A family visit packs in some amazing wildlife and sun!

In January, we had a wonderful 9 day visit from my sister and two of her children (9 and 7 years old) who live in China. We packed in a great amount of adventure in between relaxing days on the beach. In addition to taking the opportunity to enjoy some family time, our trip was focused mostly on one thing - the beautiful natural environment here - full of incredible plant and animal life as well as pristine beaches.  Oh, and also trying a selection of the diverse and tasty foods of the country - largely focused on fruits and juices :) but we also enjoyed many a curry and quite a lot of roti (flat fried bread)! The twelve juices the kids tried were wood apple, mango, papaya, passion fruit, soursop, pineapple, mixed fruit, guava, banana, lime, lemon, and King Coconut water. A pretty impressive array! After an early morning arrival at the airport, we went directly to the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage. This was pretty exceptional for the children and for us too. We saw "baby" elephants being fed milk (they were still huge!) We fed baby and full sized elephants lots of fruit; and we saw all the elephants of the orphanage taking their daily bath in the river. Getting to touch an elephant is pretty special and Audriana was really taken with one of the baby elephants in particular.

Elephants bathing in the river at Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage

Is that baby elephant trying to eat Audriana?

  From there, we headed to the field station at Sinharaja. We arrived pretty late - having to cross our little bridge in the dark and at the field station, we found ourselves in the familiar circumstance of arriving to a power black-out. The normally super peaceful surroundings were a little tainted by the loud noise and fumes of our generator and after an incredibly exhausting day of travel, everyone was ready for bed anyway. In fact, the children fell asleep at the dinner table!

Audriana sucks the nectar from a flower

The next morning, we were pleasantly awakened to the musical cadence of the rainforest and progressed through our day inspecting its wonders. We went swimming in the river and walked upriver exploring what lies around each bend. We went bouldering over rocks and along slopes to find a bat cave tucked in among them. We watered the plants in our nursery and drank the water of several delicious coconuts. We saw many monkeys, birds, and lizards. Along the way, Audriana and Joseph made a new friend in our neighbor's son, Tarindu and they enjoyed exploring and playing together. Tarindu showed them how to suck the nectar from an edible katuru murunga flower, which tastes a lot like a honeysuckle and to drink the water from a pitcher plant before the top covering has opened (also before it has eaten any bugs). In addition to these natural edibles, the children were mostly pleased to eat he Sri Lanka  curries our cook prepared (not spicy for their sake) and especially the vast selection of fruit we procured. 

Joseph and Audriana with pitcher plants to drink

                 

We're ready for a day of jungle adventures!

The following day, we walked to town and into the Sinharaja Forest Reserve. It was a difficult journey for the children. Even though it was all downhill, it takes about an hour to arrive at the main gate from our place and the sun was pretty intense. Once in the park though, our attention was on the forest and it also provided nice cover from the sun. A guide from the park joined us and he pointed out snakes, lizards, frogs, bugs, and birds that we probably would have missed otherwise. It was a rewarding and exhausting day in the jungle.  Joseph's favorite part was when a wild chicken (Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl) wandered onto our path and once we felt thoroughly finished admiring his beauty, he proceeded to follow us up the path for quite some time!  

A Sri Lankan Kangaroo Lizard - a real jumper!

 

Our friend, the wali kukula (wild chicken)

Tarindu admires fungi we found in the rainforest

A pit viper at Sinharaja! Careful - they are deadly!

We saw and heard lots of purple-faced langur monkeys!

Calotes calotes is not very shy and common, so we got close!

Calotes calotes makes his head red for breeding.

 

 From Sinharaja, we proceeded to the southern coast to spend a few days relaxing and enjoying the pristine and calm waters of Mirissa Beach. Our journey was delayed when our driver's van had transmission problems and we had to arrange for a different ride, but upon arrival, the waters washed away any concerns and we had a fantastic time bobbing in the waves. The kids found body surfing the tiny beach crashes thrilling as well. Our hotel had beautiful gardens and a few exciting animals that visited too - a monkey we got to touch, a peacock, a monitor lizard, and some birds, squirrels, and a chipmunk... we don't advocate the taming of wildlife, but still it was exciting to see these animals up close.        

The kids enjoy the beautiful and calm waters of Mirissa beach

The ocean is so exciting! Yay!

