida, pues idealmente hay que hacerlo entre varias personas, pisoteando la mezcla hasta obtener la contextura adecuada. Luego, debe verterse la mezcla en moldes de madera que después se retiran, dejando las formas de ladrillos para secarse al sol. Esta técnica permite construir con curvas y hacer hermosas y resistentes figuras en la construcción.

Fotografía propia: se muestran los ladrillos de adobe que se pegan entre sí con mezcla de arcilla y arena. Se depositan sobre cimiento de concreto.

Fotografía propia: Zack, uno de nuestros compañeros, junt a los ladrillos de adobe preparados y secándose al sol.

Ducha exterior en proceso de construcción, que muestra una curva y paredes de adobe bien logradas. Al lado derecho, una pared de bahareque que incluye una malla sintética para hacer puente entre el barro y la madera.

Vista externa de la parte frontal de una de las nuevas casas de Rancho Mastatal. Incluye un arco de adobe increíblemente logrado y hermosas paredes de bahareque en proceso.

A la izquierda, la profesora Robin muestra diferentes pruebas con tintes para los acabados de las paredes. A la derecha, vista interna del arco construido en la misma casa.

Molde para la práctica de pisos. Dentro del molde una mezcla de arena y piedra que simulan una de las primeras capas de piso a colocar después de los cimientos.

En ambas fotografías estudiantes del curso de Natural building aplicando y nivelando capas de arcilla mezclada con arena y fibras para el piso.

Otras fuentes interesantes:

http://caminosostenible.org/wp-content/uploads/BIBLIOTECA/manual_bioconstruccion.pdf

https://dspace.ups.edu.ec/bitstream/123456789/14491/1/UPS-QT12146.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/42332672/LA_PERMACULTURA_COMO_OPORTUNIDAD_DE_COLABORACI%C3%93N_ENTRE_EL_ENTORNO_Y_LA_SOCIEDAD_HACIA_LA_BIOCONSTRUCCI%C3%93N

Bibliografía:

Calvo, S., A. y González, M., T. (2020). Recuperando la colectividad como una aproximación hacia la soberanía alimentaria en las zonas de transición rururbana. Diplomado Agrobiodiversidad y Soberanía Alimentaria, Módulo 6, trabajo final del módulo.

Carvalho, K., M.L. (2016). Herramienta de certificación para la Bioconstrucción. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Recuperado de: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/tesis?codigo=116580

Enshassi, A., Kochendoerfer, B. y Rizq, E. (2014). Evaluación de los impactos medioambientales de los proyectos de construcción. Recuperado de: https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-50732014000300002&script=sci_arttext&tlng=p

Etbul, A. (2012). Construcción Natural. Camino Sostenible. Recuperado de: http://caminosostenible.org/mediateca/construccion-natural/

López-Mesa, Belinda, Pitarch, Ángel, Tomás, Ana, and Gallego, Teresa. (2009). “Comparison of Environmental Impacts of Building Structures with in Situ Cast Floors and with Precast Concrete Floors.” Building and Environment 44 (4): 699-712. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2008.05.017. En: En: Mercader, M., M.P., Camporeale, P.E., y Cózar-Cózar, E. (2019). EVALUACIÓN DE IMPACTO AMBIENTAL MEDIANTE LA INTRODUCCIÓN DE INDICADORES A UN MODELO BIM DE VIVIENDA SOCIAL. Rev. hábitat sustentable vol.9 no.2 Concepción dic. 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.22320/07190700.2019.09.02.07 Recuperado de: https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0719-07002019000200078&script=sci

Marengo, M., C. y Buffalo, L. (2019). Introducción: crecimiento urbano, una transformación sustentable del territorio. En: Marendo, M., C., Buffalo, L., Silveira, M.L., Bustamante,P., L., Arreortua, S. L., Lima, A., C., Rollan, del C., A., Bachmejer, A., O. y Bel, S., J. (2019). Crecimiento Urbano, hacia una transformación sustentable del territorio. Centro Latinoamericano de Formación Interdisciplinaria (CELFI). Recuperado de: https://rdu.unc.edu.ar/handle/11086/14647. (html). (en línea).

Tiwari, Piyush. (2001). “Energy Efficiency and Building Construction in India.” Building and Environment 36 (10): 1127-1135. doi:10.1016/S0360-1323(00)00056-1. En: Mercader, M., M.P., Camporeale, P.E., y Cózar-Cózar, E. (2019). EVALUACIÓN DE IMPACTO AMBIENTAL MEDIANTE LA INTRODUCCIÓN DE INDICADORES A UN MODELO BIM DE VIVIENDA SOCIAL. Rev. hábitat sustentable vol.9 no.2 Concepción dic. 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.22320/07190700.2019.09.02.07 Recuperado de: https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0719-07002019000200078&script=sci

Montesinos, L.A. (2014). El discurso de la bioconstrucción arquitectónica: divulgación y legitimación en revistas profesionales. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.6035/clr.2014.13.11 ̇issn1697-7750 · v o l. x iii\2014, pp. 201-220. Recuperado de: https://www.raco.cat/index.php/CLR/article/view/292242/380758

Oseguera, F., L., Trinidad, H., J.E., Guerrero, J., N., Guerrero, J. I y Reyes, Z., M.M. (2011). Manual de construcción (Bioconstrucción). Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Pátzcuaro. Recuperado de:http://caminosostenible.org/wp-content/uploads/BIBLIOTECA/manual_bioconstruccion.pdf

Pereira, L. (2017). La bioconstrucción como alternativa de recuperación de la arquitectura tradicional en las edificaciones del distrito de Muquiyauyo-Jauja. Tesis para optar el título de Arquitecta, Escuela Académico Profesional de Ingeniería, Universidad Continental, Huancayo, Perú. Recuperado de: https://repositorio.continental.edu.pe/handle/20.500.12394/3412

Pujol, M., R y Pérez, M., E. (2012). Crecimiento Urbano en la región metropolitana de San José, Costa Rica. Una exploración espacial y temporal de los determinantes del cambio de uso de suelo, 1986-2010. Lincoln Institute of and Policy. Recuperado de: https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/2242_1578_Pujol_WP13RP1SP.pdf (en línea).

Soto, V., J.A. (2006). Bioconstrucción. Ar@cne REVISTA ELECTRÓNICA DE RECURSOS EN INTERNET SOBRE GEOGRAFÍA Y CIENCIAS SOCIALES Universidad de Barcelona Nº 90, 1 de diciembre de 2006 ISSN 1578-0007 Depósito Legal: B. 21.743-98. Recuperado de: http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/aracne/aracne-090.htm

Natural Log Cultivation of Shiitake Mushrooms in the Tropics

Natural Log Cultivation of Shiitake Mushrooms in the Tropics

By Nico, Apprentice 2020

Apprentices inoculating the logs

Managing an orchard space involves dealing with a lot of biomass, especially here in the tropics. From weeding, to pruning, chopping down NFTs that are getting way to big, etc. We are then left with a lot of plant material. Most of this biomass is returned to the soil around our beloved fruits trees, decomposed by microorganism and turned into a nutritious soil, hence completing the life cycle of our healthy ecosystem. But, every once in a while we are faced with the dilemma of having to take down bigger trees. At the Rancho we always try to honor the life of those trees by using them in the best way possible. Following permaculture principles, we don’t see any by-product as waste but rather as a resource. So when we had to take down a magnificent Pau d’arco for safety reasons, we took this opportunity to give it second life. The biggest logs were milled by 2 local sawyers, and are currently drying in the barn to be turned into the next piece of beautiful furniture. We used the smallest logs/branches to make a tincture, since the tree has so many wonderful medicinal properties. The bark, a powerful botanical medicine that restores the immune system, has been cited traditionally to treat the following health problems: anaemia, arteriosclerosis, arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, boils, cancer, candida, colitis, colds, constipation, coughs, cystitis, diabetes, diarrhoea, emphysema, dysentery, eczema, fevers, flu, gastritis, gallbladder problems, infections, liver problems, lung problems, leukaemia, pain relief, parasites, prostatitis, pyorrhoea and wounds!

*Learn more about Plants as Medicine in our annual workshop*

Finally, having noticed that the wild Oyster mushrooms are growing pretty well on this species once dead, we decided to use the medium sized logs that were too small to be used for furniture, to tackle one of my many long-time wishes: growing shiitake mushrooms. Shiitake is one of the most popular and important mushrooms in many countries. It has a long-standing history as a culinary delicacy and an immune system booster that produces lentinan, which is recognized in Japan as an
anti-cancer drug. An anti HIV property has also been detected along with other health benefits that are still being studied. It is widely cultivated not only in Southeast Asia but also North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and each year more and more small scale farms are popping up.

Wild oyster mushroom harvest

Even though growing shiitake in bags of synthetic logs is more common due to labor and material costs for bigger scale production, we decided to go for the traditional natural log cultivation, as it has been grown for thousands of years. So if you’re thinking about starting mushroom cultivation, here are a few tips on how to do it:

Selecting the logs

Mushroom spores

The most common species for growing shiitake in temperate climates are Oaks, Poplar, Alder, Maple, Birch, Elm and Sweetgum. On softwoods such as alder and birch, the mycelium will colonize the logs faster, but hardwood will give you a longer production time and less risk of contamination by other undesired mushrooms or molds. Growers should check to see what kind of suitable trees are available locally. Once you know which tree you will use as a substrate, you can start selecting and cutting the logs. Shiitake grows best in the sapwood and cambium because they contain the most readily available nutrients and have higher moisture content than the heart-wood, so the larger the sapwood area, the better. As Shiitake is a saprophyte, it can only grow on dead wood, so you want to make sure you inoculate your logs at least 2 weeks after the tree was chopped down so all the wood cells are dead. If inoculated sooner, the trees' natural chemical defenses against invasion may still be active and could prevent the shiitake fungus from growing. It is a good idea to soak the logs in water 24h before inoculation in order to increase the moisture content above 40%. The Ideal size for logs is about 1m in length so they are easy to manipulate, and a diameter somewhere between 7 and 15 cm (3”-6”). You want to select logs with an intact bark and try to keep it on as long as possible, as it creates an extra layer of protection against other wild molds, fungus or contaminants. Lime water can be applied on the exposed surface at the end of the logs for the same reasons, or you can also seal them with wax when doing the next step.

Inoculating the Logs

Inoculation is the introduction of the live fungus into the log. This live fungus is mixed with sawdust, grains, and other nutrients or is grown on a wooden dowel. This mixture, called spawn, is the mycelium of fungi growing on a substrate and prepared for propagation of mushrooms.

Brushing wax onto the ends of the logs

To inoculate, simply drill holes into the logs and fill them with spawn. The holes should be 0.8 cm in diameter and about 3cm deep. As mycelium spreads faster along the wood grain than across, you can place those holes 5cm apart around the log, and 10 to 15 cm apart lengthwise. Place the next row of holes diagonally, creating a diamond pattern and fill them with the spawn. Once all the holes are filled, seal them with melted beeswax to prevent drying and contamination.

Contamination is the most common reason of failure in mushroom cultivation, hence it is really important to always work in a clean environments and with sterilized tools. The more you pay attention and dedicate time towards this, the higher the chance of success.

Aftercare

Once all your logs are inoculated you want to let them sit in a warm and shaded area, in order to give the spawn the best conditions for propagation. What you’re looking for is a good balance of humidity, shade, ventilation and temperature. Each strain of mycelium has its optimal conditions, so make sure to get as much info as possible to find the perfect place. Too much heat with high humidity increase the risk of contamination, and you can balance that with good ventilation, but too much ventilation will dry out your logs, and you want to keep a stable humidity level. Think of it as having to choose a place to hang your hammock if you had to spend a whole day in it: you want it to be warm and cozy, but not in direct sunlight so you don’t start sweating. You want to have access to water (humidity) and a nice small breeze to rock in your hammock while you fall asleep.

Inoculated logs in a warm, shaded area

Give it Some Time

There you have it! Your logs are now freshly inoculated with the shiitake spawn (or any other variety you choose). The only thing left to do is give it some time to propagate and colonize the log before fruiting starts. Don’t forget to control humidity level and temperature, and check for any contaminants that might spread and steal the thunder from your precious shiitake. For fruiting to start, you can either let nature do the work or induce fruiting through different techniques that we will develop in next post, when or shiitake spawn is ready to fruit. Stay tuned for more info about fruiting, harvesting and all the next steps in your mushroom cultivation!

want to learn more?

Don’t forget to check out our yearly workshops and our apprenticeship program to get some hands on experience in sustainable living in the tropics!

Yearly workshops related to plants and homesteading include:

Permaculture Design Course

Plants as Medicine

Agroforestry Skills

Happy mushroom growing!

Life of Spice: Farm to Table Cinnamon

Life of Spice: Farm to Table Cinnamon

By Dani, Apprentice 2020

Farm to table cinnamon sticks!

Local Cinnamon

One morning at the Rancho, I was toasting some cinnamon to try to spice up an orange kefir water concoction. When cooking over a fire, I often imagine that I am a witch brewing a potion. As I stirred with a big wooden spoon, the cinnamon began to sizzle, wafting its wondrous fragrance into the air and taking me to another place.

The scents of spices are fantastical, and I have always thought that the spice rack is a mystical, magical place of otherworldly ingredients. As I learn more about spices , that magic has not faded, but rather has revealed new perspectives. We grow cinnamon in the permaculture orchards at the Ranch, and using this magnificent spice from tree to table has made me appreciate it so much more.

The cinnamon in my potion that morning is about as local as you can get. As the cinnamon toasted, the aroma traveled into my nose, triggering my memory, as scents often do. I was captivated by the smell when someone walked into the food smithy and exclaimed, “It smells like Christmas!” I snapped out of my cinnamon induced daydream and concurred. Even though it was a hot February day in the tropics, with temperatures around 85 degrees Fahrenheit, I could almost taste the crisp cold air of Wisconsin. It took me home. To me, the scent of cinnamon evokes feelings of cold winter nights with Christmas cookies by the fire. It feels like cool fall air and spiced apple cider at the orchard. It tastes like pumpkin pie at the dinner table. Cinnamon is for days of wool socks and sweaters. It smells like home to me. It is cozy. It is comfortable. It’s nostalgic.

But I had never even seen a cinnamon tree until coming to the tropics. So how did I come to associate this tropical flavor with with cold cozy evenings in Wisconsin? How did it become the holiday flavor of a climate where it doesn’t grow?

Origin of the Spice

By definition, spices come from the aromatic parts of tropical plants: roots, flowers, seeds, or bark. Unless you live in the tropics, the likelihood of consuming local , farm to table spices is slim to none.

Cinnamon comes from the bark of an evergreen tree which is native to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and in ancient times, it was one of the most sought after spices. Like pepper, it has thousands of years of history in the globalization of foods and was known in China as early as 2700 B.C. It is even mentioned in the old testament as well as in Sanskrit texts. The globalization of cinnamon is not new, and the magical qualities of cinnamon ignited ideas of paradise in the minds of many, causing them to set sail in search of the heavenly lands from where they believed the magical spice must have come.

Cinnamon has a powerful scent, so powerful that it played a part in progressing the sharing of cultures and globalization as we know it. Some wonderful new cuisines came out of the spice trade, but it was not without a cost; the spice trade was also linked to slavery and centuries of abuse towards the local producers. It is important to remember both the fascinating and dark histories of the foods we eat.

Today, Great Britain is the leading consumer of cinnamon, followed by the United States and Spain, all places where the spice does not grow. The word, cinnamon, comes from the Greek word for spice and the prefix ‘Chinese’. Cassia is another spice, closely related to cinnamon, and they are often sold interchangeably, though cassia has a more delicate taste. Most of the cinnamon sold in the United States is actually cassia. Cassia is native to Myanmar and northern India as well as some Indonesian islands. Records of this spice date back over 6,000 years, and it was grown around present-day Hanoi during the Han Dynasty.

