What climate zone is Bali?

[Bumbu]

I've been trying to work out what climate zone Bali falls into. I know the obvious answer is tropical, but which of the three topical zones does it fit into? Been looking at the zone map on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_climate but the map's detail is not good enough to make out Bali itself.

I suspect it is probably Tropical Monsoon (judging by the complete drenching we're getting here right now in February!), but as we get quite a distinct wet wet and very dry dry, I'm wondering if it's Tropical Wet/Dry?

Also I've been searching for a planting calendar for this area but the closest I can find online is for Darwin, which is probably not going to be very appropriate species-wise. Even our local permaculture organisation IDEP dont have one for Bali. Has anyone found anything like this that could be useful here?

Thanks,

Bumbu

[Speedy]

Yep,
Tropical Monsoon Climate
Hot/Humid lowland tropics... unless you head for the hills,
and it gets a bit cooler with the altitude

USDA plant hardiness zone ....it's zone 12

I wouldn't worry too much about a calendar to tell you when to plant,
but go by the seasons ...'wet' and 'dry'
tropical veges in the wet
temperate climate and wet sensetive crops (European Brassicas , melons, tomato etc) in the dry.

otherwise plant things year round.
talk to locals as to when the best times for different crops.

[Bumbu]

Thanks Speedy. While I've got you here, do you mind if I put a further question to you and anyone else out there? We have a distinct wet and dry season here, particularly down in the Bukit Peninsula, which is a limestone coast. The wet is extremely wet, and the dry is extremely dry! I am mostly taking ideas from the wet tropics advice and designs in the pc books, but obviously a lot of the arid area advice and designs are relevant too. When designing a family farm for this type of climate, what is a good approach to take? A classic example would be when designing garden beds, should you make them all raised and mounded with good drainage for the wet season, or all sunken, pitted and lined with plastic underneath for the dry season, or a combination of both so that you use the mounded ones in the wet and the pitted ones in the dry? Or is there another way? I'm trying to work out ways to combine the wet and dry designs from the books.

[Speedy]

Is the site on limestone rubble or you have soil there?
Add as much organic matter as you can get, it'll hold moisture in the dry and hold nutrient and lessen leaching in the wet.
you could try a combination of pits and mounds.
garden in the mounds in the wet and kang kong and talas in the pits, then garden in the pits in the dry season.
Pits and mounds will give more options til you work out what's best for your site...and it may change over time as you build the soil.
Do you have subak water?
plant perennials as source of nutrient to harvest for compost etc.
plenty good , complex growing systems in Bali... we talk lots about Permaculture in the 'west' ,
but Balinese (and Indonesians genereally) have been practicing it there for centuries.
lots to learn from locals.

[Bumbu]

Its solid limestone with a little soil on top though rocky in places. No there is no subak water in this area. True, historically Balinese traditional farming methods have been very sustainable, but that's changing rapidly as they are now enthusiastically adopting any new farming "innovation" that is offered to them by the agro shops. I'm sure there is still lots of good stuff going on though amongst the locals, but finding them is the problem. All the farming families i know in my area have long since abandoned their fields to either harvest seaweed for the Japanese cosmetic industry, take hospitality jobs in the tourism industry, or rent/sell their land for housing and villas. As a result the land is being rapidly degraded and eroded.

I am trying to find former farmers who want to go back to their abandoned fields and bring them back to life with organic, sustainable systems, but as I said they're difficult to find. Do you have some experience here in Bali Speedy?

Bumbu

[Pakanohida]

Its solid limestone with a little soil on top though rocky in places. No there is no subak water in this area. True, historically Balinese traditional farming methods have been very sustainable, but that's changing rapidly as they are now enthusiastically adopting any new farming "innovation" that is offered to them by the agro shops.

That's sad to hear, I hope you don't lose farms like India, Argentina, China did, is and are.

[annette]

I went to Ubud in Bali in early nineties and it was really beautiful, terraced farms, individual artisans, craftsman, traditional houses etc. It has gradually changed with the biggy being that book, "Eat, Pray, Love". Haven't read it myself but apparently there is part in there where the herione goes to Ubud and meets a type of tradtiional guru. Well the book was big in the west and ever since the whole place has changed with many westerners buying up farms to build houses and tourist ventures. A friend of mine went there in December and she said it was tourist city and everyone is up for the buck. Of course Kuta and Legion have been that way for a while now. Progress apparently.............

[Speedy]

I've been there for a couple of short visits back in the mid 1990's but not actually lived there.
While there I was quite interested in the land use, plants and traditional ways.

And yes, sad, the loss of traditional ways of farming etc. but those skills and systems come from being dirt poor (relatively in money terms)
and having to make do with what's available, namely gifts from the plant and animal world.
...so the lure of the western dollars via the jobs you mentioned is too good to pass up, who could blame them?

Though it's not right for anyone to tell anyone else how they should live , it can help for the locals hear from outsiders
what a treasure they have in that knowledge and those skills.
While in Bali , I asked older folk about these things and they were always very happy to share knowledge and
that a westerner had taken and interest.

It's the older generation that you'd need to seek out, may even mean going to another locality where more of the trad. systems are still intact.
for a simmilar growing conditions, maybe a trip to the northern parts of the island would give some clues.

Anyway, sounds like a crowbar is gonna be your main gardening tool for a while...
I'm only making sugestions here as I've not seen the site.
you may even find that there are layers of limestone over other material more conducive to growing plats in.
limestone often has fissures and cavities that have been eroded out over time.