[permaculture-oceania] Arrowroot, tomatoes and tools

[Mike Morris]

On 30/08/06, jedd <jedd at progsoc.org> wrote:

>  Have you seen
>  a correlation between plant height and ideal distance between them?

Nothing noticeable.  Plants all seem to grow to normal heights.  I
guess I should have added the caveat that I /don't/ plant so close for
all varieties - in particular for "Bishop's Hat" chillis, a variety of
C. baccatum (sp?) that grow to about 1.5m tall!  But all the "smaller"
varieties seems very happy with it - Jalapenos, Chery Peppers,
Serranos, Habs, Anaheim, New Mex 6-4, etc., etc.  Anchos probably a
little further apart since the fruit is quite large.

I think that water - too much, too little, or too irregular - has a
much greater effect on plant growth, health and fruit production.  My
soil tends to get waterlogged if we get heavy rain, so I plant on
ridges, and I don't have irrigation water available during dry times,
so it gets challenging, with significant losses to Blossom-End Rot
some years (irregular water).  Mulch helps, and having the plants so
close together provides a pretty effective live mulch over the narrow
strip that the ridges occupy.

The last couple of years I have planted bush beans in the sides of the
ridges as N-fixer+live-mulch for the ridge-sides and have been very
happy with the results - to the point where I now won't contemplate
any other approach.  Keeps us in dried beans for the year, too, and,
as semi-vegetarians, is not an insignificant thing :-)  Beans get sown
at the same time that the Chillis get transplanted out from the
seed-trays, and come to harvest about the same time as the Chillis, so
clearing the ground happens all-at-once.

Speaking of which I must go and plant the Habanero seed... bye
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----- A day without chillies is a day wasted ------