Cinnamon and Cassia can be distinguished by their color, true cinnamon being tan and cassia being more of a darker reddish brown. I had no idea that most of the cinnamon I have consumed in my life was probably not even cinnamon

Cinnamon sticks rolled and drying

Permaculture Processing

The journey of cinnamon from the farm to our tables is neither short nor simple. After harvesting and processing cinnamon here at the Ranch, I would argue its processing is truly an art.

Ideally, cinnamon is grown to be long and straight to maximize yields. The offshoots should be pruned as they take energy away from the trunk, which is where the good stuff is. The darker bark is harvested to use as the spice. Once the tree reaches about 2 meters and the trunk is about 2-4 inches thick, it is ready to harvest. It’s good practice to chop the tree down to 10-15cm at a 30-degree angle for water and sun protection. After the tree is chopped, it will produce 2-6 new shoots, increasing the yield of the next harvest which will be ready in about 2 years. This practice can be continued for the lifespan of the tree. With a permaculture mindset, we harvested some cinnamon at the Ranch with hopes that in a few years, yields will increase with the new shoots. After chopping the tree, we took off the lateral branches and leaves. The wonderful cinnamon flavor is also contained in the stems at the base of the leaves so we saved and dried these for tasty tea. We then chopped it into smaller, more manageable pieces, and using a knife, we shaved off the outer bark. The next layer down is called the cambium, and that is the stuff you want in your carrot cake.

The cambium is the part of the tree between the outer bark and the heart wood and what we know as cinnamon. To separate it from the heart of the tree, we made an incision using a knife down the entire length of the piece. Then, we slowly began to peel it off using a spoon, trying to keep it is one piece. It was not easy, especially if there was a knot in the wood. Finally, we rolled the cinnamon cambiums and tied them, and put them to dry. Sometimes cinnamon is cut into quills of over three feet in length! Though I have always thought that cinnamon sticks were beautiful in form, after struggling with my three-inch piece, I realized there is a whole layer of beauty I had not seen. I was blind to the artists behind them, the growers and processors of this special tree.

The outer bark shaved off, exposing the cambium layer

The new shoots coming up

A healthy cinnamon tree re-growing

Conscious Consumption

There is so much in the food we eat: natural resources, back-breaking labor, rich traditions, culture, history, and beautiful artistry. It is important to consider where our food comes from, not only for our health, but for the well-being of those who grow and process our foods, and for the sake of our planet.

I think this is more difficult when it comes to spices. But these days, there are companies striving to produce fair trade spices through sustainable farming practices. Vermont-based Forestrade, started in Sumatra, demonstrated to local farmers how cinnamon can be grown without clearing huge sections of land that would endanger the surrounding national park. They now collaborate with 6,000 indigenous producers in Indonesia and Guatemala. Another example is a group of Hindu People on the mainly Buddhist island of Sri Lanka, the Salagama, who traditionally peeled the cinnamon bark from the trees. These people were devastated by the spice trade, controlled by the English, the Dutch, and the Portuguese. Today, the situation has changed, and they are able to sell their product to a fair trade association for 4o percent above the market rate.

These programs only work if we as consumers are aware of where our spices come from and are willing to pay a little more for our products. Through our consumption habits, we have the power to improve the lives of so many. I encourage everyone to enjoy cinnamon in their hot chocolate on a crisp cold evening, but as the aroma fills the room be mindful of how it got there. Spices truly are incredible, and I hope that while we are doing our best to eat local, we can be conscious of the magic contained in the spice rack.

Achiote to be made into paste

Fresh turmeric harvest

Farm to table peppercorns

Want to learn more?

Stay tuned for my next Life of Spice blog! And if you didn’t read my last blog about farm to table black pepper, read it here!

Want to learn more about growing your own foods and spices? Join us for our annual Permaculture Design Course or Agroforestry Skills Workshop, you can find more info on both these workshops here.

Check out these past articles about farm to table foods we are planting and processing here:

From Tree to Bar: How to Process Raw Cacao

Farm to Table Tales

Farm to Table: Chile Recipes

Sources and Further Reading

Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices by John Heinerman

Spices – A Global History by Fred Czarra

Eating Local: Reconnecting to Food

Eating Local: Reconnecting to Food

 By Nic, core team member

Food nourishes us and forms the heart of our community. Understanding where it comes from, how it is grown, and who has grown it helps us value our food in a way that we have lost in the modern era.  We can get overwhelmed by the challenges of the modern world and food can provide us with some of the easiest and most accessible ways that we can begin to regenerate our planet. 

Pejibaye: One of the delicious, nutritious and locally available staple tree crops

Since the agricultural revolution, our communities have been molded by the food we produce. Thriving when abundant and starving when scarce.  The quest to guarantee our food security has led to mass population movements, wars, terrible famines and giant metropolises. But as we stand on the edge of environmental catastrophe, does it also hold the key to our own redemption?  Does revisiting and re-valuing what has become just another commodity on the store shelf give us the opportunity to take back the power that we have given up with our disassociation from our food production and provide real tangible solutions to the current climate crisis?  In Paul Hawken’s excellent book Drawdown:  The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, 2 of the top 3 solutions are food based (reducing food waste and eating a plant based diet). Each one is totally achievable on an individual level and something that we must demand on a wider commercial and political level.

Working at the Ranch people often ask me what they can do to be more sustainable or environmentally friendly when they return home. This is a question that I could answer in any number of ways.  The answer that is the easiest and most accessible is to simply “eat local”.  This is by no means the only answer, but today I am going to discuss just this one, simple act. that could help us move to larger changes for our climate and population.

Eat Local

Nelson holding a giant squash he grew for us.

Since the early days of the Ranch, local foods have been a cornerstone of our cuisine. One of our goals is to create an easy market where local producers can sell their products. Not only does this reduce the carbon footprint of our meals, it helps to ensure that this region’s farmers continue to grow food. Unfortunately, people worldwide are moving to urban areas and abandoning the farming practices of their parents. Essentially, by buying whatever is brought to our door, we are saying to the local community; “if you produce it, we will buy it.” We want to let them know that we value their products and are committed to work with them to maintain the food security of our region. After 20 years we continue to buy from many of same producers. This results in delicious, locally grown food for our table, while providing an essential income to numerous households in our community. 

Over the years the Ranch has produced increasing amounts of its own food as our agroforestry systems have matured and our understanding of tropical agriculture has evolved. We serve over 20,000 meals yearly with about 90% of our calories coming directly from the Ranch, the community of Mastatal, or the local area (within a 20 km radius from the Ranch).  We are fortunate to still enjoy food security regionally. We purchase the following directly from the producers themselves: milk, eggs, cheese, sour cream, tapa dulce (unrefined sugar cane), coffee, corn, beans, rice, squash, yucca, plantains, avocados, chicken, pork, lard, peach palm, citrus, papaya, pineapple, citrus, mango, palm heart, lettuce and chocolate. We have created a diverse and delicious menu based on what we can either grow or buy from our friends and neighbors. We have taken the cuisine of the “ticas” and tweaked it a bit while adding an international flare.

One of our indulgences: wheat based pizza party!

This transition to eating a local based diet has taken some adjustments.  As Westerners, our diet is heavily dominated by wheat products.  Wheat comes in the form of cereal for breakfast, bread in a sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner. Wheat is by far the most heavily consumed grain in the western world.  After moving to Central America we needed to adapt to a new food culture full of new ingredients and tropical comestibles.  We look to the wonderful traditions of our region and Asia to inspire our new diet and to create new and wonderful food that is based on locally available ingredients.  We are not purists however, and of course we love to have a pizza party every now and again, but we have spent much time experimenting with wheat free, local doughs (read about our Permaculture pizza quest).

Why is eating local so important?

There are many pieces that make eating local such powerful change. I think one of the most appealing is that it is relatively easy to do, it is not really much of an inconvenience and does not require huge changes to your lifestyle.  What follows are some of the reasons I believe eating local to be important.

Local Economy

By creating a market for local producers to sell their agricultural products we are supporting the local economy. This happens on many levels that are all intertwined. Firstly, you are valuing agricultural products that people know how to grow successfully.  This means that farmers in our region can continue to do what they know how to do and are not forced from their land to cities to find other work. Secondly, they can get a much better price selling their products direct to the consumer as this removes the middle man (the supermarket) from the equation.  When you buy a $3 head of lettuce, how much of that do you think goes to the farmer and how much goes to the supermarket?  Thirdly, it keeps the money in town.  By keeping transactions local the money tends to stay in our community, creating a circular economy that can support more than just the farmer.  In this scenario the farmer can now buy products from other local people who can develop businesses that further support the community that in turns creates more economy!

We have been purchasing local eggs for Doña Flor for as long as I can remember.

Transportation and Carbon Footprint

This may seem obvious, but by buying local food you are reducing the carbon footprint and the transportation inputs that are associated with that food product. Unfortunately, in our globalized world, many of our products are shipped all over the world before making it to the final consumer.  This is not just true of food, but also of many consumer goods. Cotton is often grown in the US and then exported to a country with a cheap labor force and poor working conditions so that it can be fabricated into a t-shirt, only to be shipped back to the US to be sold in the US market! Isn’t that crazy?  If we buy our food from a local farmer then we know where it has come from and we know that the transportation of that food is minimized.

Fresh Food

Farm fresh: these bananas are simply delicious, ripening naturally.

By reducing transportation, you also increase freshness!  Did you know that the majority of fruits are shipped when they are still unripe in order to reduce damage during shipping?  The banana is a classic example.  When the banana arrives to its destination it is gassed with a chemical that induces the fruit to turn ripe so that it can be sold at the market.  This effects freshness and flavor massively, not only because these commercial fruit varieties have been selected for good shipping quality rather than taste, but also because when the banana ripens like this it tastes totally different.  I have eaten many supermarket bananas and after now living in the tropics can confidently say that they’re weird.   They never hover in the perfect ripe zone like a farm fresh banana does, and it goes straight from green to brown and bad tasting.  A banana that is harvested freshly and allowed to ripen naturally has a far superior flavor and hovers in that perfect zone of ripeness for many days.

Developing Relationships

By interacting directly with your farmer you can have your say about what is grown and how it’s grown,. You can visit their farm and see for yourself the practices that they use.  This is a powerful tool as there are many misunderstandings as to how food is grown and where it comes from.  This can only be reconciled through personal experience and empathy.  Maybe you really love blueberries, but the organic type only come from far away, whereas all the local blueberries are not organic.  Why might that be? Maybe this is worth further investigation that developing a relationship with some local berry farmers might shed some light on.  Maybe this will lead you to understanding something that you didn’t know about berry farming in your area, or maybe it won’t, but you won’t know until you investigate!

Creating Community

Our globalized world has broken up small communities where everyone traditionally knew one another.  It is not uncommon now to not know your neighbors or the people who live on the same street as you.  This has broken down the fabric of our communities and our relationships with one another.  It is up to us to rebuild those relationships and it is going to require time and effort.  A great place to start is with your food choices.  If you can buy food directly from farmers then you can begin to create that direct relationship with your food and the land that grows it. Maybe it will be with a local butcher, or a local shop, where you get to know the person or people who are selling the food.  Once you have formed this relationship you can cultivate a mutual understanding of what you are looking for in your food.  You will begin to see the same people also shopping in these places and this is the way that we can begin to cultivate community for ourselves in urban and rural environments.  Another fantastic place to develop community is at your community gardens, “pea patches” or allotments. Food is so fundamental to us as humans that communities based around food are incredibly powerful and resilient.

Connection to Place

The average American moves 12 times in their lifetime.  This is a long way from our lives just 100 years ago when most people grew up and died in the same house or the same town.  By moving so frequently we lose our connection to place.  Our homes, our food, our street are just commodities to be bought and sold.  This loss of connection to our local environment creates a disconnect between our realities of the world and the limitations of our land. Avocados, believe it or not, are not in season all year round.  You wouldn’t know it by going to the store though, as they are pretty much available all year round. In fact most food products are available all year round and we don’t even think about it.  By eating locally you are by default also eating seasonally and this will allow you to truly connect to your place and environment, deepening your connection to the land and local climate.

Lights on in the food smithy!

How Can I Eat Local?

What follows are some of the simplest and most accessible ways that we can begin the transition to eating local.

Farmer Markets

In most urban centers now there are farmers’ markets. Usually they take place just a day or two a week so you might need to schedule time to go to these markets when they are open.  Here you should be able to find local, seasonal and fresh food.

Directly from Farmers

If you live in a rural area it is likely that you have farmers all around you.  You can approach them directly, ask them what they are cultivating and see if they already have a farm stand or go to farmers’ market on certain days.  This is an opportunity to get know your neighbors!  If you live in an urban center, check out if there is some innovative commercial urban or city farm that is selling their produce.

Tapa Dulce: locally sourced sugar - purchased directly from the local farmers

Grow your Own

Depending where you are, this could be on your balcony, at a community garden or in your yard!  The scale of your new garden will have to be proportional to your available space and your time.  Growing herbs on your window sill is a great place to start!

Local Business

Try and buy as much as you can from local business rather than going to a supermarket. It is not always cheaper from the supermarket and the quality and freshness can vary massively.

CSA or Veggie Box

If you can’t find a farmers’ market you could look into a veggie box or CSA (community supported agriculture).  These are great ways to directly support farmers and you can often get the food delivered or pick it up close to your house to make it more convenient.

Farm to Table

Lastly, where do you choose to eat out?  It might be worth exploring a local farm-to-table restaurant and make that your special treat for birthdays or special occasions.

Farm to Table meal at the Ranch, green banana chips, pejibaye dip, starfruit pickles and jackfruit salsa….Yummy!

I hope this has inspired you to think about your food and where it comes from and how to incorporate more locally available foods into your diet. Next time you see a farm stand, stop, buy your weekly fruits and veggies from there, and skip the supermarket. It wasn’t long ago when we all had a hand in the food we ate.  To think about the separation that the majority of the world has from food now is astounding. So, plant something whether it’s big or small, find out where the nearest farms are to you, and change your diet to eat locally available products. I bet you’ll enjoy fresher, more delicious food and make a few connections along the way.

Farm to Table Permaculture Pizza

Farm to Table Permaculture Pizza

By Marco, Apprentice 2020

Why pizza?

Pizza. What a concept. Basically just some bread with tomato and cheese on top. But, we all know it’s so much more than that. I’d go as far as to say it’s probably one of the, if not the, most widely adored foods in the world. In fact, it sometimes feels like people answer “what’s your favorite food?” with something other than pizza just to not come across banal, even though deep down they know all they really want is a calorific disk of doughy deliciousness.  At the Ranch we don’t kid ourselves. We know what we want and we satisfy that desire whenever we find a good enough excuse to fire up the cob oven – i.e. birthdays, leaving parties and periods of over a month without pizza.

Rancho Pizza Parties

Our new cob oven with just a few finishing details left

Our farm-to-table pizza parties are pretty epic, and not just because of the pizza (though, obviously, they’re awesome). No, a pizza party entails the whole community coming together and working towards a common goal. They take up most of the day and require a fair amount of coordination. We divide the labor up like so: 3 people on toppings, 3 people on dough, 1 person on tomato sauce, 1 person on fire building, and 1 person cooking. The fire alone takes 3-4 hours to get the cob oven up to the right temperature (800-900°F); the dough must be prepared 4-5 hours in advance to give the dough enough time to rest and the dough makers enough time to mix, knead and roll 40+ pizzas; sauce is usually made a day in advance to give it a chance to really cook down and yummify, and the toppings…well, you get the picture.  All of this we try and do with permaculture principles in mind, which is what drives the evolution of our pizzas forward…

Farm to Table Pizza

Being a permaculture and sustainable education centre, we try to source as many of our ingredients either directly from the farm itself, or from the local community.  Some parts of the pizza are easy to source locally, others not so much. This has come to pose a few challenges at times, and often we make some compromises for the sake of indulgence. However, it has encouraged us to become creative with our recipes; trying to find local, tropical alternatives to some of the classic Italian
ingredients. So, below is a break-down, top to bottom, of our permaculture pizzas…

Cheese

The cheese we use on our pizzas comes from our friends’ farm about 1/2km down the road. It’s the same place where we get our milk (learn to make dairy kefir here) and the cow manure for our biodigester. Needless to say, they make good sh*t.

