Shade is Wetter than Water

July 13, 2024, The Sonoran Desert, USA. Monsoon season in full effect. As I walk around my back yard, the sorghum that grows and does not get watered looks more or less the same as it has all summer. Happy, alive, and less than two feet tall. Then there is my sorghum along where I water. I have cut it down as it grows, and I keep it at a neat 2.5 – 3 feet tall. It provides a nice wall of shade and allows water to penetrate deeper into the soil while building the soil biology. My gourds are rockin, and I have cut them back quite a bit as well. They 011h0010

aven’t recovered as fast, but have put on a couple more gourds. The whole season I have probably had about a dozen gourds, but the dogs have gotten half of them. Six or so gourds remain. Two are birdhouse gourds and the rest are from Native Seed Search (nativeseeds.org). I planted at least three strains of gourds, and even though I only see two distinctly different types of gourds, I think there is the possibility that the