Jeff Hodgins

Got 3 little jackfruits trees coming up

As mulch decays and realeses water it also creates molicules with OH- tips. These tips hold water hydroscopically. This is why manure always seems to stay wet. I have seen large squash plants growing in manure after 5 months with no rain. I'm pretty sure that if we were to use a radioisotope we could track the hydrogen contained in the hydrocarbons in the manure and that same hydrogen is ending up in the plant in the form of water. I know that there is not enough water in the soil to keep the plant looking good. The plant is absorbing water that is being created in the manure.

Anywhere bananas can grow is a place where they should grow. Bananas are more useful than one might think. Green bananas are a great stape food with a texture and taste much like potatoes or yams (dioscoraea). The stalks of the banana plant are mostly water and they make a great mulch that slow releases water to the soil. The leaves are worth more than the fruit in some places. They are used to wrap tamales and other dishes. Here they are worth 20 pesos per leaf. The vein of the leaf can also be made into string. There is probably much more to add about uses for banana but I'll leave it to the rest.
     One little tip for growing bananas is, never plant brassicas near them because they will increase the amount of nematodes in the soil. Instead you can grow grasses like sorghum, this helps to reduce nematodes. Marigolds are also good companions for them. Tree tomato also has root nematodes and should be planted at a distance.

Oh and there are lots of old coffee plants. Much of the coffee is under dense pine trees where it will not fruit much so Im cutting them out. Normally bananas shade the coffee but some of this coffee was so tall that it was shading the bananas so I cut those out too. Everyone there grows coffee and they encourage me to do the same. I prefer to buy coffee from the locals who already have things set up for roasting it. We will still harvest some coffee but we will probably sell it green or dried rather than roasting myself. I have started drinking coffee all the time but its not very hard on the stomach like store bought coffee is. Its good coffee because its growing at about 800m altitude. If anyone wants to try some of the local coffee you can order from my friends at Finca Guerreros on facebook.

The greenhouse is actually made from recycled TVs a lot of TVs have transparent plastic in the screen.

I'm starting plants at Home in a greenhouse it's a really high tech Greenhouse here's a picture of it. The pots are mostly full of banana passion fruit mixed with annuals. I'm also trying to start rambutan. Eventually I will be planting a lot of trees but contrary to how I have acted in the past I'm concentrating on stuff that can produce a crop fairly fast because I need a crop now.

Well it has been a while. I've gotten devorced and remarried in the mean time. I left everything to my kids and my ex wife but Im starting again on a beautiful piece of land in the tropical sierra norte de Puebla. The new property has ample water it has a river that Springs out of the ground half a kilometer away. The farm where the river originates is organic so I drink the water straight out of the river it is crystal clear. The new Farm is about 7 Acres and it's very steep but highly productive. It was all abandoned for 20 years and grown over in forest. I cut down about two or three acres worth of forest for planting and to give light to the fruit trees that were under the forest. There were a bunch of huge Orange trees mame sapote and bananas. I've been trying to fill in all the space in the area that I cut but it is proven to be difficult the corn I planted was not suited to the tropical climate and it failed. Beans on the other hand do really well. Most of the farms in the area grow bananas or coffee or both. Because of that reason I was reluctant to plant bananas in the beginning but I have decided I will plant a few more bananas. I was lucky to start out with about 60 mature banana plants on the farm. I was able to get Malanga or taro and I planted some along one of the waterways. I'm still looking for a supplier of true yams in the area I don't want to have to order them from abroad. I'm growing purple sweet potatoes which are a little too sugary for my liking I would prefer to grow the orange variety. I came across a delicious variety of tree tomato it's a little more orange rather than red so I'm starting those I stole them from my neighbor. I picked them up off the ground and I'm renting a house so it's not like I was trespassing. The local people have been very supportive and they supplied me with cassava cuttings pigeon pea seeds Malanga and even a local heirloom corn variety. The rats ate the corn before I could get it planted that's the problem in the tropics with grain if the ants don't get it something else probably will. So my current home is an hour and a half away and it's in a cool region at 2,000 M altitude I go to work on the farm usually during the week where I get eaten alive by mosquitoes and I sweat my cojones off. It's nice to be able to come home to a cool place but still have a Tropical Paradise to grow food.

One way that not irrigating helps a crop is by reducing weed pressure.
Ideas for growing without irrigation

Drought resistant plants (corn,wheat)
Use cacti to store watering an organic form. This material can be fermented in a closed vat for a few weeks to liquify it and make it's water soak into the soil.
Banana is another common option for solid water storage.
Pit or trench planting.(walipini,zai holes,waffle garden.
Decomposition or digestion. This process creates water from CH²O²∆ CO2 H²O. The trick is keeping the process going in cold or dry times and I guess the reaction has to happen near the plants root zone.

It means dormant or not growing vigorously.
Senescence or biological aging is the gradual deterioration of functional characteristics in living organisms. The word senescence can refer to either cellular senescence or to senescence of the whole organism. Wikipedia

Surely old trees play a huge roll in accumulating nutrients and they provide habitat for bromiliads and lichens. The nutrition in the oak leaves will foster rapid regrowth after the pruning. Big wide trees kill corn by blocking the rain? Trees and things like corn can live together in a syntropic pruning system. In syntropic agroforestry consortiums of species work together for good. As humans our job is to maintain harmony in the system. We do this by pruning and mowing.