Toppings

Easy. You can put anything you want on a pizza! Here are some examples of toppings we make on the Ranch:

• Fried banana flower – tastes a bit like artichoke when it’s been lacto-fermented for a few days and then fried with a bit of garlic (and soy sauce, if we’re feeling naughty). Learn about how amazing bananas are here.

• Katuk shoots – katuk is an edible green that grows abundantly on the Ranch. The new, young shoots from these are crunchy and slightly nutty, reminiscent of asparagus. Learn about greens that thrive in the tropics here.

• Grilled pineapple – Classic. Suffice to say that I am 100% a fan of pineapple on pizza *Italian ancestors turn in their graves*. Sorry, not sorry. Sweet and salty combo. It’s delicious. Plus, we grow a lot of them so, perfect for farm to table.

Farm fresh papayas

Tomato Sauce

A tough one. Tomatoes don’t grow well in this area, so we have to buy our tomatoes from elsewhere, they are typically coming from the highlands of Cartago about 100km away. Can’t be having pizza without tomato sauce, it’s just not right. And hence, this was one of the areas where we compromised… was. Then, we discovered papaya sauce! I must admit, I was skeptical at first. Being half-Italian, I grew up with nonna’s and mamma’s sugo di pomodoro, and a good tomato sauce is a rite of passage in my family… but this papaya stuff is really good! In fact, when it’s on a pizza with the cheese and toppings, it’s quite difficult to tell the difference. It’s also way quicker to cook than a tomato sauce as there’s less moisture in papayas. The recipe is the same as it would be for a tomato sauce – oil, onions, garlic, oregano, basil, splash of vinegar (banana vinegar recipe)/lemon juice – just that you replace the tomatoes with papaya and add a little more vinegar and salt to compensate for the added sweetness of the papaya. We also tried a 50-50% mix of tomatoes and papaya, which actually was my favorite of the 3 sauces we trialed (tomato sauce, papaya sauce, tomatoes + papaya sauce) as it had a great balance of sweet and sour. Now, with every passing pizza party, we are reducing our dependence on regional tomatoes and turning towards our locally grown, tropical, farm to table variation, and that’s alright with me.

Rolling dough

Dough

This is the biggie. How to replace wheat flour, which has to be imported from the US or Canada, with something from the farm? A question that has no doubt tormented many apprentices before me, and one that will probably continue to torment those after me.

Wheat’s going on?

The thing about wheat is that it’s great. It’s just great at what it does. Or, more precisely, what
we’ve bred its seeds to be able to do for us over millennia. You see, plants want to provide their seeds with the best chance in life and so they store energy in them in the form proteins, which the seed can access, once germinating is triggered, to power its growth. It’s sort of like a tiny packed lunch that it can take with it into the wide world before foraging its own food from the ground with roots. Most grasses have a protein called globulin in their packed lunch, but in wheat’s packed lunch there are two different proteins - glutenin and gliadin. Yum. When wetted these two form an elastic mesh structure known as gluten. They work in unison in dough – one allows the dough to be stretched (gliadin), while the other helps the dough contract back in on itself (glutenin). When baked, this elastic mesh helps trap gases and aromas created by the yeast and bacteria present in the dough, which is why bread rises, or in the case of pizza, why you get those lovely little puffy bits in the base. The trouble is that gluten is difficult to replace and so replicating wheat-based pizza dough is tricky… did we let that deter us? Pff. As if.

Dough experiments

This past pizza party we experimented with a few different doughs. Keeping permaculture principles in mind, I wanted to make use of the resources we have readily available on the farm. In this case, I decided on cuadrado (type of Musa sp.) and yuca. First, we peeled, sliced and dehydrated the cuadrado and yuca. Next, we milled the dried slices in a corona mill to create the two flours (one of each). I then divided them into 6 bowls (3 for each) and mixed them with equal parts water. Each bowl was to be a different combination – solo flour, 50-50% with wheat, dried water kefir SCOBY. (Dried SCOBY is supposedly a sort of faux xantham gum, which we’ve read may provide some of the same characteristics as gluten… worth a shot!). Below is a summary of the various combinations we tried:

• Cuadrado flour + water (5-day ferment)

• Cuadrado flour + wheat flour + water (5-day ferment)

• Cuadrado flour + water + dry SCOBY (5-day ferment)

• Yuca flour + water (5-day ferment)

• Yuca flour + wheat flour + water (5-day ferment)

• Cuadrado flour + water + dry SCOBY (5-day ferment)

• Cuadrado flour + water (no ferment)

• Yuca flour + water (no ferment)

• Cuadrado flour + water + baking powder (no ferment)

• Yuca flour + water + baking powder (no ferment)

• Cuadrado flour + yuca flour (no ferment)

Local pizza dough trials

There was enough dough to make one small pizza of each. The results? Quite varied, actually, and
surprisingly successful. I must say that I wasn’t particularly hopeful, but was very pleasantly surprised. They had a kind of store-bought frozen pizza vibe about them… not amazing, but also not awful. There didn’t seem to be any outstanding winners either, and people were choosing different ones as their favorites, implying that there is potential to please a variety of palettes. In my personal opinion, the Cuadrado sourdough was the best one as it had a beautiful dark, whole-grain look and a unique but not overpowering aroma and taste.  The Cuadrado-yuca mix was also quite popular and seemed to have the closest resemblance to actual pizza dough.

So, in conclusion, I think there is definitely potential and progress has been made… but, that wheat
pizza is still on top. To be continued…

Conclusion

So, there you have it folks, farm to table permaculture pizza, Rancho style. Please comment if you’ve
had any experimental pizzas you’d like to share! Pura vida.

Robin cooking the dough in our cob oven

want to learn more?

Join us for one of our upcoming workshops to learn more about sustainable living and ideas.

Or come stay as a guest and maybe you’ll luck out being here when we have a pizza party! Either way you will enjoy farm fresh meals, access to our beautiful property and facilities including acres of wildlife refuge, and be welcomed into an alternative community living in the rural jungle of Costa Rica. Hope to see you here someday!

Stay tuned for more farm to table recipes and ideas!

Check out past blog articles on food, fermentation and more:

How to Make Dairy Kefir

Farm to Table Banana Vinegar

How to Make a Simple Hooch

Endeavors to End Propane: Local Fuel Sources and Efficient Cooking Technologies

Self-made rocket stove at the Ranch

By Tim O’Hara
Ranch Core Team Member

Endeavors to End Propane:  Local Fuel Sources and Efficient Cooking Technologies

Cooking food can make it tastier, easier to digest and absorb nutrients, and safer and healthier to eat.  Cooking at the Ranch happens multiple times a day, and on some days, pretty continuously throughout the day.  We generally have a lot of hungry bellies to fill!  Over the decades we have been steadily reducing our use of propane to meet our cooking needs.  Propane is a refined product that comes from crude oil or natural gas.  The negative environmental impact from its extraction and refinement on communities and the earth are well documented.  We have lessened our dependency on this imported product (Costa Rica has few crude oil resources and a moratorium on oil drilling) through the production and use of our own biogas, the utilization of solar cookers, dehydrators, and hay boxes and perhaps most importantly by incorporating efficient wood burning stove technology into our culinary domain.  

Our woodshed

Wood is renewable and abundant in and around Mastatal.  That’s not to say that wood can’t and isn’t managed poorly in many parts of the world where it is used for cooking.  For us, fortunately, we have a plentitude of this resource in a country that does a commendable job of taking care of its timber resources.  We have almost limitless supplies of firewood coming from our woodshed, local small-scale bandsaw mills that operate in the region, and our own agroforestry systems.

Common open cook stove

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 3 billion people worldwide still cook using solid fuels such as wood and dung in open fires and on inefficient stoves.  Poorly designed stoves and age-old cooking practices can produce high levels of small soot particles and other pollutants that penetrate deep into our lungs.  Exposure is particularly high among women who cook indoors and their children resulting in 3.8 million premature deaths a year from pulmonary illnesses.  The extensive use of wood for cooking can also contribute severely to deforestation and its associated devastating social and environmental impacts.  It can also consume precious and considerable time to gather and haul.  

ACE One in action!

These worrisome facts have led us to build and invest in efficient wood burning technologies and food production methods that allow us to sustainably and safely use this local resource to cook with.  Our alternative cooking workhorses are our 5 rocket stoves; 3 purchased ACE Ones, and two adobe/cob stoves designed and built in-house.  These stoves produce little to no smoke based on a design that features an air intake or fan that produces extreme heat in the combustion chamber that ignites and “burns away” any smoke that is produced.  This can be referred to as “complete combustion” and reduces or eliminates soot from the cooking process.  The ACE One stoves use small pieces of wood whereas the home-built versions use slightly larger pieces of wood.  These efficient stoves burn smaller quantities of wood and produce less or no smoke while retaining the many benefits of cooking with this local and accessible resource.   

One of Ranch’s agroforestry systems

When possible, efficient rocket stoves can be coupled with a well-managed agroforestry system that through the extensive planting and pruning of nitrogen-fixing and food producing trees can yield a steady supply of accessible firewood and the food that will be cooked on the rocket stoves.  This is yet another example of the closed-loop systems that we oftentimes strive for on our farm.   

Adobe rocket stove being built at Ranch

Rocket stoves can be small or large, take many shapes, and can be made from a wide variety of materials.  What’s common to all of them is the their ability to efficiently produce extremely hot combustion chambers.  To improve performance, your rocket stove chamber can be insulated and your burning surface sized and designed to effectively support your favorite cooking pot.  You can even buy rocket stoves for camping these days though if you’re a do-it-yourselfer or on a tight budget, we’d encourage you to design and build your own.  There are plans all over the internet.    

Our cob oven

In addition to our repertoire of rocket stoves, we have a self-built cob oven that we use for pizza parties and other baking endeavors, 3 Wonderbags, a solar and electric dehydrator and of course our magical biogas stove.  We’ll tell you more about these in a future article but in the meantime I’d encourage those that love simple solutions to check out the wonders of the Wonderbag and see how you can help transform a family’s life in Africa while saving a considerable amount of cooking fuel.

Let us know if you have any questions and come and check out are array of alternative cooking technologies if you find yourself in our neighborhood.  We love to share our experiences and hope that this has found you well well.

Simple rocket stove being built in community of Mastatal

Bamboo Shoots

Bamboo Shoots

By Nic, Core Team member

Bamboo

Bamboo is a wonderfully sustainable building material due to the speed in which it grows and its weight to strength ratio (stronger than steel for its weight!!).  Bamboo is of huge economic value and is not only used in the building industry, but it can be used also for eating (more on this later!), as a cooking device, burnt for charcoal, woven into a fabric, made into paper, used as a musical instruments, and much more!!  At the Ranch we use it for many of these things; the most noteworthy being our use of it in our natural buildings (read here about how to treat your bamboo).  We have 6 structures that are built almost entirely from Bamboo including a nursery, a meeting room, our classroom and the popular guest structure the Hooch.  We have also used it as firewood and to make biochar and we have several bamboo instruments. Today however we are going to talk about the latest way we have learnt to use bamboo and that is in our farm to table world!

A clump of bamboo on our farm

Bamboo as Food

Humans have a long history of eating bamboo, but we are not the only animals that love eating bamboo.  The Giant Panda loves eating the young bamboo shoots as well as the leaves and stems, along with a number of other animals including the bamboo lemurs of Madagascar and mountain gorillas in central Africa.  Chimpanzees have also been seen drinking fermented bamboo sap which has turned alcoholic.  It will not be a surprise then to hear that Yes! we can eat bamboo too, in fact its delicious and during the beginning of the wet season it is an abundant source of food. 

At Rancho Mastatal we have some of the most revered species of bamboo for eating and for building.  The species that we have that are known for providing tasty bamboo shoots are Dendrocalymus asper, Gigantochloa sp. and Bitcheeyana sp.

These are just 2 week old bamboo shoots!

Farm to Table Bamboo Shoots

Bamboo shoots contain a cyanogenic glycoside that produces cyanide in the gut.  This is not good for you as you might know, cyanide is very poisonous, so we have to be careful to process our bamboo shoots carefully in order to make them edible.  As it turns out this is relatively simple!  Just boiling the bamboo for around 10 minutes removes that compound and can also remove any bitterness that can be present in the shoot. We found that adding ample salt and some sugar to the water before boiling makes them instantly a delicious crunchy snack!  We have also lacto-fermented them (make a very pungent ferment!), pickled them in vinegar, and just boiled them and added them to dishes.  But before you get to eat the bamboo shoots you have to know when to harvest them and how to prepare them.

Harvesting bamboo shoots

Peeled bamboo shoot

Generally speaking you want to harvest them as young as possible as they can become bitter if they are too old. As you may know bamboo grows incredibly quickly, so you will need to keep an eye on your clumps as a daily practice.  As the rains start here in Costa Rica around April/May (on the pacific side) we found that initiated the growth of the new shoots.  There is a delay though between the start of the rains and the shooting of the bamboo and this will vary be species and by the year.  So its safe to say that once it starts to rain you need to start checking your clumps regularly.  We found that this year the Guadua started shooting first (not a good bamboo to eat) and Dendrocalymus was the last one to start shooting in late June/July.  Ideally you will want to harvest the bamboo shoot when it is around ~10-15” (~25-35cm) tall. Cut it at an angle as low as you can.  This will then shed water and is less likely to lead to disease entering the plant.  Generally speaking from a well-managed clump you should be harvesting about 33% of the new shoots.  Take them from the places where they are not as ideally situated ie. Close to another shoot, with a blocked path etc…  To learn more about how to manage you bamboo, join us for our bamboo management workshop.

Processing Bamboo Shoots

Take the bamboo shoot back to the kitchen and cut it lengthwise in half.  You should be able to get your thumb and then your hands between the outer layers and the inner solid part and pry off the sheathing.  This will leave you with a rather alien looking shoot.  At this point it’s a good idea to chop it into strips several inches wide and then slice across the strips into thin pieces.  The thinner the pieces the more bitterness is removed by cooking. At this stage you have the option to lacto-ferment the bamboo in a 2-3% by weight salt brine.  This produces a very pungent ferment that smells very reminiscent of canned bamboo shoots from the grocery store.  By lacto fermenting the shoots you also remove the cyanogenic glycoside and you gain the nutritional value of a raw bamboo and the probiotic qualities of the ferment.

By cooking these thin pieces of bamboo in a salty and slightly sweet brine we were able to produce a delicious treat with a great crunch, the flavor is not too dissimilar to Heart of Palm, although there was a large spectrum of views on what it tasted like.  Everyone agreed that it was a delicate flavor that had an excellent texture.

Cut lengthwise

Then using your thumbs peel off outer layers

Bamboo Tea

The upper parts of the shoot that will have been left attached to the sheathing when you pried it out makes a very nice and refreshing tea.  By taking a paring knife you can remove any of the soft parts still attached to the sheathing and dry them in the sun (or a dehydrator).  This can then be added to hot water and left to steep. 

Fresh bamboo shoot

Want to Learn More About Bamboo?

Join us for one or both of our upcoming bamboo related workshops!

Bamboo Management April 6 - 9, 2021

Bamboo Construction April 12 - 17, 2021

Stay tuned and up to date on what’s happening around here by subscribing to our monthly blog and visiting our website.

Check out our past blog article on Bamboo Treatment

Bamboo Treatment

Bamboo Treatment

By Nic, Core Team member

What is Bamboo

Bamboo is a wonderful fast growing grass, it comes in all shapes and sizes and has an incredibly diverse list of uses from many cultures around the world.  Bamboo is incredibly fast growing and can grow up-to a meter a day and achieves 80% of its height in the first 2months of its life! This ability to grow quickly and produce a huge variety of usable products has got many a permaculturists and green living enthusiasts excited by its potential. Generally speaking bamboo falls into two categories, running or clumping (although there are some that are in between). Running bamboo has the capacity to become very weedy and hard to manage if allowed to get out of control, we spent many years pulling out random culms that appeared throughout the Ranch’s front garden from the “living fence” that had been inherited upon the purchase of the property.  This battle against the running bamboo Phyllostachys sp. was not an uncommon story as many people around the world can probably attest to, but was a great reminder of the will to live that bamboo species have!

