Anarchapulco Permaculture Farm, Garden Update 3: Shady Spots and Volunteer Plants

Back with another permaculture garden update, this time somewhat focusing on the gardens in the driveway area of the house.  I re-visted an old tomato bed, the same bed that housed the pineapple plant featured in my article, How to Grow a Pineapple. Today I finally got around to transplanting the plant we got from the top of the pineapple that day.  I did some general weeding, clearing out the rest of that bed to make room for new things, like some kohlrabi I've been putting off planting.  I didn't get nearly what I wanted to accomplished, but such is the life of a farmer, especially one with other tasks and hobbies to attend to. 

Above is the same pineapple plant I featured in that article I wrote quite awhile ago at this point.  I honestly have been neglecting it, not having a full sun spot ready for it to plant.  As I cleared out the garden bed today, I decided it was finally time to plant that pineapple, just a few feet down from it's old mother plant. You can tell by the roots that it was searching for more, now it'll have all it needs. 

That mother plant by the way, shown above, has sprouted yet another start, just like the internet promised it would.  I forgot to do so today, but tomorrow I will pull off this start and plant it into a container indoors until it has roots.  The bigger plant from the last start will end up with a new home, although it's got a lot more wiggle room in terms of dirt. I'll probably intend to keep this one, so long as I have a place to take it to long term. 

I've been putting off planting these little kohlrabi seedlings for awhile, as I didn't have a clear place in mind to put them.  We found that they really like full sun here, which is surprising for a brassica, or cabbage relative.  Direct sun and hot tempuratures generally will cause a brassica to bolt, or produce flowers, which isn't desired unless you're growing broccoli.   When looking into the companion planting information on kohlrabi, I found that they cannot be planted by tomatoes as they inhibit the growth of the tomato plants.  This foiled my original plan, so I decided to put them in the farthest part of the nearly empty bed with the pineapples.   There are some perennial plants like prickly pear cactus in the bed that I left, but there was a good amount of space left.  The photo directly above shows the unplanted intended area for the kohlrabi.

Here they are, planted.  This bed was previously sheet mulched several months back, around the same time I did the tomato bed that sits up against our house.  I got skeptical looks from the landlord, as I filled in the bed with layers of leaves and dirt.  He looked really confused when I was laying down cardboard for mulch on top, something he probably considered ugly.  Honestly though, the bed is awesome at this point.  There's lots of good springy dirt and most of it was moist already, despite how dry it's been. So I hexagonally planted them 3 inches apart, like I explained with the lettuce in the last update. So long as I keep them watered, they should produce well. 

This bed has been empty since it was constructed.  Why?  This part of the driveway is so shaded that it makes half of the new beds built nearly useless.  I attempted to plant lettuce and root vegetables in this bed, only for them to eventually die.  They never grew and I eventually gave up on them.  Today I resolved to trim some of the branches back, in an attempt to shed some light.

This is a view of that same bed from above, after I had trimmed back a lot of foliage from the trees above.  There's a lot more filtered light than ever was available there before.  Tomorrow I intend to keep an eye on the bed every hour or so to judge just how much light it gets.  If it's enough, we'll plant lots of lettuce there.  The tree that does most of the shading should die back here soon, as we honestly thought it was dead when we moved in.  Once the wet season hit it grew a bunch of giant leaves, shading most of that part of the drive.  It's starting to drop some pretty weird fruit, that I've been having some trouble identifying. 

This is the one really productive bed that was built when the driveway was poured.  This is the bed that features the lime tree, that bushy thing in the back corner.  The goal today was to remove the weeds (as there were getting to be more weeds that plants) and check the situation of the bed.  The tomato plants I planted were still there, although they needed pruned and trellised. 

I discovered this guy, a volunteer in the garden.  I'll start by saying I don't have any roma seeds, yet I've had two volunteer roma plants at this point.  The first one made sense, as it was growing in the area where my sink water (and subsequently tomato seeds) drained out.  This new volunteer doesn't make sense, as it came about at the end of the wet season.  I hadn't added any soil to accidently have added seeds.  This tomato decided it wanted to live, so I pruned it and trellised it today. 

