Article suitable for Top Juniors and above

Super-fertile ‘floating gardens’!

14th Sep 2008

Painting of Aztec chinampas (‘floating gardens’)

The famous chinampas (the super-fertile ‘floating gardens’ of the Aztecs) are still only now revealing some of their secrets. Today’s farmers at Xochimilco (‘The place of flowers’) outside Mexico City still farm using ancient methods - incidentally, the construction of chinampas on the lake shore antedated the Aztecs by at least 1,000 years. (Written/compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

Like the Aztecs, they still send their sewage into the canals, yet the water doesn’t stink nor does it carry diseases, as we might expect. How come? Researchers have found a unique bacterium living in the sludge at the bottom of the canals which makes it an excellent composter, treating - and neutralising - the sewage organically (and speedily) as it converts it into nutrient-rich fertiliser. With its help, the Aztecs created ‘one of the most productive farming systems ever known’.

Davíd Carrasco explains a little more:-
Chinampas (derived from Nahuatl meaning ‘surrounded by rushes’) are plots of soil raised up on lake beds or freshwater swamps and shaped into long rectangular islets reinforced by rushes, branches, logs, and other organic materials. The porosity of the soil and the continual flow of water through the narrow canals insured constant fertilisation of the soils and plants, and created an environment filled with aquatic birds, fish, insects, algae, and frogs (from The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction).

Find out more in New Scientist magazine (April 10th. 2004, pp. 50-51, ‘Histories’). The text of the article can be enlarged from these scans - if you’re a NS subscriber you can follow the link to the original issue...

Photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore of an oil painting by José Muro Pico, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.

Guess...

...what was the first native word the Spanish learned when they arrived in the Americas?

Find out

An ode to the chinampa (Aztec limerick no. 5):-
All that food from the fertile chinampa
Fed a third of the city. Magic! ¡Trampa!
Sustainable farming
(Then and now we find charming)
Seven harvests a year, each a bumper.

“Why did they call them ‘chinampas’?”New Scientist back issues page Learn about the Aztecs’ advanced waste management system...

Comments (12)

Shelly Sue Howell

14th Nov 2022

Were the chinampas an open invitation to snakes?

Mexicolore

Yes! Prof Carrasco should have added (small) snakes to his list of wildlife in the chinampas...

Tecpatl

29th Dec 2019

I read it on the blog of Zoe Saadia. I later researched her on facebook, and naturally, I asked her that same question. She said that the chinampas were secured at the bottom of the lake but could be removed. That is a fascinting detail I did not know. Zoe said my comment made her think she should dedicate an entire article to those floating fields.

Mexicolore

Interesting! Warwick Bray has written ‘There is a persistent story, which was current as early as 1590, that some of the chinampas were floating rafts which could be towed from one part of the lake to another, but it is clear that most of them were of the permanent, non-floating type like the ones in use today...’

Tecpatl

17th Dec 2019

I’m just wondering, how did the Mexica float a chinampa all the way to Atzcapotzalco to please their Tepanec lords?

Mexicolore

Interesting! Where did you hear of this...?!

Sue

20th Apr 2014

antedated? Do you mean pre-dated?

Mexicolore

Both terms are in the English dictionary we have on our shelf...

BACON

19th Mar 2014

helped alot thanks

BACON

19th Mar 2014

this an awesome website

madi

17th Mar 2014

really like how you can get the text bigger or smaller! Can’t see very well and this helps a lot!

madi

17th Mar 2014

This helped a lot, thank you!

Hannah

17th Mar 2014

great source

Mia

22nd May 2011

I love this! This is a brilliant page- not forgetting the website. Love it!

Sakura

11th Nov 2008

I love this site, and it is very helpful. However, I now need it to write a bibliography. Can you please post when this article was written, and the author? Thanks.

Mexicolore

Thanks, Sakura! This particular page was written in 2004, by me, Ian Mursell (of the Mexicolore team). Hope this helps.

Brittany

24th Oct 2008

Floating gardens don’t really float. They are held down by poles or Willow tree roots.

Mexicolore

Absolutely right, Brittany! Thanks for writing in on this.

Painting of Aztec chinampas (‘floating gardens’)