Post date: Jul 17, 2020 12:10:19 AM
Microclimate is a nice idea to think about. How your garden behaves is unique. Many of the tips and experiences of others may not work for you, because of the uniqueness of your garden.
Microclimate is that combination of elements at your yard. The wind flow, the sun, the shade, the temperature of air and soil, the flow of water and moisture, and the kind of life that microclimate will nurture.
Observation alone is your guide to figuring your yard. With time you will know.
Some principles help as a framework of reference. One of them is the yin and yang of the plant’s needs.
If the stems above need light and heat to grow, flower and fruits, the roots below need cool and dark to stay alive. You cannot manage this without attention to microclimate.
Make sure your plants roots are dark and shaded. Mulching is the primary way to achieve that. Your soil will be many degrees cooler, many shades darker, and be able to retain moisture when you mulch. Most microbes and creatures that work on your soil below like it dark and cool.
Weeds are earth’s tools to shading and cooling the soil. And to shielding the pattering of the rain that cakes soil up. Don’t indiscriminately uproot weeds in an area you don’t plan to sow anything else at all. Those live roots will help the soil. Those plants will shade and cool the earth and keep it alive.
Where you have food plants and worry about nutrition being stolen by weeds, trim them to the ground, mulch heavily and plant densely.
More notes later. But as the summer heat increases, keep your soils cool. Grow some dense crops, mulch, or let weeds be.