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[gardeningwithpina]

Layering

Another way to propagate plants (and possibly, the easiest way), is to use layering (burying portions of a live plant in soil).

You'll first have to strip away some of the bark like so

then keep the exposed part moist in soil.

In a few months/ the following growing season, you can simply unbury & cut the stem with the roots on, and plant it where you want it to grow.

The success rate is nearly 100%, so if you have the time and og plant in your care, I definitely recommend layering.

[gardeningwithpina]

Heating a Greenhouse with No Electricity

Make sure you properly insulate the greenhouse first! Fill cracks, seal gaps, use bubblewrap on windows,

Hot compost (doesn't need to be fancy, a pile of only grass shavings produces a lot of heat)

Manure piles (same idea as the compost; hotbeds work great!)

Mass heater (can use dung cakes as fuel!)

Keep animals living in or below greenhouse (if you can make a two-story barn greenhouse duo, that is)

Passive heating with black barrels

[gardeningwithpina]

The basics of fruit thinning/ pruning, from the manga Flying Witch (read left to right)

Just as a side tip: lots of flowers are edible! Including, and not limited to, apple blossoms and citrus blossoms.

Search up to see if the flowers on your fruit tree are edible, and harvest them while thinning~

(My fav book on edible flowers is Fiori, Rimedi, Ricette e Magia by Roberta Rossini and Elena Rosa. It's usually available for free on Kindle in Canada & you can translate it in the app. Lmk if you can find this book for free elsewhere!)

[gardeningwithpina]

In many desert countries, crop agriculture isn't too successful. Many countries in the MENA buy out land in fertile parts of Africa, but Qatar is trying to sustainably produce food in their country to improve food security, and survive climate change.

The agricultural company named Abba, headed by Dr. Mohamed Al Attiyah has been experimenting with several organic farming methods, and have found a lot of success with the application of mycorrhizal fungi, aka the fuzzy white fungus on plant roots, to the soil. In the video above, they've tested the application of mycorrhizal fungi in an area with high salinity and little nutrients in the soil. But because of the fungi, the plants didn't require chemical fertilizers, and still produced the same nutritional benefits as plants grown in fertile soils.

Mycorrhizal fungi innoculate is ridiculously easy to make and isolate for propagation, but even planting seeds or cuttings beside a healthy plant would be effective, since plants communicate and share through this fungi. This is one of the reasons why you shouldn't till 😅

If you want to know more about farming in desert climates (which, ideally, you would be doing with native plants to the region, as they are better suited to the environment), check out Geoff Lawton's Greening the Desert Project!

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brooo I just found the best paper (article?) about CAM plants appropriate for food production in a region the writers term "Aridamerica" (in contrast with mesoamerica) that encompasses northern mexico, the sonoran desert, and part of arizona and nevada....it's so fuckin good

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An Aridamerican model for agriculture in a hotter, water scarce world 

The article is the work of some researchers who examined ethnobotanical and historical sources, interviewed native people, and did ecological surveys in “Aridamerica” 

Primarily they drew from the current and historical practices of the Comcaac (Seri people), O'odham, and Pima Bajo peoples. Here are a few excerpts from the article I really liked!

Agricultural visionaries from Argentina, Australia, North America, and elsewhere have been calling for “new roots for agriculture” for more than 40 years (Felger, 1975; Jackson, 1980). Their visions favor high biodiversity-low input agroecosystems, with greater emphasis on perennial polycultures. To quote pioneering desert botanist Richard Felger, to whom this article is dedicated, we must “fit the crops to the environment rather than remaking the environment to fit the crops.” Yet, to date few agronomists have given sufficient attention to effective means to reduce heat or moisture stress in crops and livestock, or in the humans who struggle to manage them (Nabhan, 2013).

The majority of widespread crops (e.g., rice, wheat, soybean) are C3 plants with low water-use efficiency and reduced photosynthetic efficiency under high temperatures. C4 crops (e.g., corn, sorghum, sugarcane) have higher heat tolerance but usually require reliable irrigation in arid and semi-arid land settings. As temperatures increase, so do evapotranspiration and water input required to maintain crop yields. Thus, even drought- and heat-tolerant varieties of conventional C3 and C4 crops may be unable to weather—let alone mitigate—the stressful agronomic conditions predicted for arid zones over the coming century. In contrast, wild desert plants have evolved multiple strategies to cope with heat and drought (Gibson, 1996). Desert plants with the crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) pathway uptake CO2 nocturnally when temperatures are cooler, thereby optimizing water-use efficiency (Nobel, 2010).

