#solarpunk gardening

Behold, my hops:

This is only their second year with me, and look how tall they’ve gotten! This is the west side of my house, and their entire purpose is to slade it, this reducing the internal temperature.

I really lucked out because I got them for free from someone who’s new puppy was chewing on them. They’re in a pot:

So they can’t spread in the ground. It’s still pretty early in the season so they should fill in quite a bit up top though. I have two other pots which I put free bare root hops in last year, but they’re not as full yet. The pots don’t have bottoms, so they’re well rooted into the ground as well.

Long term, it would be nice to plant some trees to the west, but alas, power lines. I’d need some really short trees.

If you want to support bees and have really hardy plants that don’t require a lot of fussing, native plants are the way to go. I’ve got several in my yard, but I’m particularly excited about three berry species: thimbleberries, black cap raspberries, and native blackberries:

There are so many flowers on these guys, and I’ve been seeing multiple native bees on them, including bumble bees. Because they’re native, they’re well adapted and I don’t have to water them- and they don’t care at all about how wet and cold it has been this year. Really looking forward to the berry crop.

Highly recommend looking up what is native to your area and connecting with a native plant salvage group.

If you’re new to gardening, then you’ll hear a lot about hardiness zones, but there’s more to it than that.

Hardiness zone *only* tells you about how cold you can expect your coldest temperatures in winter to be, but people try to use it for a lot more than that. Here’s one example for the US:

Another thing that’s important to know if you want to grow perennials, particularly things like gooseberries and apples, is how many chill hours (iirc, hours between 45f and freezing) you get, which is shown in this next map:

I’m guessing North Dakota is in that little bubble because they spend so much of winter below freezing, which doesn’t count toward chill hours.

A third consideration, which comes in handy when someone who’s used to Texas thinks you should be able to grow papayas near Seattle because it’s also zone 8 for hardiness, is the heat zone you’re in. Heat zone measures how many days above 85f a location got, historically. Either last year was a huge anomaly (let’s hope) or this desperately needs to be updated:

When you combine these three, it gives you a better idea of what you can grow, and what will thrive in your area.

By the way, here’s a Chill hours chart from One Green World nursery:

Fruit Tree Chill Hours Chart

Almond:  400-600

Walnut:  800-100

Filbert (Hazelnut):  800-1300

Chestnut:  300-500

Pistachio:  550-800

————————————–

Apple:  700-1000 (Low chill varieties between 200-500)

Apricot: 500-800

Peach:  600-1000 (low chill varieties between 300-500)

Nectarine:  100-500

Asian Pear:  400-500

European Pear:   600-800

Japanese Plum:  500-900

European Plum:  700-1000

Pluot:  400-800 (Low chill varieties between 200-300)

Mulberry:  200-400

Quince:  200-500

Medlar:  200-400

Pawpaw:  minimum 400

Fig:  100-200

Olive:  200-300

Persimmon: 100-200

———————————-

Raspberry:  minimum 800

Blackberry:  200-800

Grape: 150+

Gooseberry:  800-1000

Currant:  800-100

Strawberry:  200-300

Blueberry:  

Southern Highbush 200-300

Northern Highbush  800+

Honeyberry:  750-1000

Pomegranate:  100-300

Goumi:  100-450

Pineapple Guava:  50-100

Citrus:  0