26d (edited) • General discussion
Chinampas
I’m in Mexico for a few days and today we visited the chinampas in Xochimilco. Chinampas are basically man made islands that are created by layering the lake’s mud with grass and twigs, building many layers on top of each other, similar to what we call lasagna gardens, chinampas are some of the most productive garden systems on earth. It’s so impressive to see the huge size of these chinampas, built hundreds of years ago, standing in the middle of the city. In the picture, I’m standing on a chinampa, holding a cube of the most beautiful soil where we planted three sunflower seeds, as a ritual for the native people here, we plant one seed for ourselves, one for Mother Earth and one for the “thief” or someone in need.
This is a very special place if you are ever in Mexico City make sure to visit it. Mexico City is huge and at some point is was an extension of chinampas and channels to navigate.
Taking this concepts back into our region, it makes me think about how we can work with our landscape and utilize key line or swales on contour to slow and spread water through our landscape, even in small backyards, and create very productive growing systems, think of rain gardens, food forests, syntropic agriculture. This is how we apply regenerative agriculture and ecological design.
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Chinampas
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