I really like the points they make here about C4 plants! Corn and sorghum are often listed as being more suitable for arid climates because of their improved temperature tolerance and water use efficiency compared to (for example) wheat or soybean. That said...both were originally tropical plants iirc, and while there are certainly drought-tolerant cultivars of both, they still use a *lot* of water in very hot and dry regions, and those well adapted cultivars aren’t the most commonly grown.

After gathering a list of plants commonly used as crops by the native people of these areas "For each species, we determined the photosynthetic pathway (C3, C4, CAM) and categorized water-acquisition strategy as extensive exploiter (e.g., Prosopis/mesquite), intensive exploiter (e.g., Salvia columbariae/chia, Phaseolus acutifolius/wild tepary bean), or water storer (e.g., Agave/agave, Opuntia/prickly pear)”

It’s really interesting to think abt those different drought strategies! For reference, extensive exploiters tend to have very wide+deep root systems that collect water from an extensive area. Intensive exploiters tend to be found near temporary water courses that only hold water temporarily/for part of the year. This could mean washes/dry streambeds that flood in a storm, or rivers that dry up outside of the monsoon season. I know tepary beans typically grow quickly (often quoted as taking only 60 days from growth to seed set!) when water is available, then die and weather the hottest and driest season as dormant seeds. Water storer is pretty self-explanatory--agave and prickly pear are succulents that can store a tremendous amount of water in their tissues, saving it to tide them over until the next precipitation event.

Ultimately, the article graded a variety of plant genera on their agroecological suitability (how well they grow in an arid environment), any potential medicinal uses, their community/social value (cultural importance, providing shade in communal areas, etc.), and their agronomical suitability (can it be grown at scale, is there a market for it, etc.) I won’t bother to list them here--you can go see the whole chart in the linked article--but it’s a very interesting list!

[gardeningwithpina]

TABLE 2. Example of desert-adapted perennial polyculture assembly. Polyculture position: taxon primally grown with other lifeforms in alley cropping (AC), under photovoltaic array (UPA), alongside photovoltaic array (APA), or on terrace lip (TL)

[gardeningwithpina]

Is anyone willing to let me use their institution login info so I can start reading the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 🥺

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Making Desert Land Fertile with Water Bunds

Water bunds | Landscape restoration technique | Justdiggit

We dig semi-circular bunds to capture rainwater, restoring the water balance of the soil. Learn all about bunds that re-green the Earth

[gardeningwithpina]

In 2018, Justdiggit and the LEAD Foundation worked with the village to transform a barren 50-acre test site, digging a network of semi-circular bunds with a raised perimeter around a shallow trench, into which seeds were sown. The bunds, roughly five meters by two meters large, were laid in an overlapping fish scale pattern with their depression facing uphill to capture rainwater flowing off the land, slowing its movement and allowing it to penetrate the earth. (source)

The design and function is similar to swales and african planting pits

[gardeningwithpina]

There are a lot of hacks for keeping tropical plants alive in cold weather/ seasons, most famously being stone walls

Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s

We are being told to eat local and seasonal food, either because other crops have been tranported over long distances, or because they are g

The Ancient Walled Gardens Designed to Nurture a Single Citrus Tree

Giardini Panteschi are found only on the windswept island of Pantelleria.

but also the Italian American methods of burying or insulating fig trees

Even Russian fruit trenches are cool af

All of these methods got me thinking...

If you kept fruit trees (and even vines that you train into woody stalks, like the method for vite ad alberello) low to the ground

it'd be so easy to put a hot compost beneath or beside these plants (100% grass clippings piled up = easy hot compost), and/ or cover the plants with straw/ hay for protection from the cold weather.

You'd have to make sure the hot compost doesn't get too hot, & make sure there's enough air circulation via pruning, but other than that, you should be able to get away with growing tropical plants outdoors.

[gardeningwithpina]

Raised Beds and Waru Waru Systems in Peru

This is the same concept as chinampas, but has a different method of build. While chinampas are usually built directly into an existing body of water, waru waru systems create false bodies of waters through irrigation (from rainwater, or diverting rivers, or from groundwater). Both require frequent repairs and upkeep, but stand strong in times of drought.

The canals are created for water storage and irrigation, wide enough for canoes to slither in for getting around the garden.

