Surviving a Scorcher - Food Forest Ideas

It has been a scorcher recently with temperatures over 100 degrees for several days in a row. The blaring sun never eased up. To make matters worse, we have had no rain whatsoever. It's starting to look like Fall around here because the trees are turning colors and losing their leaves prematurely. Even the huge native trees are starting to suffer, showing signs of heat stress. It has not been an easy year to grow food.

The Summers in our area have always been kind of unpredictable. Some years we are lucky with temperatures never getting above 100 degrees with plenty of rain. Other years we have over 100 degrees temperature more than 25 days and no rain. The unpredictability makes it more difficult to garden.

Gardening is really about learning and mastering your environment. We have had plenty of frustrations and crop failures in the past. With experience, we have developed a few strategies to help us combat the excessive heat in our area during the Summer.

I will share with you what we do to help us and the crops stay cool and survive the excessive heat & drought.

Crops under the shade tarp are doing great, even in the excessive heat and drought


Crops not covered by shade tarp are not as happy

Shade Tarp

Naturally the first thing that comes to our mind is using shade tarps to shade the crops. Shade tarps also makes it bearable to work in the garden during the day. It creates a micro-climate that has drastic, yet positive effects. Plants suffer tremendously in excessive heat. By shading the crops, you can reduce sunlight intensity and lower the stress. From our observation, most crops do better in this micro-climate and you can reduce watering needs quite a bit.

Mulch or Covering

Mulch helps to retain moisture, limits evaporation, and keeps the root zones cool. Mulching really is one of the most important thing you should do for your garden. Never have visible bare soil, especially around the plants! I use ramial wood chips as mulch in my food forest. The benefits of using ramial wood chips for mulch is, it absorbs & retains moisture and will break down and improve your soil over time. Actually using ramial wood chips is an amazing way to improve the fertility in your soil. You will notice when you start applying ramial wood chips as mulch, overtime as the mulch breaks down, you will get dark, rich fertile soil and your input of compost or even natural fertilizer is required less and less.

Azomite (A to Z Minerals)

Azomite is a natural mineral substance which is mined directly from its Utah desert source. I started using Azomite in my food forest three years ago. Many nutrient elements have been depleted from soils worldwide due to leaching, weathering, and also from decades of continuous agricultural production. Azomite has been reported to replenish these micro-nutrients and important minerals. From my own observations, crops grown with Azomite produce more fruit, larger fruit and have better tasting fruit. So far, in my personal experience, there is an increase in crop growth and yield when Azomite is used. Crops grown with Azomite also are much more drought tolerant and suffer less from heat stress.

Azomite rock dust is a naturally mined volcanic rock composed of over 70 minerals and trace elements that are essential for optimal plant health. The rock formation in Utah from which Azomite is mined was formed when volcanic ash merged with sea water. This mixture of volcanic ash and sea water created a unique source of trace minerals and elements that most soils are void of. Just like humans, plants require many minerals to reach peak health and vigor.s

For over sixty years, livestock and crop producers have utilized Azomite to improve livestock and plant growth. Azomite requires no mixing, is odorless, and will not burn plants. Also, it will not restrict aeration or water penetration. Azomite is not a manufactured, chemically prepared fertilizer. It is 100% natural, OMRI listed, contains no additives, synthetics or fillers. s

Solar Well Pump

We are so fortunate to have one seasonal artesian well on our property and another that has a shallow static water level. Both wells easily allow us to gather water with a drop bucket. The water is very pure, it tested around 20 ppm. These wells are our only water source for the food forest. We have a solar pump on the well behind the house which has a static level of around 12 feet. We use three connected holding tanks as water reservoirs and since there is a 8-10 foot elevation drop to the garden, water is gravity fed into it. We trenched a 1 1/2" pvc line to the garden and connected a few spigots in three different areas. Water hoses can be connected to the faucets to water anywhere or anything. The solar pump on the well works really well, pumping several hundred gallons a day. As long as we have sun, we have continuous water! And, if we don't have sun, at least we still have the three 85 gallon tanks that might still be full from the previous days pumping.

We use long PVC pipes with some holes drilled every half inch or so as water dripline. Just get a 4-6 " diameter piece of pvc and drill 1/4" holes holes every half inch or so in a straight line all the way down the pvc. Then go back and drill another line right next to the line of holes you have already drilled. Make sure to clean all of the pvc debris out of the newly drilled holes. Stick a hose in the PVC pipe and let the water run out slowly. You can raise one end of the pvc to alter water flow. It saturates the raised beds and cools down the root zone because water from the well is cooler than treated city water coming out of the tap. While many are getting outrageous water bills during this excessive dry and hot period, we have been able to freely water, without having to worry about the water bill. This makes such a difference this year in crops surviving or not.

Solar well pump behind the house. Water is gravity fed into the garden. Water hose can be connected to the water spigot in the garden. Cinder blocks are placed in the water reservoir in the garden so lizards can climb out (we used to find them dead, floating in the water before the cinder blocks were placed in the reservoir).

We use long PVC pipes with some holes drilled every 1/2" or so as water dispenser. Stick a hose in the PVC pipe and let the water run out slowly.

Do you have a strategy for combating excessive heat and drought? I would love to hear your experience.

All photos come from my food forest
Photo copyright: @thelaundrylady

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