Strawberry-tree berry picking

The strawberry-tree berries become ripe, from green, to yellow, to orange, to red, and ready for picking not all at once in the same tree. Harvest starts in September and fruits ripen progressively until December. They are beautiful trees full of fruits.

This berries have a growth-maturing cycle that lasts for about 8 months - from January-March until September-December. Once red they are the sweetest thing, that make you dizzy if you eat just enough ...

Besides the berry yield, these trees prunings/leaves are loved by goats. Useful for feeding goats during rainy winter days. They recover very well from pruning and coppice or pollared. The wood is red and hard, a very good for firewood and char and for stakes or poles, to hold the grapevines for instance.

The multi-functional fireplace - making char, heating, cooking, mineralizing

System of Crop Intensification - in Chao Sobral

 

 http://independentsciencenews.org/un-sustainable-farming/how-millions-of-farmers-are-advancing-agriculture-for-themselves/

SRI methodology is based on four main principles that interact in synergistic ways:

• Establish healthy plants early and carefully, nurturing their root potential.
• Reduce plant populations, giving each plant more room to grow above and below ground and room to capture sunlight and obtain nutrients.
• Enrich the soil with organic matter, keeping it well-aerated to support better growth of roots and more aerobic soil biota.
• Apply water purposefully in ways that favor plant-root and soil-microbial growth, avoiding flooded (anaerobic) soil conditions.

Picture above: preparing the growing bed terrace, a fitness-socializing-aerate-addmanure-soil-massage.

 Pictures above: careful&socializing weeding and aerating the soil around the maize plants, using small hoe tool.

 Picture above: a few weeks after seeding - 0,4-0,6 mt wide per 4 mts long, sunken beds on countour - fish-bone irrigation pattern. Growing warm-dry season flood irrigated crops - pumpkin, maize, kidney-beans, sunflower, on sloped ground in Chão Sobral.