Artificially creating water canals also opens up the possibility of raising various types of fish, whom will fertilize the crops with their excrements, and provide another source of food for people who consume fish.

Along with fish, water/ pond plants can be used to prevent soil erosion such as sedges, oxygenating plants such as hornwort, and floating plants like azolla that can be used as animal feed and fertilizer.

[gardeningwithpina]

Blatticomposting is a new technique that uses cockroaches to convert human food wastes into compost.

Blatticomposting is a new technique that uses cockroaches to convert human food wastes into compost. Of the 4000 or so species of cockroaches, less than 15 are pests of human dwellings. Although vermicomposting, or using worms to compost, has been used to deal with human food wastes, it has several drawbacks.

Composting with cockroaches is easy since cockroaches eat pretty much anything (and do so quickly, so moldy fold wont become a problem), are hard to kill, and require very little maintenance.

Here's someone on permies talking about their cockroaches:

the eurblaberus or ivoryhead roach is the one recommended for this type of composting [blatticomposting] as they tolerate crowding , breed like crazy and eat even cardboard if nothing else is available! these are amazing insects! you only need to clean their tote maybe once or twice a year. if you have darkling beetles and sowbugs as cleaning crews, they eat even the cockroach frass so you never need to clean! [You don't need "cleaner" insects though, you can use their poop as fertilizer]

[gardeningwithpina]

Similarly created like chinampas of Mexico, the Sorjan system (developed by indonesian farmers) is created by making artifically raised beds in shallow water for agriculture.

(i know the quality of the pic sucks im sorry)

One particular practice that differs is the trellis for vines (such as squashes and gourds) over the channel of water.

[gardeningwithpina]

Air Meadows - Food For Free Part 8 - Pollarding and Pruning Tree Fodder (Part 1)

Tree Fodder Free Poultry & Livestock Food Traditional Forages and their History

'Air meadows' is the beautiful description for a multi millennial old tradition of feeding European livestock. How do we know this? Well because in this form of silviculture, the standard way of growing trees for an optimum harvest was to pollard them and thus create a yearly plethora of thickly growing, thin leafy branches above browse height. Evidence of whole stands of trees pruned this way have been discovered dating from the Neolithic Period all over the continent and there still exist examples of ancient pollarded trees in parks common land and pre-Enclose Act hedgerows. It is very interesting to note that up until the beginning of the 20th century more tree hay, was cut, dried and stored for use in Europe than conventional (grass) hay. Furthermore, air meadows didn't just provide food, sheep in particular are known to self-medicate for internal parasites by using the tannins and other phenolic compounds found in leaves. So for free food and medicine, look to the sky.

Pollarding is similar to coppicing- the difference being the former is done above grazing level, cutting branches close to the trunk rather than cutting the entire tree down to a stump.

Only certain tree species can be cut in this way without dying, such as willow and hazel. Pollarding starts when the tree is young (cutting mature trees in this way is calling topping, and usually doesn't heal well), and requires cutting back the new shoots every 2-5 years. This usually results in the swollen knobs pollards are know for!

Usually 5 or so branches are used for pollarding (the rest being chopped down to the trunk competely), but you can cut all branches off too.

A similar technique is used to create tree-like grape vines (Vite ad Alberello, which I've talked about in this post)!

[gardeningwithpina]

Floating Gardens of Bandladesh: Dhap/ Baira

Farmers stack several compact layers of aquatic weeds like water hyacinth, duckweed or paddy stubs – the stubble of what remains after the rice grain has been harvested. The weeds are allowed to rot, and then mixed usually with cow dung and silt. Crop seeds are placed in small balls called tema that are made out of peat soil, and wrapped in coconut fibre.

After a week, when seedlings are about 15cm high, they are transplanted to the floating garden beds. Traditionally, seeds of leafy vegetables, like red amaranth, are sown directly on the floating beds. They [the floating beds] are then anchored with bamboo poles, so that they don’t drift away.

Both men and women work to make these organic floating beds, which last for around five to six months. Besides vegetables, rice seedlings can sometimes be grown. During the monsoon, farmers use small boats to navigate between these small islands.

Fish are grown in the water, too, which fertilizes the water for the plants, and prevents mosquitoes from breeding.

