Pekarangan - the Javanese Home Garden

Hola!

Thanks to the advice of my good friend Erik, I have been reading about the Pekarangan, the Javanese home garden.

I have found many 5 or 6 links like these one, explaining the concept

Pekarangan

But nothing going deeper into the setup. The concept is a food forest including annuals. Or, the way I see it better, including trees in your “permaculture zone 1”

Why do I find this important? Because the summer that we’ve had in my town has been crazy. Super hot and wet mediterranean. So most of my kitchen garden couldnt deal with it, wich was devastating.

I started to think and read about wether planting vegetables under the tree rows, or creating a new vegetable garden with intentionally planted trees. And thought I was crazy. Also, I have an area just outside of my kitchen where I have a citrus plot, and we are thinking in clearing it a bit and plan the vegetable garden there, and not where it is now (why now is far? Cause in this farm there are two houses and the location was closer to the other house)

But I am looking more and more in Internet and I do find only some academic text, wich give me ideas, but not any step by step or something alike. If I dont find anything I will just plant somehow in the citrus area, trying to interpret the concept my way.

But maybe some of you have tried this system, or know some interesting read, so I will not go gungho.

Sun this year has been deadly, so I am looking for inspiration in systems where annuals and trees are mixed, so the annuals could benefit of the microclimate. What we had this year has been totally crazy, and it is going to be worse every year. I need to run through the intersection between kitchen garden and food forest, wich have good examples in pekarangan or milpa, but not lot of materials to read

I have not visited your link.

Though I feel you are on the right track with a Pekarangan.

I thought maybe I did not know the Food Forest rules because I have always given the advice to plant annuals.

So I ask Mr. Google who gave me these:

Annual vegetables can be a great way to improve your harvests during the first few years of your food forest

https://www.growingwithnature.org/why-you-should-plant-a-food-forest/

Forests Are Our Teachers ...

Depending on your layout, you can also add annual veggie production to this.

https://permacultureapprentice.com/creating-a-food-forest-step-by-step-guide/

Thanks for sharing!

Anne Miller wrote:I have not visited your link.

Though I feel you are on the right track with a Pekarangan.

I thought maybe I did not know the Food Forest rules because I have always given the advice to plant annuals.

So I ask Mr. Google who gave me these:

Annual vegetables can be a great way to improve your harvests during the first few years of your food forest

https://www.growingwithnature.org/why-you-should-plant-a-food-forest/

Forests Are Our Teachers ...

Depending on your layout, you can also add annual veggie production to this.

https://permacultureapprentice.com/creating-a-food-forest-step-by-step-guide/

Thanks for sharing!

Hola Anne!

All that I read about this says one of this

A) Zone 1 is for kitchen garden, no trees

B) Plant vegetables and trees only on the first years

The interesting thing about this, as I am reading, is that it is a permanent setup with trees and annuals. Not for the first years, but forever.

What I am wondering is, in places with heavy sun like mine, if there is sunlight that goes beneath the leaves (or, if we have many deciduous trees) can be a smart setup. Or maybe it is all crazy nonsense, having your kitchen garden with trees like… forever

But this year the summer has been so hot that it is worthy to try it out