This is what I came up with, although I figure it'll change in the future as things progress.  I used the tree in the edge of the smaller bed next to it for additional support, so the one teepee trellis could help support the other tomato plants growing there.  Since I cleared the rest of the bed of weeds, I'm probably going to plant more tomatoes there, maybe even some eggplants too.  The remaining section gets more sun than the already planted section, which the tomatoes seemed to be thriving in.  I may take extra care to add more amendments to the soil and remove rocks, so I can companion plant some carrots with my tomatoes. 

The lettuce bed I planted in the last article is doing well, the little plants now all have their first leaves for the most part.  Sadly, when taking the dogs out tonight, Rebel jumped in the bed.  I've not had the chance to assess the damage but it's pretty likely he killed a few.  There are more plants that have come up in those flats I planted the seeds into, so I can just replace them if I have to.  It's never fun when your dog tramples your seedlings, as that's food and money lost. 

This little plant is very special and important.  It's known as a Shasta Daisy, or the pyrethrum daisy and is part of the crysanthemum family.  It produces white flowers with butter yellow centers, which you harvest for the natural pesticide the seeds produce. This is completely organic and can be used to repel all sorts of pests, including spider mites.  I transplanted it into this pot, for special tedious care and it seems to be thriving, with lots of new growth.

The peppers I planted in the ledge with the tomatoes are doing well.  The only issue is that they've all laid down due to the wind.  So long as they're still able to be stood up without stressing the stem, I'll build mini teepees for them out of locally harvested bamboo to give them some support.  These are eventually going to produce bell peppers, so I don't want these plants just laying on the ground, not if there's something I can do about it. 

These are tomato plants that were left in too small of pots for too long.   Once I transplanted them to this bed, they took off. One is a yellow pear variety, my favorite cherry type tomato. The first two photos are of that plant with the best turnaround out of the three, although they're all doing great. The last photo is the second best, showing how it uses gravity and the rock face of the terrace as a trellis. I'm not sure what variety, but I think it's a regular cherry tomato. 

This is that tomato garden I heavily pruned in the last update.  I've been giving it lots of water and some nutrients in the hope that it triggers the plant to go back into vegetative growth.  So far, it hasn't happened although they are still alive.  The plants are pretty stressed from the neglect and it shows.  It shows so well you can see the rocket stove under the house in the background. 

This is another of the beds built when the driveway was constructed.  It gets a surprising amount of light, which is why it has tomato plants in it.  I intend to build a trellis and get the biggest plant off the ground, as it's supposed to eventually produce large pink tomatoes.  With some nutrients, water and light it should be a well producing plant.  It's healthy but not producing flowers.  It's actually the only plant on the property that hasn't produced at least one tomato yet.

This is the current state of the tomato bed up against the house, featured in an article about tomato gardening and pruning from awhile back.  At this point it's got curly top virus that it received when it got a visit from some aphids.  Noticing it's weakness, the ants have moved in, as have these really spiky little brown triangular bugs.  I did some pruning and attempted to spray these bugs off the stems, which seems to have helped for now. Tomorrow I'm going to fertilize and finish pruning, hopefully they'll kick the virus' ass just like the other tomato plant on the property, the one that's almost a year old. 

Here's today's jungle pile, just featuring the stuff I cut down in the driveway, which was a lot.  I'm going to let it hang out in the sun for a little before I add it to the compost pile tomorrow.  We kept the tall grass separate, to dry and use as hay in cob in the near future.  Tomorrow I'll probably move that to under the house where it'll be more protected from the elements.  

I'm still behind on a lot of things, like getting the terraces ready for the three sisters garden.  None of the beans came up, so I'll be planting more using a different method tomorrow.  One potato plant has come up, which gives me hope that more will come.  I plan to transplant some of the plants in my garden area outside in empty spots that were once filled with plants earlier this season.  As long as I keep up on watering through the dry season and keep the jungle back (bugs included) these plants should be fairly productive for me.  That's all I've got for this update, another will come in the next few days as I've got lots of plans for the garden to come.