Joseph and Audriana "body surfing"

The green garden guest home in Mirissa

a monitor lizard wanders nearby the hotel

What a unique experience- petting a monkey!

We took a day trip to visit a sea turtle conservation center and the Old Dutch Fortress of Galle. The kids loved the turtles - 3 species were represented and included eggs, fresh hatchlings and older injured turtles. Galle was a welcome opportunity to enjoy a different built environment (more European) and some delicious western food and coffee.

 

 

We even squeezed in a local bus ride!

Vikki and kids at the Galle lighthouse

Boats along the harbor in Galle Fort

Laura and Logan at Galle

Next, we travelled east to the dry zone for a safari in Yala National Park. We arrived in the evening to a beautiful remote hotel, where we were treated to mango juices, a delicious dinner, and the entertainment of a huge number of Indian Flying Fox and smaller fruit bats feasting on the abundance of mangos in a nearby tree. It was too dark for pictures, but trust me that it was amazing and a very memorable experience to see these giant flying bats entering and departing the tree, dropping mango remains as they went. The next morning, we woke up at 5 AM and set out to the Park to see animals in the morning when they are more active. We stayed about 5 hours and certainly saw a lot! We were very lucky to see a leopard sleeping in a tree through binoculars and as I was looking, I also saw it's mate walk by! Two leopards! Additionally, we saw an elephant, water buffalo, jackals, mongoose, spotted deer, land monitor lizard, marsh crocodiles, black faced langur monkeys, blue Indian peafowl (peacocks), jack rabbit, and many other. birds including the little green bee eater, blue-tailed bee eater, cattle egret, Sri Lankan jungle fowl, spoonbill, red-wattled lapwing, crow, pelican, and painted stork. That was all at Yala and not even covering the many more types of birds we saw at Sinharaja and in other areas.

 

Water buffalo and egrets

A male Sri Lankan elephant

Peacocks we're all around!

Up close with the spotted deer

A jackal dashing into the brush

Who would have thought it possible to take a selfie with a wild boar?

Tired from so much adventuring, we decided to spend our final day back at the beach before heading back to Colombo and the airport. Our final full day in Sri Lanka was also Joseph's 8th birthday, so we celebrated with a selection of cakes and he got a few Sri Lankan wildlife books to take home. 

 

An 8th birthday to remember!

Joseph takes interest in the animals we saw on our trip

A small vegetable patch!

This entry written by Logan Sander on January 26, 2017

            We’ve made several significant improvements to the field station’s land since our last update. Key among them – we’ve begun planting out specimens from our nursery!

            Faced with burgeoning stocks of plants that were rapidly outgrowing their polybags (mostly ornamental flowers and edible bean crops we grew from seeds), we decided that we needed to find a space to grow them to maturity. We still haven’t completed our designs for the overall homegarden, but these are mostly fast-growing plants that can grow near the house (on land already cleared) and can potentially offer yields before we leave our posts here. 

            The soils immediately surrounding the field station are infertile, droughty sands and “rotten” bedrock that was exposed during the initial construction. Before the field station was built, these soils would have been several meters below grade – in the humid tropics, this usually means they are extremely low in nutrients. Still, several opportunities presented themselves – the site was flat, easy to access (literally, right out the door), and relatively rich topsoil can be found in abundance 20 meters away in the fallowed fernland. We marked off an area and got to work making a “raised bed."

Laura laid out the plants that would go in the bed and started planting

Our “ vegetable garden” is about 4 x 6m in extent, up against the escarpment that was excavated around the field station. We built a perimeter wall by staking in kitul palm boards and filled the area 6” deep with topsoil (kalu pas, or “black soil”). Against the escarpment, we built wooden trellises of a tree species that may root and continue to grow, creating a living structure on which to grow climbing beans. We needed to protect this area from wild boars, as much of what we hope to plant is the boar’s favored food including kiri alla or taro and manyoka or yucca (as we’ve already learned in the nursery…).  On one side of the field station this was already taken care of: the escarpments leading to the field station are likely too steep for boar to descend (we hope…). On the other sides we simply extended the walls of the field station with 1m-high fences, creating a narrow protected zone around the field station.

The south side fence with the vegetable bed  and trellis behind it. On the right, you see a removable entry gate.

The new fence on the northside of the field station. Eventually, there will be lots of plants over here too!

