Zero inputs

Just hard work. Mostly sub soil because they dug into the mountain. You should never dig into a steep hillside because you could cause a land slide.

Looks really great! I was surprised to see thyme growing so well; I would not have thought it was suited for a more tropical climate. Always good to learn something new.

Shawn Foster wrote:Looks really great! I was surprised to see thyme growing so well; I would not have thought it was suited for a more tropical climate. Always good to learn something new.

I know right I was surprised that the tyme grew too. It has been very much trial and error. In the beginning I planted like 1000 chili peppers, they did quite poorly and I was so sure they would do well.
  The temperature mostly stays below 30°C accept for about 2 or 3 months in spring and the low temperature goes as low as 15°C at night. Peppers like it even hotter I guess.

So we have been running the farm on zero outside inputs for 2 years with no animals on the farm. We decided not to use nitrogen fertilizer urea because our soil is rich in organic matter and urea would allow for faster digestion of that material by soil life. The soil is feeding the plants so we don't need fertilizer. If the soil was lacking OM I would have probably used some localized fertilizer.
We want to keep our soil good so we have a few ways to do that. 1 planting fast growing short term crops together with long term crops in order to get the newly cultivated area filled with plants as quickly as possible. 2 allowing weeds to grow to a substantial size before cutting. This isn't giving a direct profit because we have no animals there yet but any living plant releases root exudates to feed other organisms that work chemically on soil. This improves the structure of the soil. The plant also stores any nutrients that it can absorb, nutrients that would be lost to gasification if the soil were bare. 3 maintaining a mixture of plants. 4 Pruning. In many areas we planted bananas but we let the bushes and trees regrow a few times before changing them out for other crops species. This is important if you don't have enough seed or time to cover everything with cover crops. 5 limited soil disturbance after the initial planting.

Great that you're focusing so much on the soil, particularly organic matter. I hear a lot of complaints from people growing in Florida, that their ecosystem sucks up and digests organic matter in no time. I suspect that tendency it true to some extent in all year-round warm areas.

I believe that David the Good tried biochar - have you considered that?

Keep up the good work!

I believe in adding as much organic matter as possible.

Do you make compost?  Making compost is a great addition to zero inputs.  Putting what you grow back into the system.

Also with compost you can make free fertilizer by making compost tea and adding nitrogen:

https://permies.com/t/187485/permaculture/pee-fertilizer-safely-benefit-permaculture