In the early years of purchasing the Ranch property, Tim and Robin sought advice from well-known bamboo builder and furniture maker Brian Erikson. They purchased several varieties of giant clumping bamboos, which we are now learning about how to manage.  20 years later these bamboo have grown to full maturity and tower above some of our orchard spaces and buildings! As the clump matures the culms get successively larger in diameter until they reach their maturation diameter. This varies from species to species, but one bamboo known as Dendrocalymus asper is massive! Each culm measuring 8” in diameter with a wall about 2” thick and approximately 30m tall, this is quite the impressive bamboo. Not only is it incredibly impressive it is incredibly intimidating to harvest!

Problems With Bamboo

Since the very beginning we have used bamboo as a building material. We had always purchased this bamboo and over time have become quite disillusioned by the varying quality of the purchased product, despite paying premium prices for the bamboo (each 6m culm at 4” diameter costs around $30 plus transportation). Not long after buildings were completed we were finding that a significant proportion of the culms were suffering from insect damage (a sign of improper curing and drying) and replacing these pieces, which were now inside of a building, was incredibly challenging and a lot of work.

The other major problem that we were facing was that typically when bamboo is treated correctly it is using an acid or a salt of Boron.  Boron is a natural mineral that at approximately 10% solution is toxic to fungus and insects.  Boron is an essential element for plant development and by diluting the solution down it is actually used as an organic fertilizer.  Boron therefore gained a reputation of being an excellent, organic and safe treatment solution for bamboo and is the most widely used treatment for bamboo around the world. Unfortunately one of the problems of using an acid or a salt (boric acid or borax, disodium octoborate etc….) is that it is corrosive to steel and in order to attach roofing and even to combine pieces of bamboo, steel is often one of the fastening materials used (yes there are others but steel is the most practical and commonly used).  We were finding that over time even galvanized steel was corroding and becoming dangerously damaged. 

These two major problems had us move to using timber more and more and limiting our use of bamboo to non structural/permanent uses such as harvesting poles, temporary structures, propping posts, trellis etc…  We got deep into Timber Framing and structural bamboo became a thing of the past.

Bamboo at Rancho Mastatal

Henry setting up a scaffolding system in our bamboo

We continued to treat our own bamboo for wattle and daub walls through this period and the potential of bamboo continued to intrigue us but just seemed beyond our reach.  As our stands of bamboo grew older and more daunting to manage we decided to hire in an expert to help us manage our bamboo.  We found Henry Glen, a bamboo expert living in Costa Rica at Finca Bamboo in the south of the country and he was willing to come and help train us in the proper management and treatment of bamboo. With Henry’s help we have been able to (mostly!) get our bamboo under control after years of neglect and we have begun to treat our own bamboo using his very simple modified boucherie technique that I will outline below.  He also sells a bamboo treatment solution called “Bam Blue” that is based on boron and copper sulphate (another organic chemical used to treat mold and insects) and also has a penetrant and anticorrosive properties. In one go Henry has solved our bamboo problems and we are now well on our way to building with bamboo again. 

Please contact Henry directly through Finca Bamboo to purchase his treatment solution or enquire about his consultation services.  He comes highly recommended by Rancho Mastatal.

Modified Boucherie System

Things you will need:

2” high pressure water PVC tube (schedule 40)

2” ball valve

2” Elbow

Fernco couplings

¼” NPT Tap and drill bit

¼” NPT Threaded Male compressor part

Roll of Teflon

Constant Breeze Stainless Steel pipe clamps

Process:

1. Cut one piece of 60cm 2” PVC and one piece of 15cm.

2. Glue your elbow to one end of the 60cm piece and the 2” ball valve on the other end.  The valve handle should face opposite the direction of the elbow.

3. Glue the 15cm piece on the other side of the elbow.

4. Drill your 2” ball valve through the section that is glued to the 60cm piece of PVC and use the tap to create the threads in the hole.

5. Wrap your threaded male compressor piece with Teflon and screw into the PVC until tight.

6. One the end of the short section after the elbow attach the Fernco coupling.

7. Replace the Fernco pipe clamp with the stainless steel pipe clamp by constant Breeze. You can tighten these to 92 in/lb.

This is your basic modified boucherie set up, from here you will attach the bamboo to the Fernco coupling, fill the solution into the PVC pipe by opening the valve, close the valve and connect the compressor.  Its important to keep the pressure low, around 12 PSI otherwise you will blowout the coupling.  As you force the solution through the bamboo you will see the water from the bamboo coming out the other end. Soon you will begin to the see the Bam Blue begin to come out and when the full concentration is coming out the other end you can stop it running.  Now you have a treated piece of Bamboo, this needs to dry vertically and can then be stored horizontally. 

A piece of bamboo hooked up to the boucherie

A treated piece of bamboo

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BAMBOO?

Read our other blog about Bamboo Shoots

Stay tuned for our annual workshops that cover topics in natural building, permaculture, fermentation, and more!

10 Things You Didn't Know About the Banana

10 Things You Didn't Know About the Banana

By Moanna, Apprentice 2020

They are funny looking, absolutely delicious and have so many gifts – here’s some interesting facts about the banana.

The banana with the permaculture lens on is an element that serves many more than just 10 things. Especially with the diversity of varieties that is grown here at Rancho Mastatal in Costa Rica, with 13 different types of both edible and ornamental bananas in our agroforestry systems. We are always looking at how to work with nature, and in case you already knew all of these amazing things about the banana, this blog shares how the banana can be used as a perennial staple and an easy farm to table crop.

A pink ornamental banana in front of our guest, bamboo cabin, the Hooch

10 Amazing facts about Bananas

1) Bananas can be black, red and blue!

Red and blue, long and thin, fat and short, round or softly squared, there are more than 300 varieties of the Banana, which is in the Musa family. The classic yellow banana found in supermarkets is called the Cavendish, after a British dude who found a way to grow them in greenhouses in England, making it possible for Iceland to be one of the biggest exporters of bananas. Mostly people who leave Rancho Mastatal and who live outside of the tropics, stop eating bananas because the supermarket ones (grown in monocultures far away or in greenhouses) are just not worth eating anymore.

They can be very tiny too!

2) Bananas are not a tree, but a very big herb!

Bananas are such a majestic fruit, but they do not grow on trees as they have no woody trunk or bough. The “trunk” of the banana is rather a leafstalk, as it is a dense clump of leaves ready to curl out.

3) You can eat the flower.

Like so many wonders of the world, it is both beautiful and edible! Here at the Ranch we have cooked it into a picadillo: chopped fine and cooked down with a bit of oil, salt and farm to table pepper. It is delicious. Especially if you’re a lover of the consistency of artichoke or mushroom!

A banana flower

Lacto fermented banana flower

4) The “trunk” can be turned into weaving material.

Peel the skin of the “trunk” from top to bottom, dry the strips in the sun and you’ll have very strong fiber material to make baskets, mats or belts out of. Banana fibers can be woven into an attractive silk like fabric, which in Japan and Indochina are used for clothes and hats. In Tahiti the leaves and “trunk” of the fe’i variety is used as weaving material and turned into thongs, lashings and fans!

5) You can eat the trunk.

If you are actively managing your bananas you probably cut away younger ones in the clump, only keeping the three generations (grandmother, mother and daughter) growing. In south East Asia they eat the young “trunks” as commonly as lettuce! Very thinly sliced, and then soaked in water and vinegar for a while, they add it as a fresh garnish in their soups, or turn it into a salad adding herbs, fish-sauce and toasted peanuts.

6) Green bananas are a perennial staple.

They can be used in cooking like we use the potato, simply boil them in water – the whole thing with its skin – and do as you please! You can also cut them into smaller pieces to add to a delicious stew, blend them with herbs and fry them into fritters, grate them and make a green banana hash, slice them thin and dehydrate to make banana flour. We enjoy all these creative ways to use a local food as a staple in our diets.

Green bananas getting ready to be boiled

7) Banana skin helps reduce itching.

The plant itself flourishes in tropical, hot and damp environments, mostly filled with mosquitoes – fortunately the banana skin eases the itch. I’ve tried it, and it worked!

8) Dirt or ash helps remove its sticky juice.

Harvesting bananas gives off all kinds of juices, especially when you process the green banana and flower. You can clean the machete, knifes or cutting boards by rubbing dirt or ash on it. It may sound crazy but it works.

When harvesting, rub the stem in dirt; when processing/cooking them green, use as much banana leaves/paper to protect table and other material from the juice. But once you have it on a knife or cutting board, it helps to rub any kind of dirt or ash and then wash.

9) Once they are too ripe, you can turn them into wine or vinegar!

You can never have too many bananas. Well maybe you can have too many to eat out of hand, which happens to use often. That’s when we make homemade banana vinegar! The super ripe, falling off the bunch-juicy-black-kinda ripe, means loads of sugar, which is an opportunity for yeast to have a big feast, eating the sugars and making alcohol! Permaculture principle- produce no waste.

Aging banana vinegar

10) PACKED with potassium that reduces muscle spasms very efficiently.

After one month on the Ranch, where the average daily banana intake is about 3 to 5 bananas, many find that their muscle spasms has completely disappeared. Bananas also contain the neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin that lifts up the mood.

Bananas make you strong too!

Do you understand why we’re going bananas over the banana? May the awe and excitement that you felt going through this list make you want to go deeper into the world of bananas. They serve well in the tropical permaculture garden or agroforestry system, provide a variety of uses, and are a nutritious food to be used as a perennial staple.

A bunch of bananas blossoming

Hope you’re as excited about bananas as we are! If you live in the right environment, go plant some, they’re super easy to plant and maintain!

want to learn more?

Join us for our upcoming Permaculture Design Course or Agroforestry Skills Course to learn about bananas and more! Learn more about all our upcoming educational workshops on our website here.

Check out these past blogs that are also about the banana

5 “Grow Your Own” Mulch Plants for the Tropics

Farm to Table Banana Vinegar

Just KIS Me: A Neighboring Project focused on Plants and Indigenous Culture

Just KIS Me: A Neighboring Project focused on Plants and Indigenous Culture

By Kealy Rudersdorf

About eight years ago, Kealy and Ivannia were talking about how they wanted to continue to be strong, badass women. They wanted to support one another and thrive, and step outside the stereotypical woman’s role that is often seen in the Mastatal community. Kealy was once again visiting for a few months from the States and was leaving in a few days so plans needed to happen soon!

The previous year, they had decided to go to the river at night to catch shrimp together--the snakes and darkness under the new moon never scared them off.  This year, they were going to bushwhack to the top of La Cangreja National Park mountain. If you have gone in recent years, this was before the path was maintained and the hike was truly an adventure in the jungle. They needed a guide, as neither had ever been. Ivannia suggested her cousin, Solin, who was incredible with the machete and always full of jokes. It was bound to be a great day!

That day marked the very beginning of KIS Botanicals, as Solin described different uses of a variety of plants and Solin and Ivannia shared stories about how their family used the different plants they found along the trail. It was an immemorable day, filled with laughter, love, and the sharing of stories - the same energy we strive to bring with us into KIS Botanicals today!

What is KIS Botanicals?

KIS Botanicals is a growing herbal business, up the road from the well-known Rancho Mastatal. We are focused on the preservation of plant knowledge and culture in the Mastatal/Zapaton region of Costa Rica. As Solin and Ivannia say, our ancestors have a beautiful interwoven history with plants from the rainforest; our goal is to awaken and share this history.

In our project, we make a series of plant-based, herbal products (to heal the skin, aide in sleep…), using recipes we learned from our grandparents and community members. We also provide educational programs for locals and tourists through medicine making workshops, medicinal plant tours, and food-as-medicine classes.

PRODUCTS

Our artisanal products are inspired by tried-and-true recipes. All of our plants are hand-harvested and our products are handmade – by us!   We have access to nearly 100 different medicinal plants that Solin farms sustainably, using traditional agriculture and permaculture techniques.

We currently have 8 artisanal herbal products that we absolutely love! These include a skin healing salve, a muscle and bruise salve, a sleep aide tincture, a tincture for colds and flus, a cough tincture, a bug repellent, an immune booster tincture, and a bug bite relief roll-on.  There are many more products in the works, for example an aphrodisiac spray, an anti-fungal spray, stomach calming tincture, energy clearing spray, anti-anxiety tincture, etc. With so many plants to choose from, it’s hard to know where to start! As our apothecary grows, we will continue to add to our line of products. 

When we start to make a new product, first, Solin and Ivannia remember plant uses they’ve witnessed throughout their lives. In addition, we frequently talk to community elders or remember conversations from years past. With these memories and conversations, we make a list of plants. We spend time trialing recipes and researching to make sure our products are stellar.  The stories and memories are shared on the back of our products, so you too can share in the story!

Currently, we are selling our products at our wonderful friends and neighboring projects: Rancho Mastatal, Villas Mastatal, La Iguana Chocolate and La Choza del Mundo. 

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

We are excited to offer a variety of educational programs. Come, partake in our programs - we can’t wait to learn with you! Here are our current and future offerings: 

A Cultural and Medicinal Plant Walking Tour:   Come walk leisurely with us while we share with you our local history and culture. We will bring artifacts and stories from our grandparents' lives and describe the uses of many of our medicinal plants.   We will provide a tasty and traditional treat or drink! 

Medicine Making Workshop:  Together, we will enjoy a short leisurely walk to explore medicinal plants.  We will share with you an ancestral recipe (or two!). Tradition will be combined with modern herbal techniques.   You will leave with an herbal product, made by you! 

Food is Medicine – A Traditional Cooking Class:  Come to a cooking class, using traditional techniques and foods.  Over a wood burning stove, we will share a traditional recipe (or two!), laughs and stories.

In the future, we plan to offer an intensive two-week long course on cultural and medicinal plants. We will offer the opportunity to learn from us and other community members, as well as play and experiment with our farm of medicinal tropical plants. Your teachers will be primary-source voices! 

Once we are properly on our feet, we plan to provide classes to the local schools.  We will teach students about how their/our ancestors used plants to cook, to clean, and to heal.  Students will learn new and old techniques with hands-on lessons and tutorials. We hope that they take these lessons back home with them and share their enthusiasm with their parents and grandparents, calling forth memories and providing inspiration.  We are SO excited about providing this service to our community. 

Who is KIS Botanicals? 

The original KIS Botanical team consists of three people: Ivannia, Solin and Kealy. Ivannia and Solin are cousins and lifelong members of the Mastatal / Zapaton community and grew up learning about the medicinal plants in the area.  Ivannia is a wiz in the kitchen. She is the one responsible for processing the plants, making the products, and giving thanks to the plants as we compost them.  Solin has been working with plants his entire life, being handed a machete as a 2-year-old. The depth of his plant knowledge, understanding of nature, and love of plants is key to KIS’s success. Kealy has been visiting the Mastatal / Zapaton area for over 11 years, and Solin and Kealy are now married with a baby. Her role in KIS is to research plants, formulate recipes, share her knowledge of making shelf stable herbal products, translate our programs into English, promote KIS with marketing, and give the plants extra love.

Why we started KIS Botanicals?

From the words of Ivannia and Solin:  We started KIS because we saw our generation and the following generations pull away from plants and the environment.  We witnessed the high schoolers obsessed with their new cell phones and motorcycles, littering the street with their chip wrappers and soda bottles. Our community was changing dramatically. Starting in the late 1980s, houses received electricity, running water, and phones, but also within that same generation, the community received access to the internet, cell phones arrived, and all of a sudden there was almost a motorbike or car per person in town. In most of the United States and Europe, these changes happened over several generations.