Into our over-sized garden bed we planted an assortment of plants gathered from Pitikele’s homegardens – mostly early-successional food plants with relatively short-life cycles. Interestingly, many of these plants are “annuals” in temperate areas, while in the tropics they can live several years as perennials. In addition to the following species, we intend to plant manioc, a few bananas, and other food plants that require defending from the wild boars.

Homegarden plants of the “patio’s” initial planting (Sinhala name; English name; scientific name):

kiri alla (taro, Colocasia esculenta)

demas alla (coco yam, Xanthosoma sagittifolium)

Singhamoku Ornamental Flower

makeral (climbing bean)

cowpi (black-eyed pea)

bonchi (climbing bean)

dambala (winged bean, Psophocarpus tetragonolous)

das mal (marigold, Tagetes erecta)

gas lunu (ornamental bulb flower)

battala (sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas)

begonia (Begonia spp.)

gota kola (Centella asiatica)

gam miris (black pepper, Piper nigrum)

goda manil (ornamental bulb flower)

Japan rose (ornamental flower)

kudelo mal (Impatiens spp.)

akapana (Kalanchoe pinnata)

miris (chili pepper, Capsicum spp.)

takkali (tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum)

tibbatu (Solanum violaceum)

parabombatu (eggplant, Solanum spp.)

singhamoku (ornamental flower)

This is a little map Laura created of where she planted each plant and which ones are where.

The garden bed with mulch added. This bed gets a lot of sunlight, especially in the front.

This protected gardening area provides several opportunities for us to improve our homegarden project. As already mentioned, we can create long-term planting sites for those plants that require protecting. Also, this gardening site’s proximity to the field station makes it valuable for higher maintenance plants. This includes those in need of frequent watering (believe it or not, we just had over three-weeks with no appreciable rainfall) or harvest. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, growing plants right outside our door gives us the opportunity to observe and learn from them before we greatly expand the project. 

In fact, just one day after we planted this garden bed, I observed that a kudelo mal (Impatiens spp.) plant had several leaves curled up or chewed apart. This morning, I noticed that all the leaves on the plant were either consumed or curled up. Fine silky webs sprinkled with copious amounts insect larvae frass (aka poop) encircled the few remaining leaves. As I inspected the plant, Tillekaratne walked up and explained that the problems were a result of “worms.” He pulled apart one of the leaves and out popped a wriggling green caterpillar. As we’ve been told many times before, we needed to apply ash to these plants to prevent worms. Lesson learned!

The green caterpillar culprit

This is one of the more satisfying developments in our project to date. Our frequent admiration and inspection of the garden ensures that it will be watered, every inch of ground will remain mulched and any destructive factors will be promptly mitigated. This garden bed benefits both from its proximity to our dwelling (and the aforementioned benefits this entails) and its novelty as our first significant planting effort. Soon we will greatly expand our plantings and our responsibilities will multiply. Until then, these few lucky plants are the show’s main attraction.      

170+ species and a New Year's temple visit

 

Entry by Laura Luttrell with some parts from Blair Rynearson

As of January 7, we have visited and collected plants at 47 local homegardens! In order to facilitate communication we have employed a small number of local friends with varying degrees of English speaking ability throughout this time. It has been very helpful to have someone along that can translate our meanings and ease the flow of conversations, but it is also exciting that our Sinhala has now improved to the point that we are able to ask many of the questions ourselves (but, that’s not to say that we understand all the responses)!

                       

A fairly typical expanding homegarden with young coconuts, flowers, sugar, bananas, and more

We have now been introduced to families all throughout the towns of Kudawa (25-50 minutes walk down the road) and Pitakele (5-25 min down the same road and sometimes into the hills), who now understand that we are learning about homegardens and have a nursery, which we will plant out into our own traditional home garden at the research station. We have asked many questions to learn which species they plant, what they are used for, and how they are grown. Throughout this time, we have found the Sinhalese people to be unfailingly friendly. When they learned that we were interested in how their gardens were planted and managed, this phenomenal trait was amplified. They volunteered hours of their time, walking us through their properties, fielding our questions and offering us tea and produce from their backyards. At times, we would point to a tree with fruit, and they would tell us the name, how it was planted, and give us some fruit to try (it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it). We were then instructed to save the seeds, and were given instructions on how to plant them.  

