Hugo Morvan

Hard to not get political about it. So just some snippets as i do get the sentiment. Happy to see Senegale are friendly. i've heard in Southern Italy they pay people in some villages to go and live there if that's hot enough for you. The southern Spain region around Malaga is very dry and has quite a lot of international Permaculture minded folk. Also in the mountains there. So you could check that out on your way to Africa.

I think along the same lines and have tried having them grow onto whatever dead stalk or the south face of shrubs, i made some willow racks as well last year in differing locations in my garden. They usually do best kind of holding onto each other in the end i found. more group like plantings than one row in front of the sunchokes/topinambour. But for some reason i suck at peas and never end up with more than i started with.
I have used mixed varieties from a landrace group, because i'm convinved some will be naturally better climbers than others and bit by bit the population will become dominated by those climber champions if you get my thinking.
i've started doing the same with climbing beans into fruit trees, mixed varieties and some were really much better at it than others.
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Your roof looks fine to me. The holes you see won't leak. Only if you stand right under it and can see the sky.
If it were my roof I'd take the tiles off, the lats(horizontals that hold tiles) bang all nails sticking out in. Change rafters that need changing. Then we put a sheet/cloth on it. It stops wind from entering you hold this with contra-lats on the rafter beams. Then re lat the whole roof. If there is a small leak then it will run off the undersheat. Just retile and insulate the underside. Or you could do it from the top, but then you're changing a lot and might not have enough tiles.
Having said all this, I'm pretty sure Indian roofing techniques require differing standards, so best to speak to differing local roofercompanies. Make sure you come across as kind of knowledgeable about roofs or you will pay more money. That's why asking here about it is a good thing. You ll learn roof talk... Good luck!

Artichokes and Cardoons are bastards to get out. Unless you let them outside. The heart will rot. Some seeds will sprout. That's when you know you can start pulling hairs out of the flower. Then dry everything in a carton and retrieve the seeds. It's much easier that way.

Good to hear that you make use of what does want to grow locally. Totally sensible. I've heard insect pressure in the tropics can be off the charts. They're like superhappy with all the sun, totally energized to eat whatever and multiply, multiply. Hard to battle and heartwrenching to see them in action i'd think. I mostly have snails to beat, but they come in waves eating weak plants, i just resow in between waves. Saving seeds gives me that luxury to do that for free and bit by bit my plants seem to adapt to them. I saw one on top of a newly salad, he was "sniffing" it out and decided to move on. That was a good day. I don't know if coming year will be similar. Nature can be so eratic and hard to pin down.
That's why i'm grateful to be part of this community where we can freely exchange information and together creep forward at our own pace to hopefully obtain sustainability and a new balance and way of life with the land. A copyable template for future generations to build on where ever we live. It's where my energy lies anyway, sorry to bother you with it. Haha.
I respect you've moved away from growing melons if it's so difficult and you don't want to be part of a system using pesticides. In the adaptation gardening community we're trying to do similar, using as little inputs as possible by trying different genetics and not being afraid of hybridizing siblings. Breeding the fittest/tastiest/most resistant varieties we can in differing settings like mountains, marshes,high up north to islands and forests or the opposite deserts like situations.
Leaving you with some pics of watermelon seeds and what people grew this year.

Hmmm so it's best to eat the early leaves in spring to get used to some of the unusual bitters. Maybe very shortly cook it with a bit of water. Aren't we supposed to eat something new 7 times to get to get used to  the quirkiness of new plants?
I'm going to give it my best shot this spring. Keep cutting it back until i found a way. It looks like a lump of comfrey strengthwise. It looks like something that will be very hard to kill if i don't uproot it. I've only discovered i have it growing last year, i mistook it for some weird mexican herb for 5 years that i had tasted and didn't like much, but was waiting for some use to miraculously appear. Glad i did, it's a monster now. Saddens me people don't like it.
I totally agree with somebody up here saying we're probably 'spoiled'. But that fact hasn't enticed me to try a lot of dandelion except for when it was bleached accidently with a bucket or plantpot laying about on top of it. I guess i'm spoiled rotten.

