Cover crops for heavy clay soils in tropics

Hi all,

I have a vacation home in the tropics where some of my wife's family stays (nieces who are going to school, relative who had a stroke and can't support himself anymore). They're doing some gardening with the plots of good soil and on the rice field so they can have some extra food and cut costs while i'm not around.

I would however like to make my own little garden, problem is the land leftover and unused I would like to use is barren heavily compacted clay where the previous owner was going to do some construction but abandoned. It still has the base of 4 concrete pillars, and gets a decent amount of shade from a hill and the house. There aren't even hardly any weeds growing in it. The other issue is that I can't really bring anything in to mulch. The house is a long walk from the nearest road, so anything I bring in has to be hand carried for roughly a third of a mile by hand over a rickety bridge (or alternatively across the river which is say thigh deep most of the year and 30 feet wide or so), and up and down slopes. While this is totally doable and I routinely end up being the family pack animal, it would be tough to bring in large quantities of anything to use as a mulch, other than what I can make here on the property.

I'm hoping to potentially plant some cover crops during my visit this year to help improve the soil, along with whatever crops might be able to survive such conditions. I'm not too worried about an actual harvest as long as I can start moving the soil in the right direction. I'll only be here 3 months, and then I likely won't be back for at least another year, so I can leave whatever is there for a good while on its own.

I'm not at all familiar with tropical plants or gardening in the tropics, so I have no clue what I should be planting here. Seeds are light and I think I can get a pretty good variety delivered to the road online.

What would you suggest I plant?

Thanks,
Klaus.

I planted a small yard a while back. Similar soil. Lots of clay.

I planted okra. Okra loves clay. I used the okra as a living trellis, planted pole beans, peas, and tomatoes. Everbearing strawberries are good long with that later on.

Quince is a fruit similar to apples, loves clay soil.

Hi Klaus!

Could you give us a little bit more information about the location and the climate? You know, the tropics cover a vast area with very different conditions. Annual rainfall, rainfall pattern, altitude...
How many hours of sunshine does the plot receives per day?

I am concerned that you have only little weeeds growing there. What comes to my mind is mabye cassava to break the clay (dont think about a harvest, but its good for chop and drop). Acacia mangium and Tephrosia candida might be candidates if nothing else grows...but all the mentioned plants needs a lot of sun.