Yeah, we probably live in two exact weather opposites!. Even though you won't be having a bonsai of a carrot, maybe it can help you to think of stronger roots or at least how to help them in case of an emergency or special care for one of your babies. I have the same problems with the draining, but not for the same reason. What I learned in another steemit post was that my soil, being too much clayish absorbs way too much heat, and that results in my soil becoming a hard brick of dirt, and that really damages my plants and their roots. It's also very difficult for me to find good products to add to my soil, like coco coir or perlite I think is its name. One of my goals now is to make my own vermicompost, and to crush several dry coconuts which I can find but the hardest part is to find someone else's machine to shred them for me. I always end up doing it with a butcher's knife lol. But the truly amazing part about my learning was to find that even though the weather around here is so heavy because of the heat, I could find an improvement in my gardens and now I can aim at bigger goals, like growing lots of food and without having the winter to make me speed my times like you said. I'm always aware of that, and the only reason why my plants are growing that fast is because of the sun being to close to this geographic zone all year long. I have to move as much plants as I can at least three times a year, to find shade and to translate the sun radiation into actual growth in the plants and their cycles, if I don't many plants die in just a lunch break at noon, I've had several losses in just one morning of venezuelan sun. It's also very challenging for me to be able to see many of your plants which I "couldn't" grow here, many people for years before this telling me that I wouldn't grow anything because of the weather. So, I'm not only excelling at that, but also I'm happy for being the first person here in a long time who can be a pioneer in growing flowers and food that currently can only be imported or brought from very far towns! I know I'm learning a lot, and posts like these only make want to be better and to try to know people like you, maybe we don't share the same road, but the community and its future looks very promising! Thank you a lot for taking the time to check this out! The goal is to have fun and I'm very happy to do what so many don't want to! Now I know I'm crazy but never alone lol ! Thanks and good luck in winter! How much is it going to last?
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
We probably have another month and a half of frost to be careful of.
Can I make a suggestion? You probably already know, but you can try growing plants with some tall palm-like leaves to help give some dappled shade. Put them into pots, and move them to wherever you in-ground vegetables are growing. That way your vegetables don't get scorched, or have to be moved. I always liked plants like Yucca for their snaking trunks and long spiky leaves. There are many hardy palm varieties that probably grow easy in your area. I sort of do this same strategy by using my big leafy bonsai trees to help shade some of the flowers I grow that don't like direct sun all day.
Making your own coir sounds like a lot of work? Do they have any aquaponic or animal feed stores in your area? Or even a home depot or Lowe's? I can usually buy a block of coir for $10 USD, but sometimes stores run out or don't carry it, so I sometimes ask if they will order it for me. I do not use coco fiber for my older bonsai trees inside the soil, only as a winter top mulch.
In your case, maybe adding a wet mulch like that would help cool down the clay inside the soil. Small pine bark could give you the same effect, and look better for bonsai, but they probably don't have pine trees as a resource in your area.
We try to only use akadama clay, from a volcano, because it has a unique porous quality that channels roots into smaller and smaller divisions, rather than the plate-like clay that is more cheaply available. The theory, as I understand, when combined with lava rock, there are pockets holes for the water, air, roots, and clay to hide from the sun's light and heat.
Having the clay cake together and then baking in the sun sounds like a bad recipe for cooked tree roots. I try to use the best soil mix possible for my trees, but it sounds like that is harder to acquire in your area. I would probably move my trees to a covered shaded area if I noticed leaves and soil drying after watering a few hours ago. Cooked steamed roots can kill a tree just as much as baking clay. Maybe use taller trees to provide some umbrella shade, like I suggested for your veggies. It will bring the temperature down to form a new micro-climate zone in your yard.
Exactly! I was not only thinking about that a couple weeks ago, to use taller plants as a roof or at least take some of the direct sun from the medium and little ones, but the idea of turning an arid zone into a new microclimate is what I was trying to explain as my new acquired talent over here. Even to move them around in pots is something I was planning not too long ago. The main problem is that of resources. Like I said, there are ways to find nice palm trees or the coco coir already treated to prevent bad fungus, but they aren't anywhere near, and aren't any cheap either. There are food growers but most of them only plant papaya (nice one for taking light and heat), watermelons, cantaloupes, and squash too. In some areas you can find plantain and bananas, but it's not that common now because of problems with the water supply. Most people would suggest not to grow anything in the entire peninsula I live in, cause even being surrounded by sea, the companies around aren't capable to have a nice water supply system for the population, (don't get me started with the government lol) but the fact is that what I'm doing here you can count with your hand the other ones doing the same thing. For me to buy a decent size palm tree it would mean to spend almost an entire month of my income. That's why I decided to grow them in the first place, to be able to sell them to hotels, malls and even larger areas. I had a couple of them but like I said, even those that you would say can take the direct sunlight really cannot. The sunlight here can kill anything without a proper watering. How did I solve that?? Easy, I used greenhouse theory to always try to manage humidity in the area, because it isn't just the shade that you need, it's also to transform the soil and that everything can be put together without interrupting the micro-system needs, that means temperature and soil as well. I'm currently using different combinations of plants to turn the soil into a more healthy and less clay to bake, using also grass to maintain the humidity, because mulching isn't enough. One more thing that I considered as I thought about moving the taller trees around in pots was what I call the "sunlight's redirection or redistribution", it means that if I have let's say 50 plants in a zone and I still feel like there's more light or heat than they can handle, I put more resistant plants into the area so they help not only with their shadow, but abosrbing and transforming the heat into cooler winds. My main experiment consists in how trees have that ability to cool down an area. It's not just about shadow, they serve as a water plant that builds oxygen into the air, making it cooler as the water moves around and even within the plant itself (Most oxygen is vapor made by the heat to the soil, not within the plant). Many can turn any pollution into cool and less contaminated air to breathe, and if they create that of a cycle, that means that the winds are kind of regulated by the humidity that the sun and the trees make happen. So I learned not to use only the "roof technique" but to involve also air, water and earth, including rocks and even animals, of course, to the micro-climate. Every ecosystem interacts and manages the weather more than we think. We also have the power to do so. And that is what I'm trying to accomplish not only in my region, but in a more promising scenario, in which I can put all of my work into new projects. My yard can do fine, but the entire town and country is falling apart, and this is because most of the population still don't understand that we need to be involved in our development as communities, as people in order to survive any crisis. It's very hard to try to help others when you hardly can do so little, and that is what you can hear most people here say. But I'm not going to be one of those. I'm sure that I can set a great example, and we are proof of that! I'm aware of the many accomplishments that working with the environment has, and I'm confident that there is a way to restore this climate at least to a point in which one can look at a healthy land instead of a desertic abandoned town!