Preparing Garden For Rainy Season

Between May and June, in tropical countries, it's the joint of hot season and rainy season. It's the time to grow things very hard, especially gardening is hard in this time. Normally, we don't grow anything. We just let everything grow while a lot of weeds, a lot of things grow very tall. Many people think it's a problem, but I love it a lot because this is my compost. I let them grow well and I just cut them and use them as a compost. I will cut the tall grass to cover the soil to control the grass. And in the same time, they will decompose at the end of rainy season. And when I come back, it will be winter. It will be the best time to grow and I will have very good soil at that time to start a new garden in the winter. The winter here starts in November. This is a way, I think, we don't need to buy a lot of straw from outside. We just use what we have to make our garden, to make compost for the garden. It worked very well so far. Now, I will not grow anything. I just cover the soil and I maybe grow a little bit of vine vegetables like beans, melon, pumpkin or something tall like eggplants, chilies or local vegetables. That will be good for this time of the year. And for the trees, put trees on wild trees. This season, we need to prune them, especially the lower branches. It's good to cut them off, prune them very well. The breeze can flow easily and then less bugs for us. Whenever we cut the branches of the tree, we need to chop them down very small. When we put on the ground, it will flat on the ground, it will decompose fast. If we leave the big branch on the ground directly, it will take a long time to decompose. This is a bamboo tree. Any bamboo tree or big tree or fruit tree, we can plant them at the beginning of rainy season like this. And then we need to chop leaves or anything to cover around the plant that we just plant them. So we don't need to water them, don't need to weed them, don't need to do weeding. They will grow well by themselves like this. And then everything that we put around, it will be good mulch. They will decompose in the next few months. And I like to grow fruit trees and banana trees close together. This is a sample. This is our coconut trees. I plant coconut trees and banana trees close together. Banana trees grow very fast. They expand their clumps very fast. In one year, they can have more than three or five clumps, five banana stems. So if they grow a lot like that, we can chop them down to make a mulch, to make compost for our fruit trees or another tree that we want to grow. When we cut them like this, they will not die. Because the place, the stem that we cut actually is not a stem. It's just a branch of the leaves. The real stem of banana tree is underground. They will grow back in one or two weeks after we cut them. So don't worry that they will die. And then when banana tree grow many stems in one clump, the banana will not give very good fruit. The yield will be decreased because they fight for food. There's not enough food to feed them. That's why one banana tree, they produce not many bananas like this one. It's so small. This one I will give to the fish because it's not look nice to me. The beginning of rainy season, everything will grow very fast. Banana, vine, grass or everything that grow in our land. If they grow voluntarily, they will grow very fast. So to chop them down, it will stop their growth. It will be the way to control them to not take over our space. And then we can use them as a mulch. So it's very important to chop them like this. The fastest growing plant in this season is all kind of vine plants. They extend the stem very fast in this season. Every time they crawl over the trees and everything, normally they will stop the growth of the tree and then make our tree crooked and not straight, not look healthy. It's important to chop them down before the rain comes because it will slow down their growth. And then we can use them as a mulch also. All kind of branches in this season, if it's low, we need to chop them down. Don't feel bad to prune the lower branches of trees, of fruit trees. If we leave the small branches on the trees, it will be a place where the vine can climb up easily. And in the same time, it blocks the breeze, the wind, make the air will not flow. It will bring a lot of bugs and pests for our plants. And if we chop them down, they will decompose. They will turn to mineral or food for our plant to make them grow faster. In the last 20 years, I use a lot of banana trees as mulching plants. I grow a lot of banana trees to develop my soil to take care of my fruit trees because I think it's the cheapest way to do gardening in this way because I just buy a merchandise and release my anger or hatred or anything on chopping them down. From my experience, when I use banana tree as a mulch, it lasts more than two months in rainy season because it takes quite a while to decompose. And then I don't need to cut the grass often. Mainly when we start to do this in the first year with the tree or fruit tree that we plant and after the second year, it works very well. Less work, everything growing well. And then the soil will be very soft and very nice easily. Even some bamboo trees, if I put a lot of banana around them, they produce a lot, they grow fast too. So mulching is very important thing for farming, for gardening or to work on the land. Sometimes when we have trees like coconut tree, if we don't take care of them often, they will have a lot of dead leaves fall down on the ground. It will be a good place for vine to cramp up and it will cover coconut tree. It makes coconut tree grow so slow. So it's good to clean it up like this and everything needs to be covered around the tree. Don't take anything away. After we cover with leaves or banana tree or anything, not very long, they will develop, they will change very fast. So if we clean our area like this, it will be very open. Everything will grow fast. Less work and we have less bugs, less pests also. And everything that we cover like this, none of them will last longer than two months. They will decompose. It will be the best place for trees or fruit trees. This is the easiest way, cheapest way to take care of the farm for me.