Hot here! Zone 9b

Hi:) My daughter and I have been working on our Forest garden for a couple of years out here in Fresno Ca where summers are scorching. Once hit 112 degrees. Anyway, I often look online for more ideas but haven’t found a lot. Anyone have frost in the winter and scorching summers like we do? Would love to hear your experiences and any ideas that you have found work well.

https://undergroundgardens.com/

This is in Fresno..

By the way, I’m just outside of Death Valley, and have experienced 120 degree summers. Cold winters with nasty wind.. but grow all kinds of plants and animals. Only the strong survive!

opuntia opuntia opuntia |
https://fruitwoodnursery.com/cacti-and-succulents/prickly-pear/results,1-0
https://plantingjustice.org/product-category/cacti-and-succulents/prickly-pear-opuntia-species/

Also consider cereus repandus and perhaps other cereus.
I don't care for figs since they're a genetic dead end as far as landracing but they're a good fit for your environment.

Those Pueblo Landrace squash on EFN(https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/collections/squash/products/pueblo-new-mexico-landrace-squash) are pretty amazing, you might have good luck with those.

You're gonna end up with less of a food forest and more of a...Food...Briar. However, you have the ideal place to go crazy with good fruiting cacti

Hi Ted,
Thanks for commenting! Yes. Forrestiere Gardens is awesome.. he planted a lot of stuff down deep and I don’t think we’re zoned for that without a permit.
And come on.. if your growing plants in that kind of heat… tell me what’s working and how… pleeease???…

Seth! Thanks for the ideas:) we’ve got two figs and an opuntia which hasn’t born fruit yet but we’ve harvested a couple of its paddles. Among other plants- lots of herbs, banana, plums,  walnut, pomegranate, lime, lemon, a mulberry, olive  goji,  two apple trees, strawberries, but we have to irrigate a lot so far which isn’t really living the permaculture dream…

Have not tried those squash you linked to though so thanks for sharing!!!:)

Kimberly Agnese wrote:Hi Ted,
Thanks for commenting! Yes. Forrestiere Gardens is awesome.. he planted a lot of stuff down deep and I don’t think we’re zoned for that without a permit.
And come on.. if your growing plants in that kind of heat… tell me what’s working and how… pleeease???…

Heat tolerant (or heat loving) plants, mulch, and less frequent but deeper watering. I hope this helps!

Almost all cacti would grow well for you.

I have prickly pears that have edible fruit and cactus pads.

This is my newest addition for the pollinators:

https://permies.com/t/180044/Vitex-Flowers-Pollinators

Most of my plants would do well though they are pollinator foods.

This thread will give you a lot of good tips and a list of drought tolerant vegetables:

Like this:

Harvest lettuces and other fast bolting greens as baby leaf through the dry season.

Have good storage capabilities so that veggies are available from storage during the dry or winter season when less is actively growing. Canning, drying, freezing, or root cellaring will probably be necessary.

https://permies.com/t/58559/Big-Fat-Thread-Dryland-Farming

Thanks Anne!!!…

I'm in Arizona 9A. Went from frost to 135F on surface temp in a week at beginning of May. In my area, sunlight starts at 5AM, so my recommendation is to get full sun plants and give them full sun until about 1pm/2pm. Watering is based on how much sunlight the soil gets and the amount of soil.  so my seedling trays need watering almost every day while I can skip a day or two in bigger pots/beds based on forecast (rarely cloudy)

This is what I'm growing right now until my fenced garden is complete. Pictures added of my plants.

Fruits:
-Strawberries (transplant - survived 25F nights in cold frame)

Flowers/vegetables:
-Zinnias (seeds)
-Sunflowers (seeds)
-Tomatillos/cherry tomatoes (seeds)
-Potatoes (store potato)
-Pea(seeds)
-Morning glories (seed)
-basil(seed)
-cantaloupe(seed) - Direct sunlight was bad, so I gave it full shade and growing super fast now.
-mint(transplant - survived 25F nights in cold frame)


There's a lot of other people growing fruit trees and heat sensitive vegetables.

Nicolas,
Gorgeous plants. Thanks for the advice!

I’m in the Pacific Northwest, but our weather is getting weird. In June of 2021 we had a record week long heat wave that included temps up to 116. In April 2022 we had a snowstorm. We had summer till October and then a winter with pretty frequent snows, up till April 14. About 4 weeks after the last snow, we started getting 90 degree weather! Anyway, most everything survived the heat wave the heat wave. Some leaves got scorched but plants survived. Kept fruit trees watered during the heat wave.
Also check out Landrace Gardening, get the book by permie Joseph Lofthouse. You can save seeds and adapt them to your conditions.

Kimberly Agnese wrote:... we’ve got two figs and an opuntia which hasn’t born fruit yet but we’ve harvested a couple of its paddles. Among other plants- lots of herbs, banana, plums,  walnut, pomegranate, lime, lemon, a mulberry, olive  goji,  two apple trees, strawberries, but we have to irrigate a lot so far which isn’t really living the permaculture dream…

Reality check here: Yes, dryland permaculture is wonderful, and if you know enough, and you can spend the time developing the perfect system, and have experienced people to guide you through the process, it can work.

However, in my case, I've got limited sunshine and major slug, rabbit, rat and deer pressure, which can destroy hours of work in one afternoon if my defenses aren't good enough.

For example, I started some goji berry plants from seed in February indoors. Germination rate was maybe 15%. I seeded twice. I managed to get 5 plants to a couple of inches tall and decided to put them out on the front porch to start hardening off during our April heat wave. Five days later we had a cool night with clouds and rain. One of our large, wet coast slugs came along and ate every one of them down to the soil level that one night!  No goji plants this year, unless I find a Nursery that sells them!

So yes, it would be wonderful to live that permaculture dream, but for many of us, we need to look at what we can do, not get hung up on perfection!

Gently, weaning commercial plants off the sort of daily water habit that many fruit trees on this property had when we bought it , took me years. I learned, as someone said up thread, to water very deeply (like all night deeply, slow enough that it didn't run off) every 2 weeks during the dry season. Gradually, I worked on improving the soil in larger areas around the fruit trees as well, (Hint, rocks don't hold water as well as punky wood does!) and left the grass 2 to 3 times as tall as the former owner did, and where possible, planted supportive forbs like comfrey in place of grass.

If the drought's as bad this year as I'm expecting, trees that made it through last year with minimal support, are going to need more water.  But:
1. if I was running a commercial fruit farm, I'd be using gallons more water, so my fruit is conserving water relative to what I could buy.
2. if I was buying all my fruit, it would be produced with a much larger carbon foot print - most modern orchards are based totally on fertilization, usually various 'cides, rarely soil building practices, and all the power to pick the fruit, cool it, and transport it to my Island.
3. most of the fruit in my local store is grown as a monoculture which is very hard on bees and  other pollinators, not to mention other critters like the tree frogs known to surprise me in unexpected places.  

So you're here on permies, learning how to grow better with less. You won't hear any complaints from me that you're not yet living "the permaculture dream"! You'll just hear good ideas, supportive words, and celebratory words when something works. Just keep trying, experimenting, and growing food, and let the dreams slowly get closer to reality!

Thanks Jay!
Yes, good to hear:) Because the implementing here and there and feeling good about what I am figuring out to do is about where I’m at.