Logan happily receiving the gift of a young coconut tree

 

Laura was excited to receive more orchids for our garden

       

   

Ayurvedic treatment to help my hand heal

We have learned of many plants used in Ayurvedic medicine including plants for snake bites, healing bones, indigestion, stomach bugs, headaches, eye problems, infections, and much more. Within fifty yards of their house is a well-stocked pharmacy! After much local interest in my broken hand and their unfailing response that I should use Ayurvedic/Sinhalese medicine, I recently went to a local Sinahese doctor and received topical plant treatments to speed its healing and am now applying a muscle relaxing oil he gave me that is aiding me to regain mobility in my pinky finger and hand. Another X-ray proved that the bone has been mended together, but it sounds like one more month until it's completely healed.     Interspersed with the medicine is a complete spice cabinet: turmeric, ginger, cardamom, black pepper, vanilla, chili, garlic and many other plants that add flavor, but with which we are still pretty unfamiliar. And let’s not forget the produce department: yams, sweet potatoes, squash, cucumbers, manioc, beans, various types of curry plants, and salad leaves of a greater diversity than I have seen at any American farmer’s market. Fruits are also plentiful: coconut, mango, avocado, guava, soursop, custard apple, mangosteen, rambutan, jakfruit, breadfruit, lemon, lime, papaya, and more! To top it all off, they even have their own "lumber yard." There are abundant timber species, mostly native, with a few other well-known exotics like mahogany and teak.      

Jakfruit is commonly made into a curry dish

   

We are impressed to find that your average villager can identify hundreds of plant species, their various uses, and how they are grown. Most everyone, it would seem, is a storehouse of intrinsic knowledge. It’s daunting to think that our task is to recreate a traditional home garden designed by what we perceive to be highly specialized horticulturalists and landscape architects. There is much work to be done on trying to learn why, where, and how to plant the hundreds of species that we collect. It has become apparent that six-eight months is too short a time to scratch the surface of understanding the complexity of Sinharaja area home gardens... but try, we will!

Thankfully, the local gardeners are more than happy to support us. They fill our bags with seeds, clippings and bare root seedlings of species that they like and find useful. Logan started asking farmers about their favorite plants, which led to discovering what some villagers find to be their most useful or unusual varieties of common plants. 

                   

A homegarden view from the patio area

    

Ella batu is a small tasty eggplant

After so many interviews in the community and a lot of additional hard work with the plants, our nursery is starting to look impressive. We have amassed over 750 individual plants, and over 170 species, including what we perceive to be the core species of most homegardens and many, many, pretty flowers! Beyond the core species, we have been collecting many interesting and special plants from villagers. Having gathered some of the more unusual species from each family we visit has led to us possibly having the most diverse collection of all! The survival rate of our seedlings has been surprisingly high, mostly we think because the climate here is so perfect for growing tropical plants, but lately, we’d noticed that our seedlings were struggling to adjust to the intense afternoon sun. To give them a break, we installed shade netting over one part of the high fenced area and started moving the seedlings that needed more shade. The survival rate of our plantings is shockingly high. Most samples are collected as bare root seedlings or cuttings that are placed in polybags filled with a mix of organic topsoil and sand. We have followed the lead of knowledgeable locals and used no root hormone or inorganic fertilizer. We only water the plants if it doesn’t rain, which used to be a relatively infrequence occurrence, but lately has been everyday! I guess monsoon season is over... In addition to the seedlings, we have planted 263 polybags with seeds and many of those have germinated, so our nursery is steadily expanding. Next on the agenda is to figure out where to put all these plants! We’ve been talking with villagers about appropriate spacing and growing requirements for many of the plants. Already, we’ve planted a few species directly into the ground, as they weren’t going to make it in a little polybag... (note the large bananas in the fenced area). We also already have a few epiphytes on trees, pineapples out back, and a few flowers along the path. 

The high fenced area with shade cloth applied is housing our root crops and trees

Our unfenced area contains many planted seeds, spices, medicines, and flowers

 

Our "water feature" received a beautiful lotus flower & other water loving plants

On New Year’s Day, we went with our caretaker’s family to a Buddhist temple in a nearby town. We participated in ritual offerings, which included leaving flowers, burning incense, and lighting coconut oil. It was a rewarding cultural experience, despite the inevitable downpour. 