Maybe that's another idea we could try. Bury it and eat the white leaves that try to look for light or place a bucket on top or something. Make it less strong tasting that way.

I'm looking for fruit fly resistant African varieties with AI. They come up with landraces which are mostly grown for seeds and have bitter flesh. Further looking came up with this which is kind of interesting...

2. Winter Melon (Wax Gourd, Benincasa hispida)
This large Asian cucurbit develops an extremely thick, hard, waxy rind as it matures, providing excellent protection against insect penetration (including fruit flies). The waxy coating adds an extra layer of resistance. It's often stored for months due to this durable skin.

This is a link to the wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_gourd

Also i found that the yellow melon i spoke is the Canary

Grok has this to say about it:

Fruit Fly Resistance in Canary Melon
The melon fruit fly (Bactrocera cucurbitae, now often called Zeugodacus cucurbitae) is a major pest of cucurbits, including various melons. It prefers softer-skinned hosts like cucumbers, muskmelons/cantaloupes, and watermelons, where females can easily pierce the rind with their ovipositor to lay eggs.
Canary melon falls into the moderately susceptible category — not as heavily attacked as softer varieties, but still vulnerable, especially in areas with high fruit fly pressure. Here's why:

Rind characteristics: The rind is relatively thick and hard compared to many muskmelons, which offers some mechanical resistance (antixenosis) by making oviposition more difficult. Research on related Cucumis melo types shows that thicker, harder rinds (along with traits like pubescence or biochemical compounds) correlate with lower infestation rates.
However, it is not considered truly resistant or immune. Standard sweet melons in the inodorus group (like Canary and honeydew) are listed as hosts for B. cucurbitae, and infestation can occur, particularly on ripening or mature fruits. In tropical/subtropical regions, losses can still happen without management.

This is my (Hugo's) conclusion: So wax gourd, not sweet but most fruit fly resistant. Canary Melon, some resistance, but sweet. They're not in the same genus so crossing is very unlikely. Otherwise hybrids could be expected who have more waxy fruit fly resistant skin and sweeter. Not so lucky.

Same goes for the African landraces which are in the Citrullus type, it won't work. They have to be landraces from in the same Melo genus as Canary melon to stand a chance of hybridizing into a good tasting fruit fly resistant variety.
But i wouldn't know where to get those Melo landrace seeds in Africa. Where do you get your seeds from usually Nathanael?

I can't know for sure. But I got a foodhedge which I have been chopping and dropping for quite some years. The soil there has changed a lot in structure.

I gave up on non green cabbage types. They need more lime/clay. Perennial kale for me. Don't know if it will ferment nicely. Doubt it will be like sauerkraut. Lacks rubbery texture, but who knows.
Zucchini I never managed to grow until I got a lot of varieties send to me in the seed box of GoingToSeed. They were much bigger than normal zuchinni seeds.. I grew them in unmatured cowdung.
There is so much variety in varieties that it really pays off exchanging them, whatever problem you're facing with veggies. Growing genetically diverse veggies selects those that love your specific conditions. All survivors that contribute pollen go into next years seed. Growing those out will be descendants of the winners. If those keep crossing over a good few generations you'll get a super adapted strain. That's how heirlooms got developed traditionally. But because they are frrom the past heirlooms are I'll fitted to our modern diseases.
Another advantage is today's climate is not stable, late frosts can kill off crops, sudden heat waves and unprecedented droughts. Growing diverse varieeties takes care of weather weirding. And in good years all plants survive you can select biggest/most interesting looking plants. I some fruit early, others late, you stretch your season that way.
And differing colors looks great and is even more nutritious.
Seed savers sticking to mono varietal growing are missing out big time.

No, do nothing, aphids are good food for predator insects. They will come, i've observed waves of lady bugs, parasitic wasps other bugs and more waves on the peach trees. Plant more diversity in the garden and they'll find refuge closeby and be on top coming years, making an outbreak less likely. You could see it as investment against future outbreaks.