The history of the Micro Farm
THE MICRO FERME DU BOURBONNAIS
The beginning !
June 2020 the project saw the light of day and materialized with the creation of the micro-farm in Bourbonnais (very complicated in the midst of a pandemic)
The micro-farm has been carefully designed using permaculture methods for (design).
The different cultivation methods are market gardening on living soil, the intensive organic method, agroforestry and natural agriculture.
Then came the time for the complete transformation of this land to become what it is today a place of life in perpetual evolution where biodiversity has the leisure to express itself and for me and my partner the pleasure of discovering every day this life which explodes everywhere in the garden. As well as admiring the return of this biodiversity.
Why a closed microphone?
The desire for a micro farm comes from afar, from my roots, and from my relationship with nature since my earliest childhood. For me The creation of the Micro ferme on this virgin land was obvious!
Perma WHAT ??? what is permaculture?
permaculture is the use of ecological principles and traditional knowledge to reproduce a natural ecosystem.
Each element on the micro farm has several functions example:
the indian runner duck
1- regulate my population of slugs and snails
2-its droppings fines the ground
3- the duck lays up to 200 eggs per year
4-he spends his day chasing small insects when-he's done with slugs
Permaculture is a reproduction of what nature has been doing since the dawn of time: living beings, animals and plants, live there in equilibrium; the soil is nourished by plants which grow there and then die there; large plants protect the most fragile from the wind and the scorching sun; plants are adapted to the soil and climate.
I act a bit like a conductor: I watch over the general harmony but let each instrument play its score.
My permaculture garden represents an almost autonomous ecosystem, I let nature take its course instead of going against it. I use natural interactions to allow me to find a balance with biodiversity and the natural cycle of organic matter.
So I embarked on the adventure with the desire to testify, to demonstrate rather than to speak. I wish to do something useful on my scale like the stone hummingbird rabhi!
An Amerindian legend, told by Pierre Rabhi , its founder:
-One day, says the legend, there was a huge forest fire. All terrified animals, aghast, watched helplessly disaster. Only the little hummingbird was bustling about, fetching a few drops with its beak to throw them on the fire. After a while, the armadillo, annoyed by this derisory agitation, said to him: "Hummingbird! Are you not crazy? It is not with these drops of water that you are going to put out the fire!"
And the hummingbird replied, "I know it, but I'm doing my part."
Market gardening (method)
Bio-intensive cultivation on a small area is a method inspired by Parisian market gardeners at the turn of the century and brought to the front page by Eliot Coleman and JM Fortier, author of Le Jardinier-Maraîcher.
And pests!
As soon as a beast, whatever it is, is used in crops, they immediately want to classify it in the "harmful" category And if we were talking about undesirable rather than harmful ... regulate rather than totally eradicate the beast in question from your land!
In my opinion, it is all the flora and fauna that forms the balance of your vegetable garden. My role as a gardener is precisely to understand all of these fascinating mechanisms, to promote them in order to protect the crops in places naturally and for that you have to have auxiliaries in your garden and to bring them in you have to offer them the room and board and thus you will get BALANCE in your system.
In summary:
Market gardening on a small area, permaculture, market gardening on living soil, agroforestry, intensive organic market gardening, natural agriculture, biological control, biodiversity, traditional method…. it's a bit of all that the Micro ferme du Bourbonnais.
I hope that this will have allowed you to discover my micro farm.
The wisdom of the earth is a total complicity between man and his environment.
(pierre_ jakez Helias)