As we look to find niches and stack functions in our tropical permaculture homesteads, one often overlooked group of plants include the edible flowers. With a focus on Costa Rica, this blog, authored primarily by Katie Browning, a certified herbalist, explores the many common and uncommon edible flowers available to us in the tropics. Most of these plants fit comfortably within the principles of permaculture and they can be described by the following set of patterns:
Ever have a challenging time finding your favorite plant in Costa Rica? Or wonder where to get supplies for a new greenhouse? What about organic pesticides?
After nearly a decade working in country, our team has compiled a comprehensive list of nurseries, seed banks, botanical gardens, and farm/garden suppliers. In the past we shared this document with students and clients, but with our new website we have the means to make it available to the all the gardeners, landscapers, and farmers in country.
The tropical forest is constantly self mulching. After a walk in the woods I usually return with bits of leaves and twigs caught in my hair. Lying in bed at night, my partner and I often hear branches and even whole trees tumbling toward the great soil food web below. This self mulching is one important piece in the self-renewing fertility cycle of the tropical forest. And of all the functions of the forest that we can seek to mimic, generating and applying our own mulch may be the most important.
