Lessons learned from the heat wave and a garden walk about!

Heat Wave!

Recently, in Las Vegas, NV, we had just experienced a brutal and abrupt heatwave.

I admittedly made some really bad mistakes. I do think that I learned from them though and provided a few remedies that I think proved to be vital in saving the garden. This process helped serve as a blueprint for how I was to care for the garden during this hot summer ahead of us.

Mistakes I made and remedies

Watering

Watering late in the evening… A BIG NO NO

Up until this heat wave happened, I was watering two times a day. Once the sun was coming up and once the sun was setting.
But due to the recent heat wave, the temperature differentials of the water coming out of the well (60° F) versus the soil temperature (? Hot) and the plants wilting from the extreme temperature in the evening, caused unnecessary leaf burn. Of course, watering while the leaves were wilting was all bad and probably the biggest culprit in my estimation.

Remedy

I just doubled the amount of water I applied and only applied now at 5am. Watering by hand now takes 3-5 hours, depending on the pasture and its water needs, instead of 2 hours.

Nitrogen Fixing Microbes

Mistake.
I added too much carbon and too late in the winter season into spring.
My Hive post about the carbon heavy mulch project I've been doing for 8 months or so.

@dynamicgreentk/the-great-mulch-ring-project

One downside to Natural Farming practices or going too heavy with carbon heavy mulch too late in the year (like I did) , in my estimation caused the soil here to be fungal and yeast dominate and out compete the nitrogen fixing bacterias if you will.

Why did I keep adding mulch?
For a number of reasons. Specifically, this time of year the Sun's UV rays as well as direct exposure to the soil not covered by a mulch is damaging to the soil microbiological life and encourages flies to proliferate once the soil microorganisms die off due to exposure.

I try to avoid making compost teas or Actively Aerated Compost Teas anymore for various reasons. The specific reason for this summer is because it's too hot to even brew tea, much less make a compost.

Remedy
I ended up buying beneficial microorganisms at the grow store as well as seaweed to remedy the problem as discussed in my last post:
@dynamicgreentk/seaweed-and-beneficial-microorganisms-in-a-bottle

What I did that most can benefit from.

UV shade cloths.

While most people do not live in a desert as farmers, I have friends like @elemental who lives in the Pacific NorthWest. They will see temperatures in excess of 110° F and will see many records broken this week.

Guys! And yes Gals!!! UV shades work great! I got a few 50% UV shade cloths and they work amazing!

A company that provides shade cloths