 We have witnessed a huge disconnect from our ancestors and the understanding of how they lived in harmony with the rainforest. This younger generation has mostly left the area for other opportunities after high school, leaving the community void of a generation.  With KIS Botanicals, we hope to show that our ancestor’s way of life continues to have value. We aim to re-awaken our ancestral plant knowledge in the younger generations with our products and educational programs within local schools. We also want to be an example of how to be a successful, locally owned business, making our local economy stronger and more diverse. 

How to help us?? 

We have come a long way from 3 friends bushwhacking to the top of the La Congreja mountain to making KIS Botanicals a reality.  To be successful in preserving and sharing our ancestral knowledge, we need your help!! This is what would be most helpful to us:

 When you visit Costa Rica, come to the town of Mastatal to buy our products and learn with us by signing up for one of our educational programs.

 Help us spread the word. Tell your friends and family about us. If they plan to visit Costa Rica, encourage them to take a workshop or tour with us and check out our products.  

 DONATE!  Keep your eyes peeled.  Shortly we will be fund raising to build a Ministry of Health approved processing kitchen.  We would greatly appreciate your assistance in reaching this goal!!

 Send us love and positive energy.

 Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @KISBotanicals

 We can be contacted at KISBotanicals@gmail.com.

 Thanks for your support! We hope to see you soon.

With love,

Ivannia, Solin and Kealy

Lime Plasters Are In

Lime Plasters Are In

By Anthony, Apprentice 2020

Plastering is an ancient tradition in the building trades that continues to hold cultural importance in modern times. Amongst the typical plasters that can be found in the building world include clay, gypsum, portland cement, and the focus of today’s blog, lime. The rich history of the use of lime in the plastering trades can be traced back to all continents. Of particular note are the styles that have emerged from Italy and Morocco, as well as the beautiful examples that are found in Japan and the ancient Mayan temples of Mexico. This craft is experiencing a resurgence through the increased global interest in natural building.

A clay carving with a lime fresco background

Tadelakt (water resistant lime plaster) shower- Read our blog about how to make an earthen/tadelakt shower

Why people love Lime Plasters

Lime plastering as a craft form has endured the test of time due to its versatility and the accessibility of limestone as a building material. When produced and applied with care and experience, lime plasters yield an elegant finished product. Some of the many benefits of using lime include high vapor permeability (‘breathability’), flexibility, autogenous healing, stickiness, and durability. Perhaps of greatest interest is the ‘breathability’ factor, which contributes to drying interior spaces and the general avoidance of condensation inside buildings. Additionally, where other stiffer plasters, such as cement, might fail due to the formation of large cracks, flexible lime plasters have the unique characteristic of self-healing (‘autogenous healing’) with which micro-cracks are naturally filled with ‘free lime’. This contributes greatly to the durability of ancient structures, particularly in seismic zones.

Hawk and trowel

Overview of the Lime Cycle

Understanding the benefits of using lime in our buildings, let’s review the source of these plasters by exploring the lime cycle. Our desired binder begins as calcium carbonate in the form of limestone, coral rocks, or sea shells. This base material is heated to around 900°C (a ‘cherry-red heat’) where it undergoes a chemical change by giving off carbon dioxide gas and forming calcium oxide (quick lime), a highly reactive, dangerous compound. Don’t mess with it. From here, quick lime is hydrated by combining it with water and calcium hydroxide is formed. At this point, our hydrated lime is being prepared for final application by slaking it, that is, to be stored in water. Once we are ready to use this hydrated lime, it is prepared in a mix with aggregate and fiber, according to our desired use of the plaster. Generally, multiple coats are applied with each successive layer receiving a thinner application. The final layer, or our finish coat, can be applied as thin as 1/16th of an inch, or even less.

Lime Plaster Finishes

There are many ways that lime plasters can be applied to create different visual and textural effects. This is where the magic happens. Some of the well-known finishes include frescos, venetian plasters, lime wash paints, and tadelakt. All require a detailed attention to the timing and moisture levels during their application.

Benito Steen stoning our tadelakt shower

Fresco design

Learn Lime Plastering in Natural Building Workshops in Costa Rica

The annual Natural Building Workshop at Rancho Mastatal in Costa Rica is focused on developing simple and elegant wall systems for sustainable homes using readily available natural materials. The course focuses on Natural Building techniques, such as wattle and daub, adobe bricks, cob, earthen floors, and the mixing and application of multiple kinds of plasters, including clay and lime. Workshop attendees have the opportunity to learn from some of the most experienced natural builders in Costa Rica, and to develop their skills in creating elegant lime plaster finishes such as tadelakt, fresco, and venetian plaster. This year’s course was attended by people from more than 10 countries, and was just as diverse in its variety of natural building techniques demonstrated.

Students practicing different plasters and techniques during our annual workshop

Pigments, fibers, sands, and more

Want to learn more?

Hope you feel inspired to begin learning the ancient art of lime plastering. You can really beautify and add special touches to your home and spaces with a variety of different lime plastering techniques.

If you want some hands on practice and instruction, sign up for our annual Natural Building Workshop.

Also check out Benito Steen’s YouTube channel all about natural building techniques.

Stay tuned for the wide array of upcoming courses conducted at Rancho Mastatal in Costa Rica.

Check out these past blog articles about natural building techniques we practice and teach:

How to Make an Earthen Floor for Your Sustainable Home

Natural Building & Clay Carving: Add Artistic Expression to Your Home

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

Turn Local Rice & Beans into Fermented Bread

Turn Local Rice and Beans Into Fermented Bread

By Dani, Apprentice 2020

Why is Food important?

We can’t stress enough how important food is, not just here at Rancho Mastatal but in the lives of every human being. Just in case it isn’t obvious food is a major part of our lives, we need it to survive, and the quality of our food directly impacts our health. We should think about what we put in our bodies, where it came from, how it was processed, and why we are consuming it. Being in Latin America, rice and beans are a part of almost every meal. They make up a huge portion of many people’s diets across the globe. While I love a good Gallo Pinto, I think flatbreads and breads are better vehicles for my condiment consumption! Wheat breads are not the best option here in Costa Rica as wheat is imported and therefore not local, but there is an abundance of rice and beans.

Fresh locally harvested beans

Eating Local Food

The forms rice and beans have taken throughout human history vary in incredible ways. Some amazing transformations of rice and beans into more breadlike things are dosas, dhoklas, and idlis, delicious bread alternatives we can make using local ingredients. Dosas are fried flatbreads that have been eaten for many centuries in southern India. Idlis come from the exact same batter, but they are steamed instead of fried. These are produced with a delightful combination of rice and black beans, while dhoklas are made with rice and chickpeas. But you can also create these dishes using any bean or legume! We have experimented with chickpeas, black beans, cowpeas, pinto beans, and peanuts. Yes, peanuts. Finding local alternatives is a sustainable way to eat the dishes you love wherever you are. Use your local beans and I’m sure they will be delicious!

Fermented Food is Better!

All these breads are fermented and therefore more digestible and higher in nutritional value than the raw grains. To say fermented foods are made by magic would be an insult to all the little microbes doing the work for our healthy guts, but they certainly are magical. Microbial cultures are necessary for our survival, playing key roles in our digestion and immunity. Reflecting on this relationship can bring us closer to our food and in turn our health. Dosas are traditionally a wild fermentation as microbes live everywhere! They live all over you, me, in the air, and on the rice and beans which we’ll use to make our dosas. Dosas are fantastic for eating curries, sauces, or whatever
condiments you like. They’re also great for stuffing with fillings and can be sweet or savory. After making the dosa base recipe, the possibilities are endless! If you enjoy them, thank the microbes.

Dosa Recipe

The following recipes all begin with the dosa base recipe and then are altered in some ways or cooked differently. There are so many things you can do. For example, you can make the dosa base recipe and then make one pan of bread and one pan of brownies. You can make the base recipe and have dosas one day and dosa bread the next. Keep in mind, here at Rancho Mastatal, the minimum number of people eating together is 12, so serving size is for 12 people. If you have a small group and are just making these for one meal, don’t forget to half the recipe. Buen Provecho! 

Dosa Bread with a Garden Herb Paste

Step 1 - Dosa Base

Serves: 12 (24-36 dosas depending on size and thickness or 2 pans of dosa bread or brownies)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups rice

• 1 ½ cups of beans

• 1 ½ cups whey OR 2 cups dairy kefir

*You can also just use water here. The dosas will ferment with just the microflora present on them, but the kefir and whey will kick start the fermentation and add other flavors.

*We use leftover whey from our dairy kefir cream cheese recipe.

I have used many different types of beans to make this recipe. Dosas are usually made with black beans or lentils and dhokla with chick peas, but they work well with, cow peas, black beans, red beans, peanuts, and probably many other types. Experiment!

Fermentation times always vary based on climate. Here in the tropics, things ferment much quicker than in say a temperate climate.

Method:

• Rinse rice thoroughly until water is clear.

• Soak rice and beans for 12-24 hours making sure they are covered in at least a couple inches of water.

• Drain off water, as much as you can, and grind in hand grinder, food processor, or blender. I have found the electric corona grinder we have here at the Ranch works best. It will be a kind of pasty consistency that sticks together when you pinch it. Some legumes or beans are bittier than others. Chickpeas and lentils will have a smoother consistency than say black beans, but small bits are fine. I recommend soaking them for longer for a smoother batter.

• Add this to whey, dairy kefir, or simply water until the consistency is like a thick pancake batter. It is better not to make it too thin, as you can thin it out to your liking and for your purposes after the ferment.

• Put batter in a bowl and cover with a cloth. Be sure to leave plenty of space for the dough to expand. Make sure the cloth is well secured so no bugs can get it. Those little guys love fermented stuff just as much as us.

• Let sit out for 12-24 hours. This really depends on your climate and how fermented you want it to be.

• When it is ready, you can do a number of things. Continue on this path to live our your dosa making dreams or go on to make dosa bread or brownies.

Dosas

Serves: 12 (24-36 dosas depending on size and thickness)

Note: This recipe stems from the dosa base recipe (above) so follow that recipe first.

Ingredients:

• dosa base

• water for consistency

• spices of your choice

• salt to taste

• lard for cooking (or another fat source) *If you want to know why we use lard read this

Method:

• For thin and crispy dosas, add water until it is a pourable batter. (You can also add more dairy kefir here if you prefer that flavor.)

• Time to spice this mix up! Add whatever you fancy at this point.

• I like to add a pinch of salt, fresh culantro, finely chopped, crushed garlic, and some cumin. Always toast your dry spices before adding them. Some other great options are parsley, ginger, cilantro and thyme.

• Once your mix is ready, get a skillet hot with a bit of lard, butter, or cooking oil of your choice. Test one dosa to make sure it is the consistency you want. Cook until bubbles start to form and it browns a bit and flip. If it is too thick, you can add more water to the batter.

Variation, more ferments in the ferment:

We love fermented stuff, so why not add more of it! Add some super fermented cabbage kimichi. Also works well with shredded papaya kimichi. For this variation, it is best to have a slightly thicker batter so it holds together. You can mix the kimchi directly into the batter or put on top while frying.

Idlis

Serves: 12

Note: This recipe stems from the dosa base recipe (above) so follow that recipe first.

Ingredients:

• dosa base

• water for consistency

• salt to taste

Method:

• Add water until it’s a pourable batter, but it should not be too thin. Pourable, but not too easy to pour.

• Add salt to taste.

• Once your mix is ready, it’s time to steam your idlis. There are specific idlis steamers made for doing this, but there is no reason to go out and buy a one purpose item unless you fall in love and plan to make these cute little breads on the reg, and hey, I wouldn’t blame ya. You can also rig something up using pots on the stove. Or, take a cupcake pan, grease lightly, and pour idlis batter into each section. Be sure to leave room for dough to expand. Put some water in a hotel pan. Place the cupcake pan in the water, and steam in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Dosa Bread

Oh yes, bread.

Serves: 12 (2 loaves or about 24 pieces)

Notes: Using 9 inch round cake pans, this makes 2 loaves. Following the recipe for the dosa base, you should have exactly enough. If you only want one loaf, half the dosa recipe when making the batter. I usually divide the ingredients in half before starting and make 2 batches in separate bowls. Play with the spices. There are so many different things you can do with this bread!

Ingredients:

• 6 cups dosa base

• 2 eggs

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 2 teaspoons salt

• ½ cup tapa dulce syrup (or other sweetener) *If using another sweetener, like dry sugar, you may want to add more liquid to the mix.)

• 1 tablespoon coriander ground

• 1 tablespoon cumin ground

• 1 tablespoon turmeric ground

• 4 tablespoon lard (or other fat source)

Method:

• Toast coriander, cumin, and turmeric in about 4 T of hot oil until it’s fragrant.

• Combine with other ingredients in a bowl or split between two bowls. At this point, you may want to add some water to the batter. It should be the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

• Pour into greased bread pans or round cake pans.

• Steam until set, about 15-20 minutes.

• Cool.

*One way to steam this is using a round cake pan in a pot on the stove. Another way, if you are using a bread pan is to heat a deep hotel pan with ½” of water in the oven, put the bread inside the pan and bake.

Dosa Brownies

Yes, you can turn these into an epic fermented dessert.

***For this recipe, I love to use peanuts as my legume in the base. It makes for some incredibly tasty peanut brownies.

Serves: 12 (2 loaves or about 24 pieces)

Notes: Using 9 inch round cake pans, this makes 2 loaves. Following the recipe for the dosa base, you should have exactly enough. If you only want one loaf, half the dosa recipe when making the batter. I usually divide the ingredients in half before starting and make 2 batches in separate bowls. Play with the spices. There are so many different things you can do with this bread!

Ingredients:

• 6 cups dosa base

• 2 eggs

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 2 teaspoons salt

• 1 cup tapa dulce syrup (or other sweetener) *If using another sweetener, like dry sugar, you may want to add more liquid to the mix.

• 4 tablespoons lard (or other fat source)

Method:

• Combine ingredients in a bowl or split between two bowls. At this point, you may want to add some water to the batter. It should be the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

• Pour into greased bread pans or round cake pans.

• Steam until set, about 15-20 minutes.

• Cool.

*One way to steam this is using a round cake pan in a pot on the stove. Another way, if you are using a bread pan is to heat a deep hotel pan with ½” of water in the oven, put the bread inside the pan and bake.

There ya have it, 4 ways to turn rice and beans into a fermented bread! Enjoy!

Further Reading

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Miso, Tempeh, Natto, & Other Tasty Ferments – A Step by Step Guide to Fermenting Grains and Beans by Kirsten K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey

On Food and Cooking – The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

Make sure to check out our other food related, farm to table blogs!

Farm to Table Banana Vinegar

Farm to Table Chile Recipes

Life of Spice: Pepper

Buen Provecho!

Dosa corn bread

Improving Soils in the Humid Tropics of Costa Rica

Improving Soils in the Humid Tropics of Costa Rica

By Anthony, Apprentice 2020

Syntropic farming workshop at Rancho Mastatal

In permaculture and agroforestry circles it’s common to hear the idea that we’re not growing plants so much as we’re cultivating rich, healthy soils in which plants will do their own growing. Yet, to this end changing the make-up of soils seems like a daunting job. So how can we go about the task of improving our soils in a simple and efficient way that corresponds with permaculture principles?

The challenge of Tropical Soils

Soils in humid Tropical America are generally found to be eroded and leached. In this region’s ecosystems, about 85% of nutrients are held in plants and animals, so the soils themselves are infertile. Only terraces, floodplains, and new volcanoes keep some soil fertility replenished if land is cultivated (Mollison, 2004). This yields soils that are high in clay content, poor in nutrient content, and often quite acidic. As we say here at the Rancho Mastatal, a permaculture farm in Costa Rica, it’s soil that’s great for natural building, yet not ideal for growing an abundance of food.

The goal with soils like ours is to improve soil texture, increase mineral and nutrient content, reduce soil acidity, enrich microbial life, and increase the quantity of organic matter held in the soil.

