A vegetal greenhouse and our orchard

To this first step of improving the soil, which had in fact been a reset of the soil, we added a protection of the vegetable field against the heat through shadowing, the strong rains by coverage and the destructive storms by windbreaks.

In 2024 we constructed hangars covered with straw in a hurry. The heat required urgent action. Everybody needed shadow: the plants, the workers and even the chickens saught refuge under hangars.

In addition, we did the mulching now more seriously with covering the soil of the vegetable fields.

This double protection against evaporation contributed to keep humidity in the soil. 

Yet the straw has to be renewed not just once a year, but more often. And where should we find all this straw? Thus, in 2025, we replaced the straw covering the hangars with plants that are growing upwards.

The passion fruits, which we have planted some months ago, have already started to grow upwards along their wooden tutors, which constitute the structure of the hangars, which we had constructed to create shadow for the vegetables. Passion fruits will thus replace the straw which we had used last season to cover the hangars.

They do not only create shadow in the dry season, they will also protect the vegetables during the rainy season against the strong rains - and they will serve as windbreaks thus protecting the weaker plants against the storms.

Not forgetting the sweet fruits which they will offer - the workers on the fields as well as for our harvests. And those fruits which we will miss, they wil sow themselves out and create new plants in a natural way and allow us thus to easily renforce or renew this protective cover.

Since the experimental field is a bit large, we plant them not only around that field, but also inside close to some of the wooden pillars, which serve also as tutors for the vegetables.

Thus, there will be also beans, cucumber, pumpkin and tomatoes, which will grow upwards those tutors, thus contributing to improve the climate inside the field.

Plant-based greenhouses - what an experiment!   And what a challenge!

Since we have seen that the wooden structure has been weakened during the rainy season, risking to fall on the vegetables and also the workers.

The first plants of the passion fruits have so well started to grow upwards their wooden tutors, that we are now - again as an urgent action - replacing the wooden pillars by metalic ones.

We build thus greenhouses which have a metal structure - "dressed up" with a plant-based cover.

Our orchard

Another approach to protect the vegetables against to much sun and to strong rains, is to plant papayas.

Our experimental field, where we had established the compost patch - underground composting - has proven to be such a favorable habitat. The young papaya plants from the beginning of 2025 have developped within less than 4 months in a surprising way!

Remains the question, if we had the chance to get some good seeds - whose plants will live several years and offer nteresting harvest. This would reduce the working charge for the next years.

But in the long run, the fruit trees, like our lemon trees, will take over this task of shading and protecting - or they will at least contribute to shading and strengthen the protection against the strong rains and the storms of the rainy season. 

Since 2022, the beginning of this plantation, up until 2024, we have planted more than 300 lemon trees, 200 mango trees, 100 orange trees, 100 cashew trees and some pampelmous and mandarine trees.

Not all trees have survived, but they have been replaced by new ones. The lemon trees of the "first generation", which had been burned down by a bush fire, some of them have restarted. Now, we have at some places two trees next to each other.

With other trees we are experimenting if they will well grow in this climate and on our soil. One of our baobabs has already taken up an impressive height and force.

The cashew trees had been planted along the wall to contribute as protection against the bush fires - since under a grown up cashew tree there will grow nothing else, thus also not straw, which often nutures such destructive fires. 

We have seen that out lemon trees "volcameriana" are very reesistant against the heat and dryness. Sure, if we irrigate them continously they will grow more rapidly and offer eralier their fruits. But if they are to far away of the irrigation system, they still will survive during the dry season - with a slowed down growing, their leaves rolling up or falling down at that time, but they persist and take up growth with the next rains. They apply what our young expert Jonathan from ZONAPLANT called "thermic system". It's these trees, which will be more resistant to the heat, to the climate change.

And it seems that there is also another variety, the "lime Tahiti", which we have found at Foulaya, which resists in this manner during the dry season.

Now, in Juin 2026, we have replanted mango trees - this time on field 3, which we will be able to irrigate during the dry season at least with dripping pipes. The other young mango plants which we had planted in 2024 did not survive that specially hot dry season. Since we have made this year, 2026, a third deep well, we hope that the water will be sufficient to irrigate also the papayas, which we have planted along the pipe. 

It's all about creating shadow - for the soil and for the plants. Sure, the fruits are very welcome too. But creating shadow to protect the precious life which restarts living during the rainy season within the soil, seems for the moment even more important.