A recently restored Buddha statue  

Laura ready to visit the temple, offering lotus flowers

Logan on the way to the Buddhist temple

Attack of the wild boars, and our response

Written by Logan Sander, December 21, 2016 (edited by Laura)

This past week saw several new developments in our nursery. While the three of us were traveling we received disturbing news from Somaratne and Dr. Singhakumara: wild boars (ura) had ransacked our nursery, eating our banana, coconut and taro seedlings! The true extent of the damage wasn’t as bad as we had feared, and upon our return we were able to salvage several of the plants. Still, this meant we would need to take measures to counteract what had been our chief anxiety about the nursery to this point: wild animals. Coincidentally, the evening we received this news Laura and I had just visited the National Museum in Colombo and its fine exhibit on traditional agriculture and livelihoods. Aside from the obvious solution of fencing in our nursery, we saw a working model of a non-physical deterrent: a “water-ghost.”

The exhibit said that farmers had often used these “water-ghosts” whenever pest animals were eating or destroying crops. To operate, water pours into a piece of bamboo “pipe” until the bamboo’s chambers are filled, at which point its center of gravity shifts and the bamboo swivels downward, dumping its water onto the ground. With this, the center of gravity suddenly shifts again and the bamboo pipe swivels back, rapidly striking a rock. A half-coconut shell is loosely attached to the striking end of the bamboo, creating a high-pitched percussive effect on impact. This sound is supposed to startle and unsettle approaching animals. It’s unclear to me if this would be effective on wild boar, but in addition to a fence it seemed like a fine opportunity to give a water-ghost a try. It would certainly be fun to build and would give us another chance to showcase traditional appropriate technology in our homegarden.      
 

Piping water from our water-tank’s overflow to our nursery

The water-ghost took all of an hour to construct, with Tillekaratne and Somaratne’s help. We piped water from our water tank’s overflow (with our newly- made bamboo pipes) down to our nursery and into the water ghost. Success! Every 4.5 seconds the gentle sounds of birds and insects in our little valley are punctuated with a low-pitched popping sound – something like a whiffleball being struck by a hollow bat - audible from a distance (including the field station) but not at all unpleasant (so far...). Hopefully we read the right placard at the National Museum and this isn’t actually a wild elephant call! 

We chose to divert the stream of water flowing from the water-ghost into a small pond we constructed. We have been having trouble with our water system when we needed to water our plants; the rapid shifts in pressure when we open and close the valve on our water line tends to separate the plastic pipe somewhere up- valley. This can be incredibly inconvenient, as the water pipe is occasionally strung 20 feet above the river! The pond allows us to dip our watering can and avoid the use of the spigot and this dilemma altogether. We conveniently found a deep, pure clay deposit right at the edge of the river where we bathe. We used a few shovel- scoops of the clay to line a hole we dug and built up with rocks and then connected our new piping to fill the pond. So far, the seal appears to be nearly perfect – even with inflow turned off we don’t lose water out of the pond! 

Applying river clay to create a small pond

 

Nepenthes (pitcher-plant) stem used to lash sticks together

Our “water-ghost” and pond

Our other animal deterrent project was to build a fence. This was fairly straightforward: cut and bury posts, nail stringers between the posts and unroll and hang metal fencing. Most of the wood cut for the fence was from small, short-lived early-successional trees. We enclosed one section of the garden with 5’ chain-link fencing; another with 3’ chicken wire; and the final section left unfenced. The plants we know boars and other animals (mostly goona, or wild deer) like to eat go in the tall, chain-link fence. The other plants that show evidence of browsing (apparently from smaller animals) go in the shorter fence. Germinating seeds and unpalatable plants are so far unfenced. To us this seems like an economical and reliable method of making sure our nursery receives minimal damage from the local wildlife. Of course, an elephant would see our fencing as a feeding trough, but elephants are relatively rare in this valley. Locals report that there are two elephants that occasionally come here, but at intervals of a few years... We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we can have the homegarden planted out and established by the time they make the rounds again. Five days later and our nursery is much more secure (actually, a little prison-like), and just a little bit noisier...

Bringing chain-link fencing from the road to the field station

Building the fence. Posts were from fast-growing secondary species cut near the nursery

Wildlife exclosure or plant prison?

 

The completed “tall” fence

Working on the “low” fence

  P.S. It has been brought to our attention by a local researcher that our pond closely resembles a wild boar wallow. Expect updates as to our countermeasures’ efficacy...