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Old 02-10-2007, 01:49 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible,aus.gardens
Chookie Chookie is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jul 2006
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Default Brussels but no sprouts

In article ,
Jim Kingdon wrote:

Nice blog. As for growing plants with limited access to water, have
you ever seen or heard of the underground gardens of Fresno, CA?
There are some photos at http://www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/
but the basic idea is that plants like grapes or citrus are planted in
underground rooms, with their leaves growing up through open
skylights. Not sure how I'd apply this to any other situation, but it
is always what I think of when I ponder gardens in dry climates.
There's probably a garden technique lurking here (cylinders of shade
cloth or opaque cloth open at the top? I don't know).


I've heard of that technique for arid climates, as it provides more shade,
more humidity and more stable temperatures. The problem with Sydney is that
our climate is not arid but in fact humid, particularly in summer, which leads
to fungal disease in susceptible plants. We can also have very hot dry days
-- tomorrow is predicted to be 34 C (= 93 F) here with strong drying winds,
and it's only the start of our summer! You can imagine that there are plants
that will survive one kind of weather but not the other...

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/