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Vegetable growing


dfwguy

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I apologize in advance if this is silly question.

We are looking forward to retiring in region in future. I am avid home gardener. What is the vegetable growing season in the area? Year round? Does okra, green beans, chard, lettuce, etc grow easily. Do many people have avocado trees or citrus trees? Is well water often used in gardens or city water? If well or city water is used, is produce 'safe' to eat without being disinfected? Are their vegetables that don' t grow there? I know coffee is not normally grown in chapala region- but can it be grown as a speciman plant? Vanilla plants? Etc.

thanks for reading and any replies

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2 minutes ago, dfwguy said:

I apologize in advance if this is silly question.

We are looking forward to retiring in region in future. I am avid home gardener. What is the vegetable growing season in the area? Year round? Does okra, green beans, chard, lettuce, etc grow easily. Do many people have avocado trees or citrus trees? Is well water often used in gardens or city water? If well or city water is used, is produce 'safe' to eat without being disinfected? Are their vegetables that don' t grow there? I know coffee is not normally grown in chapala region- but can it be grown as a speciman plant? Vanilla plants? Etc.

thanks for reading and any replies

No need to disinfect your own produce depending on how you fertilize the plants.  No luck with green beans but some friends are successful. Swiss chard, lettuce, snow peas & herbs all doing well in containers.  Lemon & limes in containers as well.

 

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Most things grow well here, many things grow excellent!  Most plants that grow small in the States grow almost into trees down here!  If you are a gardener, you will love this area!  You can have a vegetable garden growing all year down here but some veggies do better at different times of the year, of course.  We have been munching on our tomatoes, bell peppers, kale, swiss chard, and mustard greens all winter long.  Disinfecting veggies, whether store bought or your own is highly debated around here.  I think it depends on your water supply and your immune system.  By the way, the city water here is usually well water.  We have reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light filtration in my home, so we never disinfect anything, we just wash it in the sink just like we did back in the States, and we haven´t gotten sick or died yet in the 6 years we have been here.  But all just depends on what you are most comfortable with.

Here is an interesting calendar like list of what and when to plant it.

http://lakechapalagardenclub.org/what_grows_when.html

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A lot of the plants here which thrive would be labelled "exotic" in the U.S.A. and Canada. The U.S.A. has a small pocket of USDA zone 11 in Florida, and of course Hawaii and Puerto Rico. It is difficult to purchase many of these plants locally, and seed orders from the U.S.A. by air transport are routinely Xrayed - killling the seeds. You will see on another thread that I have been ordering seeds from the U.K., which feeds into the Mexican "Correo" mail system. There are a lot of seeds in the U.K. for our climate because of the British love for greenhouses and hothouses. I have tried to grow coffee, but difficult to germinate. Also black pepper and tea should do well here. The only tip I can pass on is to try to select plants which like fast draining soil. The rainy season here is short - but wet, not a true zone 11. Because the soil never freezes, it can harbour a variety of fungii, bugs and other pests - all of which like warm, wet soil, and will rot the roots of the northern favorites. Citrus? We have Persian lime, 2x lemons, grapefruit. Also 2x avocado, papaya, many bananas/plantains. That is just on the property. Vanilla is an orchid. Mexico is the Queen of orchids.

The well water can vary all over the place - never trust your realtor/landlord, get a sample, and have it checked. Most well water here is on the "hard" side, lots of dissolved minerals.

As far as washing vegetables, we have adopted pretty well what my parents advocated when they lived in Mexico. Tap water washing for ourselves, sterile wash if you are feeding guests.

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Sorry, but yes. Also powder mildew and scale. If you search the database here, you will see lots of proposed solutions. These problems often and come and go with the weather. It's a learning curve because of our unique climate. The best thing you will find is that competent and reliable gardeners are available here for 50 to 60 pesos per hour. The worst thing is finding good soil, you have to build your own, and this takes a lot of time.

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Gardeners at Lake Chapala always have competition: Birds, ground squirrels, rats, mice, raccoons, possums, bats, insects and the occasional kid who is good at climbing over walls, or even neighbors with very long bamboo poles with little baskets attached.  :ph34r:

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Chillin mentions root rot, has anyone tried fine pumice stone mixed in the soil?  We just recently had a brick mason build us several large raised gardening beds and he suggested mixing composted cow manure with pumice stone.  Of course he mixed way too much pumice in it, but we've been adding a rich looking potting soil we got from flora exotica to get the soil right.  We started a compost and over time we'll be mixing that in also.  We planted mustard greens and chard and they did amazing, the bell peppers not so well.  I'm sure it is just a matter of getting our soil just right.  But I have been reading up on pumice stone and a lot of organic gardeners seem to swear by it.

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Our gardener uses a lot of what he calls "Kal" - I said you mean Cal - lime? No - this is a finely crushed gravel, it may be pumice, but I think it is crushed limestone gravel. It lightens the soil and will reduce acidity, which is common with very rich soil. Getting air to the roots is as important as air, sun and nutrients. He turns over the soil beds often. This is also required because a lot of the soil here has clay in it, which will choke your growing beds in no time.

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Yes Chillin, it took me awhile to keep them straight, cal is limestone, jal is the pumice.  If you pronounce jal using the slightly gutteral Spanish j, it can sound almost like a k sound.  That is what we mixed into the soil to create better drainage.  It is used when you have lots of clay in your soil.  It also, due to its porous natural, helps to aerate the soil, and holds water and releases it when your soil goes dry.  It does not attract fungi or nematodes.  It is also a great source of rock dust minerals.  On organic garden you tube videos, everybody is talking about adding rock dust to your soil.  I guess if you have pumice, rock dust isn't neccesary.

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