Planting a fruit tree during our annual Agroforestry Skills Workshop

Permaculture & Agroforestry based strategies

In a recent agroforestry workshop held at the Rancho Mastatal here in Costa Rica, a class that worked through concepts of a multi-strata, diverse style of permaculture, the holy trinity of soil amendments for the humid tropics was revealed. The three pillars of improving cultivated soils are

1. Biomass

   The strategy of biomass organized on contour (lines running perpendicular to the direction of the cultivated slope) is the most visible method used here at Rancho Mastatal to improve the soil’s structure and nutritional/mineral content, our ‘organic’ way of applying fertilizer. In the humid tropics, biomass tends to be available in great quantity, and can be used to build up the mentioned contours. Over time these will build to form terraces that greatly reduce soil loss related to erosion and leaching.

2. Mountain Microorganisms

   Mountain microorganisms is a world of its own. Through the fermentation of leaf litter from nearby forests, we cultivate microorganisms which are then applied to our soils, the foliage of our plants, and our compost. We are reproducing healthy bacteria and yeast that, when used in our permaculture systems, will in turn help our plants absorb more nutritional benefit from our soils. To read in more depth about how to make Mountain Microorganisms read this article.

3. Biochar

   Biochar will then provide a long-lasting refuge for these beneficial microorganisms. This is due to its incredibly high surface area within its structure. This special form of charcoal is extremely slow to break down and both directly provides nutrients and minerals to our soils as well as creating a positive feedback loop of topsoil production.

Many ways to develop tropical soils

There are other solid permaculture concepts for improving soils in the humid tropics that should be mentioned here. To deal with highly acidic soils, adding lime at regular temporal intervals is a useful strategy. We tend to avoid planting annuals while opting for perennials, by which we disturb the soil less and reduce potential erosion.  Read our article about which perennial greens do well in the tropics here. Over time these plants will help build humus and topsoil. There are plenty of pro tips from the world of permaculture that you’ll find helpful, like adding shredded cane and bamboo species as a mulch for silica and calcium enrichment. This will in turn help to raise pH levels (lower acidity) of soils and reduce leaching and erosion. We add Humanure and effluent from our Biodigestors, this helps build our soil and use commonly wasted products to grow food!

Want to Learn More?

If you’re interested in agricultural concepts such as improving soils, make sure to check out Rancho Mastatal’s workshops, including:

Permaculture Design Course: Fall & Spring

Past Blogs on Soil and Permaculture in the Tropics

We have a lot of past blogs on this topic. Here are a few to read:

Applied Permaculture Principles

Making Microbes: Fungal vs. Bacterial Soil Life

Tips for Working with Tropical Soils

Our apprentices doing some chop and drop in the orchards

Timber Framing: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Needed to Know (Part 2)

Timber Framing: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Needed to Know (Part 2)

By Kara, Apprentice 2020

(This article continues from Part 1, read that one first to learn some basic tips for Timber Framing!)

Timber framing is an important natural building technique here at Rancho Mastatal, and much of it is done by workshop participants and apprentices-- not people with years of experience! With proper instruction, patience, and focus, it is entirely possible for a beginner to accomplish amazing things with this building technique. If you’ve taken a timber framing workshop with us here at the Ranch, you may find these tips a helpful reminder of the little techniques that often escape our memory. And if you’re planning on building your own sustainable home, these small things might be the difference between a day of frustration and a successful frame-raising.

If you’re interested in building your own home and timber framing check out our latest workshop offerings.

It takes a team to raise a frame

Doing your Lay-up

5. Pulling Horizontal Lines

After you’ve laid your tape and marked your measurements with a crow’s foot mark (remembering to subtract the 10” you’ve burned! See Part 1 of Timber Framing Tips to learn more), you’re ready to pull your horizontal lines around your timber. This means drawing straight, accurate lines around your timber at a right angle to the edge of your reference face, to indicate the cuts needed for each joint. With the crow’s foot ‘V’, pointing towards one long edge of the timber, it’s easy to see where on your mark your line needs to cross, but you still need to make sure that you’re drawing it perpendicular to the edge between the two reference faces. Both a framing square and a combination square can help you do this.

To use the framing square, orient your timber so that one reference face is up, and the other is on the side closest to your body. Hold the framing square with the ‘L’ parallel to the ground, one side resting flat across your timber where it intersects the measurement mark, and hold the edge of the other side flush against the close face of the timber. You’ll have to hold the square at a slight downward angle, but keep it as shallow as you can. Hold the framing square tight to the timber with your hip, and draw your line with a sharp pencil when you have it positioned accurately.

You can do the same thing with your combination square, and it’s not as important to be standing with a reference face facing you, as long as you’re aware each time you’re drawing a line to hold the flat edge of the square against a reference face. Never draw a line while the edge of the square is
resting against a non-reference face, it’s an easy mistake to make, but it can skew your lines and eventually cause misalignment in your joints if you don’t catch the mistake.

To pull a horizontal line around to a non-reference face, where you don’t have the crow’s foot mark, keep your square against a reference face, and draw the line around the timber, being careful to align your pencil lines at the corners. You’ll end up flipping your timber around as you work, so it’s important to mark your reference faces clearly. A thick chalk mark is ideal, so that you can see quickly if you’re using the right face to draw your lines from.

6. Drawing Vertical Lines

To draw the vertical lines for your layup, the ones parallel to the long edge of the timber, using a combination square is quick and accurate. Set the known distance between the edge of the reference face and your cut line, and place the flat edge of the square against the reference face, holding it parallel to the ground to that the ruler is resting fully on the timber. Using square rule, you only actually know the distance between the line and the edge of the reference face, since the corner
between reference faces is where your ‘perfect’ timber within the timber lives, and there could be extra wood on the other sides.

When setting the distance on your combination square, reveal the needed amount beyond the handle, leaving the tick mark on the ruler just slightly covered by the handle. Draw the line by holding your pencil against the end of the ruler, and drag both square and pencil along the length of the line, moving in tandem to draw a smooth line.

By almost covering the tick mark that you’re measuring to on the ruler, you account for the small
distance between the pencil line and the end of the ruler-- a sharp pencil helps, too!

Using the combination square to make your lines, making sure to set it just under the measurement you want, to account for the width of the pencil line

Cutting Joints

7. Don’t Remove Your Line!

Whenever you are cutting any joint remember to not cut away your line! The perfect cut would be cutting your line in half, but this isn’t always easy to achieve, especially for beginners. So instead cut just to the waste side of your line. This is important because as you’re cutting the rest of the joint you need reference of where to cut to! Seems obvious, but many people’s lines seem to disappear.

 8. Practice Your Square Cuts

Seriously, you may think using a hand saw to make a square cut is easy… Well it’s not if you’ve never done it! Especially on large timbers. Usually you have a bit of extra timber to spare on either end, do as many practice cuts as you need to get a square cut.

To make a square cut, remember to cut on the waste side of the line. Align your saw blade at the far side of the line, you will move the blade down the line slowly, creating a small cut along the line (a kerf cut). Once you have your kerf cut you will begin moving the saw blade diagonally down the side line that is facing you, keeping the blade in the original kerf cut, and trying to not drop the blade down the other side that you can’t see. Stop cutting once you’ve reached the bottom. Now repeat on the other side of the timber, keeping your blade in the original kerf and moving the blade down the line. If at any point your blade begins to move off the line, stop and correct it immediately. The farther you move from the line the harder it will be to correct it.

The diagonal cuts should line up and create a square cut. You can check it with a framing square to see how far off or on you are.

9. Bevel up or bevel down

First, always make sure you have a sharp chisel! A dull chisel will make everything slower and probably not give you as clean of a cut.

There are two sides to the chisel. The bevel refers to the angled slant at the end of the chisel.

When you are cutting your joints it’s important to orientate the bevel the right way for which way the wood grain is going. When you are going with the grain of the wood, the bevel should be faced down. This will help insure that you don’t dive into the wood. Then when you are going against the grain, the bevel should be up.

10. Get a Team

Yep, timber framing kind of requires at least a few people. You always want someone to check your layouts before you cut anything. It is very helpful to have a partner to help spot you when you’re drilling the holes for mortises. And then when it comes to raising the frame, the extra hands will definitely be helpful and appreciated.

A student cutting this long tenon

The kerf cuts to remove the housing on this joint

Want to Build Your Own Home?

Timber frame joinery

With over 15 years of experience in natural building including earth building, bamboo construction, and timber framing, Rancho Mastatal is a great learning environment to get inspired and hands on experience in these fields.

Make sure to check out our natural building courses:

Natural Building and Plasters Intensive

Bamboo Construction

Timber Frame Construction

We host most of these courses annually, so make sure to stay tuned by visiting our workshop page here.

Past articles on timber framing and natural building at the Ranch:

Timber Framing: A Real Application of Sustainable Forestry Management

Building an Adobe Shower with Tadelakt Plaster

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

How to be a Permaculture Prepper: Self-reliance for the End of the World

How to be a Permaculture Prepper: Self-reliance for the End of the World

By Mathew “Mateo” Pattillo

(Warning: This article MAY contain humor)

Have you been haunted by dreams of the impending apocalypse? Is a sense of doom (and a complementary sense of gloom) beginning to pervade your every waking moment? Do you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, thinking you left the stove on, only to realize it’s not your kitchen on fire, but the whole stinkin’ world?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be reading the most timely and relevant blog/article of your life.

True, the world is a complex and scary place, and every year it seems to get more and more scary and complex. Change is coming faster than ever before, and it’s sometimes hard not to feel like this really is the End Times coming to town to crash on our couch for a while. “Horseman #3, Pestilence, Horseman #3, your sandwich is ready.” Would you like a cold Corona with that?

But here’s the so what: So what if the world is ending? So what if everything collapses around us and burns to ash and the acid rains fall and the oceans rise up and the heavens themselves come crashing down to Earth So what, IF YOU can survive it all, and do it in style!

This is: How to Use the Principles of Permaculture to Ensure that YOU Survive the Apocalypse and are Around to Rebuild Society After the Dust Settles (And Look Good While you’re Doing it).

Permaculture Prepper Principles

Now there are a lot of different ways to embody the Permaculture Prepper spirit, but I’m going to focus on what I’ve identified as some key points.

Water is a Valuable Resource

One aspect of the impending change that you cannot overlook is the increase in resource scarcity that is likely coming. In the new age around the corner, the principle of “There is no such thing as waste” will become more like a natural law. Hopefully you’re already using a compost toilet, but you’re gonna have to take it to the next level.

Yes, that means it’s time to start drinking your own pee. There is a ton of nutrients just going down the drain every day: salts, amino acids, nitrogen, smelly stuff, and yellow all packed up in there, and I’d be willing to bet that you’ve been letting it all go to waste. Shame really. But it’s ok, it’s never too late to make a change for the better, and the time is now. Get used to this, because it is going to become a necessary norm in the not so distant future. Also it’s sterile and has a great flavor. Beyond these obvious benefits, it’s also a critical way to save water. When the wells n’ pipes ain’t runnin’ free, you’ll be glad you’re drinkin’ pee. That’s what my grandpappy used to say to me, and by golly he was right!

Prepping 101: Beans Have Power

Another critical factor in your survival is going to be your food supply. Permaculture principles abound around this factor. Plant different crops together, plant many diverse species, zone your space for ease of access and maintenance according to need, etc. etc. But we also need to look to a key prepper principle if we want to be truly prepared. That is: have as many cans of beans as possible.

It is a law of the apocalypse that whosoever holds the most beans, holds the most power. You can use canned beans to pay off wasteland bandits, barter for honey with your neighbor, and even to chuck at one of the heads of the giant mutant rats invading your root cellar. Canned beans are invaluable, and if you really want to make it in the New World, you’re gonna have to can your own beans.

In order to maximize the efficiency of your operation, and to integrate with your permaculture system, you can plant the empty cans around your bean plants, right next to your corn, and alongside your squash. This way you can knock the ripe beans right down into the can, saving lots of time and hassle, and giving you immediate bean cannage. The metal cans in the soil can also leach some essential mineral nutrients, giving your plants a boost that they’ll be thanking you for. This kind of next level companion planting is what will give you the edge you’ll need to not just survive, but to THRIVE.

Visualize the Future: What does 2050 look like? What do you look like in 2050?

Next up is a very important piece, so I want you to read closely. Think about all the apocalypse movies you’ve seen. Think about the drawings, the comics, the TV shows, all the visual examples of the End Times that you’ve seen before. All the people who are still alive and kickin’ it, what do they look like? What do they have in common?

That’s right! They all have badass apocalypse outfits! This is not by accident. It is actually a key factor for your survival, so you should take some time now while you have it to get your outfits ready, and lookin’ sleek n fleek ya hear?

By starting this process early, you can also abide by another Permie principle, which is to start small and make gradual changes. Get a few piercings, maybe a scary skull tattoo on your neck. Start wearing a wallet chain, and perhaps a spiky bracelet. This way, when the time comes to don the garb in full, you’ll feel comfortable, and that much more ready to tackle the big challenges ahead with a solid foundation of wasteland style confidence built up over time.

Get prepped

Definitely learn to use one of these!

Oh dang, look at the time! I’ve got to go clean out the guinea pig cages. That’s another point I forgot to mention; guinea pigs are key. Don’t overlook the guinea pigs. Anyway, I’ll be back next time to talk about how permaculture principles can be applied to toast for a delicious breakfast. Good luck preppin’ y’all!

Want to Learn More?

If you want to know what the actual Permaculture Principles are, read our past blog article on how we apply them here at the Ranch.

Or join us for our annual Permaculture Design Course! We have one in November 2020 and another in April 2021.

Timber Framing: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Needed to Know

Timber Framing: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Needed to Know

By Kara, Apprentice 2020

Timber framing is an integral part of the natural building techniques we use at Rancho Mastatal. The building style provides a strong framework to combine with other techniques. Adobe, cob, wattle and daub-- can all be used in conjunction with a timber frame. Maybe you’re already planning on building a timber frame house, or weighing options of building types. Either way it’s important to know that timber framing takes patience and practice if you’re a beginner. The tips in this article are intended to introduce some important concepts in timber framing and to solve some common problems before they even arise, in order to set you up for success in your sustainable home build.

If you’re interested in learning the basics of timber framing you can check out our upcoming workshop.

A happy crew after finishing the raising of this timber frame

1. Square Rule

When building your sustainable home it may be possible to work with locally sourced, large-dimension timber, but the pieces provided by your local sawyer may vary in size and squareness. For timber framing, a construction style that relies on accurate measurements, this reality presents an interesting problem. A common solution, and one we use for our natural buildings at Rancho
Mastatal, is called square rule. The basis of square rule is the assumption that a perfect, slightly smaller, timber exists within your uneven timber. By making measurements and joints align to this
imagined perfect timber, the inconsistencies between the actual timber sizes won't affect the integrity of your joinery.

In practice, there are likely to be two adjacent faces on your timber that are at 90 degrees (or close enough to plane one side until they are). These two sides become your reference faces, and thinking in terms of your ‘perfect’ timber, it’s nestled into that 90 degree corner. You’ll measure everything from these two sides, marking them distinctly in pencil or chalk so that you can quickly see where they are.

In planning where your joinery is going to be laid out, you have to keep in mind that the exterior faces must be flush to allow the cladding to be attached as well. This means that one of your reference faces will always be on the exterior facing side of your timber. Along with this consideration, you’ll want most cuts to be on a reference face. Even if they aren’t, joints will be measured to the inner surfaces of the reference faces, so that the inconsistencies in the timber won’t affect their placement.

When cutting, this may mean that you have to cut out ‘housing’ for the joints on non-reference faces. This is a reduction that exposes the ‘perfect’ smaller timber, and allows mated pairs of joints to sit flush against each other. By exposing the ‘perfect’ timber, identical pieces like knee braces
become interchangeable throughout the building-- so you don’t have to plan for the inconsistencies and variations in each piece.

