i thot this might be helpful to some gardens suffering from the sun. it's been a long time since the last dry season and i forgot about shading the plants and or the soil to help keep soil temperatures down and conserve moisture. i spent some time at a garden in hawaii that had hale koa planted as an overstory crop to shade a greens garden. hale koa is similar to malunggay and both are legumes so they will provide filtered lite and some nitrogen. i've been wanting to get a bunch of malunggay growing in our garden to provide some shade but i've not had much success growing malunggay, so short of using shade cloth, i've covered some of the soil with trimmed lokai (palm fronds) placed under the plants. attached is a foto of lokai (palm fronds) placed under some young greens.
This has been the driest season I have been around here...wish it was this way when I was building the house. I have a poly roof and shade cloth to ease the afternoon sun but am still watering the garden 2-3 times a day right now. Everything is dried out around us as well...where I could catch a catfish behind my house is now dry and the cows are working hard to find some vegetation. Fronds sound to be a great, inexpensive option to retain a bit more moisture, not sure mulch is readily available and with termite issues not sure bringing in sawdust would be a good option. Shawn
To Kelp guy and Shawn M ..... I am a new member and interested in gardening and live in Bacong . To retain moisture and reduce soil surface temperature I put Banana leaf triangles on top of seedlings or palm is good as you say also i get big bags of rice husks .. this highly silaceous material does not attract termites and does not readily break down .. making it ideal for this type of mulch. With Malungay/ Moringa , I have planted many stems and all have sprouted ... I just make sure to trim the cut stem , should be about 1 to 1 1/2 meters long and as thick as your forearm at least , then planted in good moisture retaining soil and voila ... sprouts within a week ... i have these remarkable and healthy trees around my perimeter to provide some filtered light especially beneficial at this hot time of year (also is a useful Legume !!) .... hope this is of some use .... PS i have studied and taught Permaculture back in Australia and am very interested in sustainable lifestyles and edible forests
@roodog Roo, If you want to draw attention to members use @ and there name no spaces wait a sec and a drop box will appear. and they will get an alert there is a post that they should read, OK? it will come up as the name you want, if more than one click the one you want. JP
