All non-mechanical energy put into the farm at Kada's Garden

Our goal is to use as little outside input as possible with the exception of working the land by hand. We made one big exception to this rule for weed control, plastic fabric. See below for a total list of materials we have put into our farm that is not 100% natural and raw. This means we dont list things liek bamboo poles which we cut from the hills as they compost away.

Chemicals and Sprays

We have not ever spray any form of pesticide/fungicide/herbicide on our farm since we took over. We have a very strict rule that there is to be zero heavy chemical use for control of pests/weeds.

Fertilizers and Nutrition

We have put in a lot of energy trying to rebuild our soil to something that can sustain plants without additional fertilizer. We have added on a few occacions some organic manure (cow based mostly and a few times chicken based for extra nitrogen). All these are certified organic and to date (summer 2011) we have used approx 70kg in total.

For cactus in pots we use pellet fertilizer which is made from organic chicken manure.

Electricity & Fossil Fuels

At the beginning we did plow the land to make it level and tackle all the weeds. In 2010 we also rented a weed eater to knock down the weeds, we used 1.6 liters of fuel for that. After that we have not used any machinery to work the land. We stick to the classics: shovel, pick axe, saw, machete and a wheelbarrow.

We did have an electrical pole put in for 3 reasons. 1) music, enough said. 2) light at night in the greenhouse, and 3) for our water pump for irrigation (see below). To date we have used 29 KWh (2009-2011).

Irrigation

Where our farm is in southern Taiwan only late Fall to early Spring is dry. At that time the soil is dry up to 3 feet deep, never more. We built a small irrigation pond (aka the frog tank) and we ran 160m of 2" plastic pipe down the farm. We have a 1hp water pump tha tcan empty the 3000 gallons in about 15 minutes, so the pump is never on more than that. To fill the pond we rely on rain most of the year and use this pond to water isnide the greenhouse. During dry times an irrigation ditch runs by our farm and we suck water out of that, again taking about 15 minutes of pump time.

Weed COntrol

As mentioned above we did plow once and machine cut once. Now, we have invested in black plastic fabric, which doesnt break down in sun well, and have been using this for about 1.5 years now. We are still putting it down everywhere and when finished only the perimeter of the farm will need to be weeded, in which we use machete and hand to do. The amount of plastic we had to buy was unfortunately quite a lot, but we figured long run it is far better environmentally than relying on machines to cut it is physically impossible to beat the weeds on our farm with 1 person hand pulling. In total we ahve purchased 42 rolls that measure 6 feet wide and 100 feet long. We use old bricks and rocks to weigh them down so they dont blow away in a typhoon.

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