Square rule is a concept that may seem daunting at first, but it can becoming intuitive with practice. By measuring to the ‘perfect’ timber, and cutting housing to expose it, means that each piece can be cut without knowing the unique shape of the corresponding timbers it will fit into. I recommend doing more research into the topic. The book “Learn to Timber Frame” by Will Beemer is a good resource.

Using a framing square to find your best 90 degree sides

And a hand planer to make those sides perfectly 90

A perfectly sharp pencil

2. Sharpening your Pencil

To mark measurements on a rough piece of timber, it’s best to use a carpenter’s pencil. It should be sharpened to a wedge (you can use a chisel or a knife), so that you can make a thin line or a thick one. You can even shave down one wide side flat to the lead, so that it sits flush with your ruler as you draw a line. It’s important to consider the sharpness and the angle you’re holding your pencil as you draw, since it’s easy to skew a line as you draw it along your timber if you’re not paying attention.

Exact measurements are key to your frame fitting together

3. Burning 10”

When running a tape measure over your timber, don’t start measuring right from zero. Sometimes the metal edge is loose, and it is hard to get an accurate read on where 0” actually is. Instead, place your tape measure so that 10” is on your beginning mark. Measure from there, adding the 10” to your measurement. It’s better to use 10” than 1”, because it’s easier to see if you’ve forgotten to account for the burn when you’re checking your layout. Don’t get burned by the burn!

A crow’s foot helps you identify the right measurement

4. Crow’s Foot Marking

When marking measurements taken from your tape measure, use a ‘V’ shape ‘crow’s foot’ mark on
your timber instead of a single line. While carefully holding your tape flat against the timber (being sure not to move it!), draw the crux of the ‘V’ at the mark you’re measuring to, drawing both lines from the point out. A sharp pencil lead is crucial here for accuracy. A single, quickly drawn line can curve, and later it can be hard to tell exactly where on that line the accurate measurement is.

A timber frame joint called a “scarf joint” that allows you to join two long timbers together

Part 2 to Come!

Building your sustainable home using timber framing techniques is an exacting, but rewarding pursuit. Part 2 will continue with more tips to help you measure, layout, cut, and assemble your building.

Want to Build Your Own Home?

With over 15 years of experience in natural building including earth building, bamboo construction, and timber framing, Rancho Mastatal is a great learning environment to get inspired and hands on experience in these fields.

Make sure to check out our 2021 natural building courses:

Natural Building and Plasters Intensive: February 2021

Bamboo Construction: April 2021

Timber Frame Construction: June 2021

We host most of these courses annually, so stay tuned yearly by visiting our workshop page here.

Check out these past articles about natural building and timber framing here at the Ranch:

Timber Framing in the Tropics

Design Ideas for a Sustainable Home in the Tropics

Timber Framing: A Real Application of Sustainable Forestry Management

Students in the Timber Frame course raising the frame they cut in class

Farm to Table: Chilie Recipes

Farm to Table: Chile Recipes

By Marco, Apprentice 2020

Before we get hot and saucy…

…is it chile, chilli, or chili? Good question. I usually hedge my bets and switch between the three spellings. Actually, all of them are correct. They all come from the Aztec Nahuatl word “chilli”, which became chile in Spanish and eventually the anglicised chilli. Chili, with one l, is the American spelling and is the reason my spell check is red-lining me right now. Anyway, glad we got that out the way. Moving on…

A Brief History of Chiles

When Columbus first landed in the West Indies (in modern-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1492, he noted that the locals (Arawak) were preserving meat using pepper juices, specifically one type called “axi”. This is where the Spanish word aji was derived. (It was around this time that they noticed the Nahuatl word “chilli” being used as well). These plants were very valuable to the natives and were used extensively in most of their cuisine. The Spanish discovered that the peppers were easily preserved when dried and that the seeds kept well, leading to their far, wide and rapid dissemination throughout the world. (Thanks also, in no small part, to birds, of course. Cheers guys.)

Peppers vs. Chiles

One last bit of nomenclature clarification is the common confusion between the various peppers – bell peppers, black/white pepper (peppercorn) and chilli peppers. This goes back again to Columbus and his crew. Back in the day, peppercorn was as valuable as silver to Europeans. Thus, when they arrived in what they thought was India, they also expected to find peppercorn. Instead they found chillies. Nobody’s sure whether they dubbed them “pimiento” (pepper in Spanish) because they mistook them for peppercorn, or if they were trying to pull a fast one…my money’s on the latter. Learn more about black pepper from Dani’s last article “Life of Spice.”

Farm to Table Chile Recipes at the Ranch

At the Ranch, we try our best to follow permaculture principles. A couple of big ones are obtaining a yield and transforming/repurposing waste. Hence farm to table recipes abound and we are consistently trying to find novel ways of using our yields and decreasing our reliance on outside produce. This dry season has been particularly productive for our chillies and has hence inspired some spicy condiment creations. Below are a few spicy specials you can try at home:

Different types of chiles drying

Tabasco Sauce

Tabasco is perhaps the most famous hot sauce ever made. First synthesized in 1850, when Maunsel White decided to boil and mash up some chiles he’d brought back from Tabasco, Mexico and add vinegar and salt. The peppers found their way into middle-aged banker Ed McIlhenny’s hands whence they were blended, lacto-fermented for 30 days (nowadays they are fermented for 3 years in oak barrels) and then put into wine vinegar, creating the hot sauce we all know and love today. It’s a simple and delicious way to preserve chiles and comes in two varieties: quick and slow.

Ingredients:

·         Chiles

·         Vinegar

·         Salt

Method 1 (quick version)

Step 1:

Chop up the chiles and weigh. Add 2% salt by weight (e.g. 100g chiles = 2g salt) and mix. Put them into a large container and make sure they are completely submerged in brine – you might have to add brine to achieve this. [Brine = water + 2% salt].  Leave the chilies to ferment for 1-2 weeks.

Step 2:

Remove chiles from brine (keep the brine!) and blend them into a chunky paste. Put the chiles back in their brine and add vinegar. Leave to ferment another week.

Step 3:

Strain off the liquid – this can be bottled and used as (quick) Tabasco.

[Pro-tip: The chilli solids can be dehydrated (in the sun or in an electric dehydrator) and used as chili flakes!]

Method 2 (slow/proper Tabasco version)

Step 1:

Same as quick version

Step 2:

Same as before - strain, blend and put into a jar but don’t add vinegar or brine this time. Place a muslin cloth (we just use a repurposed pillowcase) over the top of the jar and press down.

Step 3:

Add a thick layer of salt on top of the cloth – this will help seal the sauce whilst absorbing much of the moisture. This salt can then be dried and used as chile salt, once the sauce is ready.

Place cloth on top of jar and press down

Add thick layer of salt

Fold edges into the jar and cap

Step 4:

Leave to ferment for 6 – 36 months.

Chiles fermenting away

Finished Tabasco Sauce!

Chilli Jam (approx. 800ml)

This is one of my favorite condiments. It goes great with anything fried, meaty, cheesy and/or salty. Yum. The ingredients are few and the method easy. You can play around with this one as much as you like, substituting, adding and subtracting ingredients to your heart’s (and tongue’s) desire…

Ingredients

- 4 tomatoes

- 4 bell peppers

- 20 chiles

- 2 onions

- 2 heads of garlic

- 5-10grams of ginger

- 700grams sugar

- 300ml malt/balsamic vinegar

- [fruit of your choice]

You can smoke your chiles to give it a smoky taste!

Method

- Start by blending everything (except the tomatoes, sugar and vinegar) to a chunky consistency.

- Roughly chop the tomatoes and chuck them into a pot over medium heat. Cook them until they are softened up and the skins are starting to come off (5mins).

- Throw in the rest of the blended ingredients. Stir and cook (2mins).

- [You can throw in any fruit of your choosing here to give a unique flavour to the jam. We've had success with: pineapple, passion fruit, pickled limes, papaya and roasted zucchini.]

- Add sugar. Stir until dissolved (2mins).

- Add vinegar. Stir.

- Cook on a low-medium heat stirring occasionally until the jam has cooked down to a jammy consistency (30-45mins).

- Leave to cool - flavours will combine and take on new dimensions once the jam has cooled!

- Put in a glass jar and store in the fridge. Should keep for at least 3 months.

Jalapeno & Lime Pickle Hot Sauce

This is a two-step recipe that involves an initial lacto-ferment. Like the chilli jam, you can get creative and substitute the lime pickle for other fruits.

Ingredients

- 20+ Jalapeno peppers (or another chile of your choosing)

- 2 onions

- 2 heads of garlic

- 5-10grams ginger

- 2 carrots

- 250ml orange juice syrup*

- 2 lime pickles / juice of 2 limes

Lime Pickle

Method

Step 1 - Lacto-ferment:

- Roughly chop the: 20+ Jalapeno peppers, 2 onions, 2 heads of garlic, 5-10cm ginger, 2 carrots

- Weigh the total and add 2% salt. Mix.

- Put into a jar and submerge in brine (salt water).

- Leave to ferment for 1-3 weeks.

Step 2:

- Take your lacto-fermented ingredients and blend them (brine 'n all) to a paste.

- Mix in orange juice syrup.*

- Finely chop lime pickles / squeeze the juice of 2 limes and mix into sauce.

- Bottle it up and enjoy!

*Make the syrup by mixing 1 part orange juice to 1 part sugar. Cook over a low heat until the liquid reduces down to a syrupy texture.

So, there you go. Three simple chili sauce recipes to spice up your meals and make your grandmother proud. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do! Stay tuned for more farm to table tips, tricks, and recipes!

Natural Building & Clay Carving - Add Artistic Expression to Your Home

Natural Building & Clay Carving - Add Artistic Expression to Your Home

By Mateo, Apprentice 2020

Clay. Oh noble clay. O beautiful, hardy, earthy clay. Whence forth did you come, and how did we ever come to deserve such a wondrous material? Art thou merely a dream... oh

A Dorodango, using a handful of clay from our soil

Oh sorry... didn't see you there. I was just entranced by this ball of clay I have here in my hand. Why do I have clay in my hand you ask? Well, why DON'T you is what I say!

I'm here today to preach the wonders of clay, and more specifically to try and convince you to go out in your backyard this afternoon and dig a hole and play in the mud. You'll be so busy having fun, you might not even realize that you're making art at the same time! So buckle up, and let's dive into the world of Clay Carving!

Clay carving with polished lime plaster on the center and a timber frame structure

What is Clay Carving?

Now first off let's get one thing straight. I'm not talking about your classic clay pottery, or your other classic clay sculpture. I'm talking about Clay CARVING. What's the difference you say? Go ahead and take a look at those pictures all around these here words. These are all examples of clay carvings we have adorning different natural buildings here at Rancho Mastatal.

Clay carving is the process of building up layers of clay in differing colors or textures, and then carving away those layers in forms and shapes to create a 3 dimensional "relief" carving. This technique transforms ordinary, flat walls into amazing works of art, and can drastically transform and elevate a space. It also goes hand and hand with natural building techniques like earthen walls and clay plasters.

Building your Clay Carving Canvas

Now that you know what it is, you might be wondering, where would I even do this? The answer to that my friend, is wherever you want.

Well, maybe not wherever. But you could do it in a lot of places! In your home, in your garden, your backyard, your school, your workplace (if your boss is cool), etc. etc. If that 's too much choice, here, take these tips for building yourself a canvas to work on.

Build a rectangular panel out of plywood. You can line the edges with 1x1 in pieces of wood to contain the plaster and clay plaster mix as you apply it. You will probably need to apply a base coat of cement based plaster with some acrylic glue in it to bond to the plywood and create a rough surface for the clay to stick to. A 2' x 3' panel would make for a nice size to practice on, and if you like how it turns out, you can clean the edges up and place it in the garden, on your porch or hang it from a wall somewhere! (If you're thinking about, or already are, building a house, then consider adorning whole walls with an artistic carved clay finish. The beauty of your natural building will astound!)

Practice panels in our annual natural building course

OR make a cob bench, and add a clay carving to the back. Cob is one of the simplest and most versatile natural building materials. By just mixing clay, sand, and straw in the correct ratio (more on ratios in a bit), you can then stack and mold the cob into flowing, beautiful shapes, and the surface will be nice and rough for further Clay coats to stick to. Stack it up into a bench shape in the backyard, and then leave yourself a nice flat area on the back for your carving to live.

Getting Natural Building Materials

At this point, there are two directions you can take, or maybe you can walk right in the middle. You can either buy good quality, pre sifted sand and clay from hardware and/or ceramic supply stores, or you can go into your backyard and dig up some Earth and see what you find.

Soil is different everywhere, and amounts of clay and sand vary widely between locations. Regardless, you'd want to dig down at least 6" (though this varies by location) to get past the topsoil, and then do some tests to figure out how much clay and sand you have at hand. This could mean doing the jar test, filling a jar with a handful of soil and water and letting the parts separate out, sand falling to the bottom and clay settling on top. Or you could send out a sample for precise testing if you want to be scientific about it. Once you have a better idea of what ratios of material are in your soil, you can make a mix.

This process is essential in most natural building endeavors, and is a skill that takes practice. Trust me on this though, getting to know the Earth around you will bring benefits beyond just what you can build with it.

Making a Clay Carving Mix

Clay is naturally flexible, while sand is naturally rigid. Sand provides structure, while clay binds a mix together. The right balance of the two will give you a material that you can carve into shape, and have it stay.

Finding that balance is part of the fun. Try mixing in different ratios, starting with 1:1, and taking some notes along the way. What feels good to work with? What drys well without cracking? What lets you carve without crumbling? Some tips to start: too much clay will cause cracking, and too much sand will cause crumbling. Too wet of a mix won't hold its shape or stay on a wall, and too dry will be hard to apply.

Sample sizes of sand, clay, and straw ratios

Remember, that as you carve you will reveal lower layers of clay. Try finding or buying different colors of clay, or mix in pigment or colorful materials to create contrast and interplay between layers. And don't be in too much of a rush to apply the next layer; if it's not dried enough, your layers may blend together.

Finally, a note on tools

You can do all of this with your hands and a razor blade, laying material down, smoothing it out, and cutting it into shapes once dry. You can also use different tools like floats and trowels to smooth and flatten layers, and other tools like chisels and awls to aid your carving. Start small and easy before you spend money on new tools, and look for used tools or tool rentals before a big purchase.

Summary Step by Step

To wrap up, let's go through a step by step and some final tips:

1. Gather all your tools and materials. It is better to do all your preparation before you start. Think through what you will need from start to finish, including clean up!

2. Prepare your canvas. Whether you're building a new surface or applying to an old one, make sure that the surface is rough or "keyed" so that the clay mix has more surface area to bind and hold on to.

3. Create your mix. Do small batches for tests and samples before going big, so you have an idea what it will turn out like before spending a lot of time and energy. Also keep in mind that you can get finer (as in smaller sand) and creamier (as in more clay) as you add more and more layers, but you'll have to apply in thinner and thinner layers to prevent cracking as these ratios change.

4. Apply your first layer. Smooth and flatten as much as you desire. Let dry enough so that you can add a new layer without the under layer blending with your new layer. You may need to wait several days between layers in a humid climate.

5. Apply second layer. You can now add as many layers as you want to carve away, altering color and texture between layers as desired.

6. Carve away clay to reveal the art within! A razor blade is effective due to its sharp edge, though any knife could work. The basic process is to cut with the knife the outline of the shape, then carve out the interior (with an awl, screwdriver, or even stick). Cut at an angle, widening outwards from the surface, to create cleaner lines and forms. You can smooth the revealed surface beneath with fingers or smooth stones. Dig and carve deeper to reveal more layers beneath!

7. Clean up when you're done, especially your tools to prevent rust. Finally, if you want your clay carving to last longer or be water resistant (though not water proof) you can apply a hardening oil like linseed oil.

Exposing the different layers of plaster. You can see here the design sketched in, and the first coat of red clay plaster being carved away to expose the underneath grey plaster.