[gardeningwithpina]

Floating Gardens

Got more water than land available to you? No problem, you can just make floating gardens~

If you're not familiar with the concept, it probably seems foolish to think you can create a floating garden, but Marsh Arabs and Uro people prove you can live on water (and not in boats like pirates or Vikings or A'a Sama). Through the creation and use of artifical islands (usually made from reed beds, but sometimes mud), they can live on floting islands of decaying material.

Floating gardens can be made from a variety of materials; bamboo, reed beds, compacted coconut shells, plastic bottles, etc boyant materials.

On top of the boyant (and usually, netted so it doesnt come apart) material, soil is added, or some type of natural growing medium, such as aged manure.

Unlike chinampas and waru waru systems, floating gardens are not usually firmly placed or stable in the water, so it's important to enclose them, or keep them otherwise tied down to their spot. This can be done with anchors, fencing, or using a rope extending to land (like you would do with a boat in water).

[gardeningwithpina]

Slash-and-Char

I was originally introduced to the idea of slash-and-char when I went to the Museo Etnografico del Friuli; there are painted depictions of how Udine was created centuries ago, and a part of that process was clearing the land by slashing and charring plant matter, rather than doing a slash-and-burn.

For agricultural purposes, slash-and-char methods have been used in the Amazon rainforest, and are currently by Loma and Mende people in Western Africa; a highly productive and restorative indigenous practice. Rice husk charcoal was also used to amend soil in Japan! Primarily, it is used to fertilize and moisten the soil, but it also allows soil to act as a carbon sponge, reducing carbon emissions over time.

Along with the use of other organic materials (such as manure and food scraps), the soil becomes self-fertilizing; like a starfish regrowing a cut limb, the microbes in the soil can regrow when tampered with. It becomes a resilient life form!

Charcoal makes African soil more fertile and productive

West African farmers are transforming nutrient-poor rainforest land in to fertile soil and their crops are thriving. It might be the solutio

But the benefits don't stop there- charcoal-treated soil surpress heavy metal absorption in plants, opening up more areas for agricultural purposes.

Slash-and-char: An ancient agricultural technique holds new promise for management of soils contaminated by Cd, Pb and Zn

Heavy metal contamination of agricultural soils is of worldwide concern. Unfortunately, there are currently no efficient and sustainable app

Slash-and-char with contaminated soil:

How the resulting charcoal can be used:

Slash and Char: An Alternative to Slash and Burn Practiced in the Amazon Basin

1. The residues from charcoal production are mainly used as an amendment in planting holes. Mainly bananas (or other fruit trees) are planted in such holes. Typically, the holes are about 30cm wide and 50 cm deep. These planting holes are filled with chicken manure, charcoal, and soil.

2. The slash and char farmers produce a kind of charcoal compost. Around the charcoal kilns they dig holes in which the charcoal residues are deposited in layers alternating with organic matter, ashes, and soil. After 1 year of decomposition, the farmers use the created material as fertilizer applied on the soil surface.

3. Charcoal residues are used for vegetable and herb production in home gardens. These gardens are planted in elevated planters, and the crops aregrown about 1.5 m above the ground to avoid damages caused by domestic animals. These planters are filled with soil, charcoal residues, compost,chicken manure, and other forms of organic matter.

4. Charcoal residues are applied on the soil surface. Farmers report that this maintains soil moisture, especially during the dry season.

[gardeningwithpina]

Scientists at Chongqing Jiaotong University have created a paste that’s made from the same substance found in plant cell walls.

One of the ways China is countering desertification is mixing sand with water and a type of cellulose; sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (SCC). It's a white powder on it's own (which you can see in the video below), and effectively turns sand into soil that retains water and nutrients well.

^ the application method from the study itself.

Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose is made by treating alkali cellulose with chloroacetic acid. Alkali cellulose is made by soaking cellulose (plant fibre) in a solution of sodium hydroxide and water, while chloroacetic acid can be made by chlorinating acetic acid in the presence of sunlight. Sounds complicated, but carboxymethyl cellulose is a non-toxic material that is used as a food additive.

This success story got me thinking- how would the application of cellulose gum, or other gums hold up in sand and soil?

Well, a few studies have been done with soil, and while their results may not be as dramatic as the application of SCC, the results of cellulose gum and other gums applied to soils have been extremely positive, with them retaining water better and reducing soil errosion.

If you live in a dry area that more conventional methods of water retention (swales, mulch, charcoal, coconut coir, etc) don't yield the results you want, you could try mixing in agar agar or xanthan gum into the soil.