I am looking for anyone with insights into ‘Floating Garden’ techniques used around the world. I am looking to compile a publication on some of these practices and need photos and/or direct experience from people working in and around communities using floating gardens, such as those in Inle Lake, Myanmar and the delta communities of Bangladesh. I know these techniques are used outside of Asia as well, such as the ‘chinampas’ in central America. These are photos from a recent visit to Inle lake, Myanmar:
Do you know of the Santi Asoke communities in Thailand? At their community in Ubon Ratchathani, they created rectangular rafts several meters wide and long, made of styrofoam that they somehow joined up, then covered with some material, but I forget now what material that is. They’ve had some pretty impressive successes with these raft gardens. When I lived with them until 2013, they made these gardens as a response to the regular flooding. I don’t know if they’ve maintained these gardens or not.
I heard about chinampas in a permaculture class once, and in about 3-4 hours of dipping my toe into the waters of the internet, I found these resources most helpful. Also learned of the waru-waru. Not a lit review or deep dive, but a place to start, especially hombre de maize’s director’s experiments in Mexican semiarid region. The photos on their site don’t load well in all browsers, might have to try a 2 or 3 to see them.
