Plants for Climate
Watch the flies. When it's hot, they will go land on a leaf to stay cool. Leaves cool themselves and the area around them via transpiration and that's the idea behind the use of vines inside the structure to help cool it. We are growing thousands of tiny air conditioners to cool our space and live like the flies.
Plants for Food
We are also experimenting with what types of food we can grow here. This area allows us to grow food year round and we pay attention to the nearby farms and watch what they grow at different times of the year. We try just about everything and what doesn't work, goes right back into the soil so it's not a wasted effort.
There's no such thing as bad soil.
Even this sandy desert dirt can be turned into rich soil with a little help. We use various principles like permaculture and syntropic farming to add biomass, fungus and micro organisms to our soil. Successive planting paves the way for a forest in the future by starting small. We establish gardens with quick growing, hardy plants and "weeds" which trap the wind blown seeds of natural plants that will then sprout the following year.
We compost all of our scraps and chicken/duck manure. The compost then gets added to the gardens and is the only fertilizer we use. We also add dried beans and lentils to the soil periodically. The beans and lentils come from the food bank and are always in abundance in Slab City. They are awful to try and eat as they don't go soft when you soak them, but they are perfect additives for a garden! Half of them will sprout into greens and the other half will rot and mold and enrich the soil.
Plant Species We Grow
(or at least try)
Vegetables / Edibles
Dragonfruit, Tomato (multiple varieties), Potato (multiple varieties), Snow Pea, Sugarcane, Spinach (multiple varieties), Parsley, Dill, Cilantro, Thyme, Radish, Carrot, Onion, Okra, Garden Bean, Sweet Potato...
Trees
Mesquite, Palo Verde, Date Palm, Fan Palm, Tamarind, Lime, Lemon, Pomagranate, Chinese Elm, Avocado...
Vines / Bushes
Mexican Petunia, Oleander, Ruellia, Bougainvillia (multiple varieties), Jasmine, Snail Vine, Hacienda Creeper, Foxtail Fern, Meyer's Fern, Lace Fern...
Cactus / Agave / Succulents
Prickly Pear Cactus (multiple varieties), Blue Agave, Century Plant, Aloe Vera (plus other Aloe Sp.), San Pedro Cactus, Multiple Cholla Species...
Tropical
Dracanea, Heartleaf Philodendron, Philodendron Selloum, Phaelenopsis Orchid, Snake Plant...
Aquatic
Common Duckweed, Cat Tail Reeds...
Plus a whole lot more we don't know the exact names of!
Become a Collaborator!
You can help by collaborating on individual projects with us. Acquiring resources is the main obstacle in the way of us doing a lot of the things we want to do here and your contributions can help turn dreams and ideas into a reality. We offer many options for contributing, large and small, and collaborators get exclusive things mailed to them as a thank you.
> Learn moreProject Collaborators