Not everything growing here in Badass Fruiterrarist Land is food, but the #AmazonRainforest is full of very interesting trees! Couroupita guianensis, the cannonball tree, has big and showy #flowers that are produced on stalks that emerge directly from the trunk. Each flower is open for just one day before falling to the ground below and breaking apart into a beautiful mess of pinkish-red petals. The fruits are allegedly edible if harvested at exactly the right stage, but we did not dare to partake. The #fruit pulp also has supposed medicinal value as a topical wound treatment to prevent infections, but we have not tried using it for that purpose. The hard shell of the fruit, properly cleaned and dried, can be used as a bowl-shaped container, and though it deforms a bit when dried, it holds up pretty well! We've started using it as the "cannonbowl" to hold our near-daily harvests of ají and naranjilla.

(Apparently mice don't like the smell of the ripe fruit. They stayed out of the house once we brought this thing inside!)

https://amazonrestore.codeberg.page/badass-fruiterrarist-land/

#Amazon #rainforest #jungle #Amazonia
#GrowYourOwn #TreesNotGrass
#BloomScrolling #SolarpunkSunday

Theobroma cacao is an understory tree native to the #Amazon #rainforest where it grows and fruits in the dappled shade cast by ice-cream beans and other canopy trees. The cacao's showy pink flowers feed bees and other native pollinators, and the #cacao fruit is sweet and sour with a very pleasant and refreshing flavour. Any #FoodForest in #Amazonia could get a boost of biodiversity benefits by including some cacao.

However, in #ecuador and many places throughout the tropics, commercial farms slash and burn the #jungle and plant huge monocultures of cacao in order to maximise profits. These monocultures open up the landscape to invasion by grass and other noxious weeds and leave the cacao trees highly susceptible to infections — problems that the growers control with toxic chemical fumigants that poison the soil and water, so the plantations are almost completely devoid of animal life.

Immediately after destroying the rainforest, people often grow maize first and sell it locally, then "convert existing agricultural land" to cacao plantation or cattle pasture and market their product as "deforestation-free" or other labels that command a premium in foreign markets. Do not fall for it. If you do not #GrowYourOwn then the #chocolate bar or hot #cocoa that you consume is most likely a product of #deforestation in the #AmazonRainforest or elsewhere.

Badass Fruiterrarist Land is a #reforestation effort reclaiming the lands cleared for cacao plantations and cattle pasture and transforming them into diverse and abundant #FruitForest in order to restore a functional ecosystem while also securing #FoodFreedom for the badass fruiterrarists who live here and protecting the habitat of the native animals from further destruction.

(In the meantime, we have a lot of cacao available to eat.)

https://amazonrestore.codeberg.page/badass-fruiterrarist-land/

#veganarchist #veganarchism
#fruiterrarist #fruiterrarism
#vegantravel #volunteer #LandForSale
#SolarpunkSunday #TreesNotGrass

Finca Del Soul is the home of a developing #FoodForest with several trees producing fruit now and many more growing and starting to flower and fruit. We're watching the #Amazon #rainforest being destroyed all around us while we're planting and restoring this land, and we invite people who are conscious about the #deforestation (and environmental devastation in general) to #volunteer here and help with the #reforestation efforts.

https://amazonrestore.codeberg.page/volunteer/finca-del-soul/

#veganarchist #veganarchism #vegantravel
#fruiterrarist #fruiterrarism
#gardening #FruitForest #GrowYourOwn
#ecuador #Amazonia #AmazonRainforest #jungle
#SolarpunkSunday #TreesNotGrass

Would anyone like to help us stop this #deforestation ?

https://amazonrestore.codeberg.page/badass-fruiterrarist-land/

#naturephotography #rainforest #jungle
#Amazon #Amazonia #AmazonRainforest
#ecuador #reforestation #conservation
#LandForSale #TreesNotGrass
#SolarpunkSunday ...?

Flowers from the Finca

At Finca Del Soul, we're tearing up the tools of tyranny and turning inhospitable invasives into beautiful blooming #biodiversity one plant at a time.

From cattle pasture and grass-infested coffee plantation, we re-beautify this land into a functional ecosystem with the end goal of meeting the needs of all who inhabit it. As our neighbours continue to destroy this amazing #Amazon #rainforest landscape around us, #bees #butterflies #hummingbirds and other #pollinators find refuge among the #flowers and fruits of our labour.

These flowers not only provide for the animals who are displaced by the expansion of grassland and monoculture plantations; their vibrant colours brighten our days and remind us that what we do here is making a difference, however small it may seem at times.

In an age when nature is increasingly under siege, protecting wild and free places is the ultimate form of disobedience. Cultivating beauty has become an act of protest. For us, flowers are just the beginning, a sign of what is to come: a thriving #FoodForest and a radical abundance of fruit.

We welcome you to visit our website for more information about what we do here and how to join us here as a #volunteer or start your own #reforestation project as our newest neighbour.

https://amazonrestore.codeberg.page/volunteer/finca-del-soul/

#veganarchist #veganarchism #vegantravel
#fruiterrarist #fruiterrarism
#GrowYourOwn #gardening #fruitforest
#naturephotography #orchid #heliconia
#passiflora #plumeria #lantana
#BloomScrolling #SolarpunkSunday #TreesNotGrass