Let the Artist in You Soar!

Now you have an expanse of clay before you, a blank canvas to express yourself upon. Have fun! Feel the warmth and beauty of the clay, and tap into your inner artist. Get dirty and share the experience with someone else! With some practice, you might be surprised what kind of beautiful things you can make with just a bit of Earth!

Working on the Rancho Mastatal mandala on the outside of our food processing kitchen. The yellow is a frescoed lime plaster.

The clay carving done on the outside of a small cabin. The entire project was completed by our 2017 apprentices!

Want to Learn More?

For a great video of a beautiful clay carving in action watch this video by The Nito Project.

To get hands on instruction and learning in clay carving and other natural building and plaster techniques come join us for our annual Natural Building and Plasters Intensive.

Stay tuned about our annual workshops!

Life of Spice: Pepper

Life of Spice: Pepper

By Dani, Apprentice 2020

Farm to table is an inspiring movement whose time has come. As anxiety about our environment and health increases, awareness is spreading about the impact our diet has on not just own well-being, but the well-being and future of the entire planet. Alarms are going off worldwide. Our eyes are opening. People everywhere are waking up. We’re waking up… and eating breakfast.

Eating Black Pepper

It’s a typical morning in the conscious kitchens of North America. Today’s special is one of my favorites, a spinach omelet with caramelized onions and a side of roasted potatoes. The eggs are from a permaculture farm’s weekly CSA box, the onions and potatoes from the local farmers’ market, and the spinach is from the garden in the backyard. The omelet slides off the skillet, smothered in rich butter from a small scale dairy farm nearby. The potatoes, piping hot from the oven, make a great companion on the plate. It’s a mouthwatering sight, dotted with black pepper for a little bit of spice.

Mmmmmm, pepper: king of the spices, maker of meals, creator of cuisine. The pepper in our breakfast today came from… somewhere. Somewhere local? Probably not. Spices are the sorcery of every meal, turning bland into brilliant, mediocre to magical. Most of us are blessed with a diet full of spice, but when we talk about eating local, the spice rack often gets overlooked. One way we can work towards restoring the health of our bodies, our minds, our society, and our home planet is to bring more awareness into our diets. Think local. Practice permaculture. Eat farm to table. We hear these terms all the time now, but while people talk about where the eggs on their breakfast table came from, what about the pepper on the eggs?

Black pepper is consumed more than all other spices put together. It sits next to salt on the tables in every diner in America and in most people’s homes. It is hard to imagine a kitchen without pepper, but it hasn’t always been this way. The globalization of food has been happening for so long, a lot of us are completely unaware of which foods are native to where. Chickens originally came from the jungle. Asia used to be without chilies, Italy without tomatoes. What does eating local mean, and how long has it been since people actually ate that way? We’re making big efforts to be conscious consumers, but how often do we stop and appreciate the spice in our lives?

Origins of Black Pepper

Pepper is native to India and is one of the spices that sparked the global spice trade and in turn the globalization of food. Pepper has been traded for thousands of years, and there are even references to pepper found in Egypt from 2600 B.C. For centuries, it spun the wheels of the trade world and brought wealth to many merchants, and it wasn’t only a way of making money. Pepper itself became money and served as hard currency throughout much of the middle ages. In some places, people’s wealth could actually be judged by their pepper assets. Imagine if they could see the casual way in which it is consumed today.

The Value of Black Pepper

Currently, the average price of pepper across the globe is $4.34 per kilogram. These days, Vietnam is the leading country in pepper production, producing about one-third of the world’s pepper. It’s followed by India. Vietnam is also the leading consumer of pepper at 166 thousand tons per year. Again, India follows at 88 thousand tons. That makes sense, right? The places producing pepper are consuming it, local eating. The third biggest consumer of pepper is the USA at 68 thousand tons per year. That is a lot of pepper for a place that doesn’t produce any. On Amazon, a kilogram of McCormick’s Whole Black Pepper costs about $30. The biggest cost in pepper production is labor, but the average price farmers collect for pepper is just $2-$4 per kilogram.

Farm to Table Spices

Understanding where things grow, how they are processed, and who grows them is one way to create a deeper appreciation and understanding of the food we eat and nourish our connection to the earth from which it grows. Trying to live a life embodying permaculture values at Rancho Mastatal has given me a wonderful opportunity to see how different foods are grown and processed. Until recently, I had definitely taken spices for granted. My experience with pepper here has led to reflection on the spice in my life and an appreciation for the sources behind the sorcery. So how does pepper get from the farm to our table?

That black pepper on our omelet and potatoes is from a fruit, often referred to as a berry or peppercorn. It grows on a tropical climbing bush, and the white pepper in so many well-loved curries comes from the same plant. The pepper plant is a vine grown best on a living post, from small bushes to massive trees. Here at the ranch, we grow pepper on Gliricidia sepium, (known as madero negro in Costa Rica) a nitrogen fixing tree. Pepper has its origins in forest ecosystems, so it is a fitting plant for a permaculture food forest in the tropics.

How to care for your Black Pepper plant

To maximize yields, pepper plants need to be pruned properly. Once the vine is at least 8 nodes tall, it can be pruned from 3-4 nodes up from the base of the vine, just above a node. After pruning, the plant will send up two new shoots, and the vine cutting can be propagated by placing the stem in soil where it will grow new roots. People have given pepper new roots all over the world. Global trade increased the demand for pepper and sparked efforts to grow it in tropical places across the globe. Now, pepper is grown in 26 different countries, including Costa Rica.

Red Pepper and Green Pepper

White Pepper and Black Pepper

How to Process Peppercorns

The first time I had pepper that was farm to table was here at Rancho Mastatal where we spent a day harvesting and processing pepper. Pepper is ready to harvest once one of the fruits in a bunch has turned red. First, the we collected the peppercorns in bunches and took them off the branches. We then separated the red berries from the green ones. The red berries become white pepper by soaking them in water for a day and peeling off the red flesh to reveal the white seeds. The seeds are then dried to make the white pepper on our spice racks.

The green berries we picked were destined to become black pepper. We blanched these for 1-2 minutes which starts an enzymatic reaction that turns the pepper black. Then we spread them on a drying rack. They can either be sun-dried, or you can use a dehydrator. Pepper dries to one-third of its weight.

Though the steps may seem simple, this was a very labor intensive process. It took seven of us 3 hours to harvest and process 4.5kg of pepper which dried down to 1.5 kg of pepper. This is about 40 dollars’ worth of pepper. It is truly a wonder that pepper is relatively inexpensive and so readily available. I wonder how many working hands and how many miles it has taken to bring pepper to my meals all these years.

Farm to Table Black Pepper

Farm to table has become a mainstream movement, and the growing awareness about the connection between our health and the well-being of our planet in relation to our diets is such a positive shift in our consciousness. But how would all those amazing farm fresh, local foods taste without spices? What would our omelet be without the king of spice itself?

Permaculture & Spices

While I don’t think people should go into their kitchens and empty their spice racks, I do think it’s important to appreciate all the resources and labor that go into every food we eat as well as understand the history of how it got from the forest to our table. Part of the word permaculture is culture, and it is incredible how pepper affected cultures everywhere and added to a permanent globalization of foods. It influenced the way people prepare, experience, and appreciate food. It changed people’s tastes. It changed cultures’ cuisines. Pepper was a powerful initiator in the transition away from eating local. With the globalization of our diets going back millenniums, what does it mean to truly eat local these days? As I continue to live my life of spice, I will keep asking these questions.

Hope you have a better understanding of the process of black pepper and how it gets from the vine to your grinder.

Speaking of spice… check out our past blog posts about vanilla!

And stay tuned for Dani’s next article on Life of Spice, featuring cinnamon!

Sources and Further Reading

Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices by John Heinerman

Black Pepper- Piper Nigrum edited by P.N. Ravindran

Spices – A Global History by Fred Czarra

Applied Permaculture Principles

Applied Permaculture Principles

By Nic, Core team member

There are a lot of misconceptions about what Permaculture is. Most people think of it as an agricultural system, typically some sort of food forest and whilst maybe it does make sense for you to have a food forest, maybe it doesn’t!  The specifics of applying the principles will vary based on your environment, project , goals etc… but the principles will always remain the same.  In permaculture there are 12 underlying principles that help guide us through the design and thinking process. We have highlighted below how we apply each of these principles, many times in more than just one way, at our site. We hope this helps inform you how these principles can be applied in practice. If this article intrigues you, check out our annual Permaculture Design Course!

Permaculture Principle: #1 - Creatively Use and Respond to Change

This is an almost everyday occurrence here, with such a huge diversity of projects and systems at the Ranch.  One of the big changes that many people experience here is the change in diet, coming to a tropical region we focus on locally available food sources.  In this photo we showcase a typical meal of rice, beans, picadillo, salad and plantains and green papaya kimchi,  all sourced from within 20 miles of the Ranch.  Each year apprentices learn about how to creatively use these new food types, and learn from our experience of eating and preparing these food items for the last 19 years.

Yucca bammies, green papaya kimchi, fresh garden salad and a mango salsa…yummy!

Patacones, lacto fermented Jalapanos, pickled turmeric, green papaya kraut, dairy kefir sauce

Permaculture Principle: #2 - Observe & Interact

We love fermentation here at the Ranch we use it for so many things but as every ferment in every climate is slightly different it involves observation and interaction to fine tune your recipes.  You have to pay close attention to each batch to make sure you get the perfect balance of flavors from the fermentation process, this timing varies throughout the year and depends a lot on the ambient temperature!  Here we have some different pickles and ferments that we make from Green Papaya, Chayote and wing beans….Yummy!!!

Wing bean pickles

Chayote pickles

Permaculture Principle #3 - Catch & Store Energy

For the last 12 years we have been using two types of bio-digestors at the ranch to catch and store energy from human (and cow) poop.  For those unfamiliar with the system, a large underground vessel is used to create an anaerobic environment where the feces is broken down, killing any pathogens and releasing Methane gas which we pipe up to our kitchen and use to cook on. The now safe effluent is used to passively feed, bananas, bamboo and cacao trees.

On the left a mosaic describes the closed loop system we employ at the Ranch and on the right the mosaic describes the open loop, linear system that is often found around the world when dealing with human feces.

Permaculture Principle #4 - Obtain a Yield

Jackfruit is one of the largest fruits in the world, it grows and begins to produce very quickly and is ideally suited to our tropical climate.  In our agroforestry systems we have many jackfruit trees of different varities.  Here is a typical harvest of Jackfruit when it is really pumping!!  We love to eat Jackfruit green (when it is more like a starch) and have been lacto-fermenting it, a great way to store and add nutrition to this abundant fruit. We then use the jackfruit to make a hash, or as a replacement for the pasta in a lasagna or even a pizza topping… its just so versatile!!

Permaculture Principle #5- Self Regulate & Accept Feedback

Rancho Mastatal is an education center, community and lodge.  We host a year long apprenticeship, 100’s of high school students and 100’s of guests throughout the year.  We eat together, live together, play together and work together.  Conflicts are inevitable and we have designed many systems to productively work through these.  We encourage feedback sessions with our one year apprentices through group meetings and one on ones to accept feedback and make the necessary changes to make all of our experiences living together more enjoyable.  Here we are all meeting in our wonderful meeting room, a round earthen structure.

Permaculture Principle #6 - Use & Value Renewables

Over our 20 years of existence we have always valued and used renewable energy sources, from our biodigestor, to our super-efficient wood burning cook stoves to our dry composting toilets, these are all ways to use and capture renewable energies.  We have also installed 10+ small solar systems at the ranch to power cabins far from the grid and to help community members in Mastatal and nearby villages have power.  We are lucky to live in a country that also values renewable energy sources. Costa Rica is powered by 95% renewable energy sources a magnificent achievement by world standards.

Bamboo, a fantastic renewable building material

Join us April 2021 for our Bamboo Management Class or our Bamboo Construction Course

Fuel efficient stoves

In these photos we are setting up scaffold to harvest bamboo to build with, installing a small PV system for a local community member to help them have lights in the evening, and cooking on our fuel efficient wood cook stove.

Installing some PV panels in the community

Permaculture Principle #7 - Produce No Waste

This principle is gaining a lot more traction in the modern convenient driven society, where single use plastics have become commonplace.  With the slow realization that we cannot keep throwing stuff away, the principle of produce no waste seems more relevant than ever.  Here at the Ranch we are a large consumer of food and goods, often feeding up to 50 people a day we go through a lot of food!!  Over the years we have used our purchasing power to convince/encourage local farmers to reduce their packaging.  Our vegetables are delivered in baskets, our tapa dulce is wrapped in cane leaves, our rice comes in rice sacks which we can re-use for storage of other goods such as sawdust for our composting toilets and we get our milk in gallon containers we wash and send back and forth with the dairy farmer.  We are not perfect, and we definitely still produce waste but considering the average American produces 4.5lbs of garbage a day we are well below that!!  As we have become more aware of this issue around the world, this is one of the simplest and most accessible ways to become a more responsible world citizen.

Our local sugar, tapa dulce

Sacks and baskets used to store food

Permaculture Principle #8 - Design from Pattern to Detail

Students in our annual PDC learning to use the A-frame

Nice lines of trees on contour

One of the biggest challenges in tropical climates is the huge amount of rainfall we receive, seeing the pattern of deforestation and eroded landscapes on our property we countered this by reforesting land using diverse perennial tree crops, which mimic the forest stratas, protecting the soil and producing food for us to eat.  We dig swales & retention ponds, plant on contour and use deep rooted species, mulch heavily all to help slow down the flow of water and build healthier more productive soils.

Lydia, an apprentice, planting and properly mulching this new fruit tree

Permaculture Principle #9 - Integrate rather than segregate

One of the ways we do this is by integrating different species known as guilds.  These plant guilds help support one another and diversify your site making them less prone to diseases and providing shade, fertility and structure.  We grow our black pepper vines on a living post.  This post produces some shade and the living post is also a nitrogen fixing tree. Nearby we have more nitrogen fixing trees and bananas to provide more shade, food and mulch to the black pepper. Stay tuned for our next blog on the Life of Spice: Black Pepper.

Permaculture Principle #10 - Use Small Slow Solutions

Apprentices building an adobe brick walled shower that’s under a timber framed structure

Everything that we build at the Ranch is by hand. People always ask us how long it takes to build things and it takes a long time to be honest.  Our goals are to give people educational opportunities in the building process not just to make something as quickly as possible.  We see the value in taking it slow and not using a lot of machinery to streamline our building process.  We use our buildings to create beautiful healthy homes that are not only using local resources but help us make connections with people and build community. Check out this article on how we built this Tadelakt shower

Permaculture Principle #11 - Use & Value Diversity

Don Chepo winnowing his harvest of beans

For many people the idea of becoming self-sufficient is an appealing one.  We look at things in a different way by using and valuing diversity we aim to create regional food security and value the food we grow equally to the food we can obtain from local farmers.  By supporting our neighbors and friends we build community, financially support local farmers and get to eat fresh local produce everyday! Beans from Don Chepo, Tapa Dulce from Don Gerardo, Eggs from Doña Flor and Coffee from Jose Luis are just some examples.

Don Gerardo using his ox to press the sugar cane

Dona Flor feeding her chickens

Permaculture Principle #12 - Use Edges & Value the Marginal

Homemade banana vinegar

As we said before we love vinegar and fermentation at the Ranch.  One of the simplest vinegar recipes we use is valuing the marginal, fruit scraps and peels make an excellent vinegar.  We pack them into a bucket add water and let the natural yeasts convert the sugars into alcohol and then into vinegar.  What is commonly treated as a waste product has now been converted into a sugar source for a vinegar which we can use to spice up some of our fresh garden salads! Read our latest blog on farm to table, homemade banana vinegar.

A variety of aging homemade vinegars

These are just some of the many examples of the way we implement the 12 permaculture principles here at the Ranch.

If you are interested in permaculture design and it’s principles join us for our annual 2 week, life changing Permaculture Design Course.