container gardening - tropical desert climate

[dhakiyya]

As you know from my other posts, I live in Saudi Arabia, close to Al Ahsa Oasis... I don't have a garden, just a court yard, and my husband says we definitley can't dig up the courtyard to make a garden :p

so I was thinking... a large container or two... I'd like to try growing different edible things.... my first project is going to be growing a date palm inshaAllah... also wouldn't mind growing tomatoes... other fruits and veggies... but I have no idea where to start!!!

what kinds of containers should I be aiming to get? Any ideas for what plants to grow to start off with? The climate here is tropical desert, dry and lots of sandstorms (had one yesterday) but its a little more wet and humid here because of the oasis. ( It rained today in fact... a rare occurrence but reminded me of good old British weather :) ) Plus of course I can water my plants, or hook up a contraption for watering them (my parents made one to water their tomatoes in the greenhouse, from plastic tubing and a large carrier bag :) )

Any ideas/suggestions will be gratefully recieved :)

[rainbox]

I'm making a container garden on my roof, and from what I gather you can grow things just as well in containers as in the ground, so I guess things like tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, sweet and chilli peppers and herbs would work. You could probably even do things like water melon and any of those interesting tropical fruits mentioned here (http://www.muslimgrower.com/discussionforum/showthread.php?t=140). So it just depends what you want to grow really:)

The bigger the containers the less often you have to water them, so it can be good to plant several things together in one container rather than put everything in separate containers. Deep containers are good, at least 12" is ideal.
I've got hold of some wooden wine boxes that I'm going to use although they're a bit shallow so I can't use them for everything I'm growing. Buckets are good! You can use anything really; old bathtubs, storage boxes, trugs or pots from a garden centre. The only thing you need to make sure is that you make drainage holes in the bottom.

Let us know how you get on and maybe you could even do some pictures?:D

[Riz]

so I was thinking... a large container or two... I'd like to try growing different edible things.... my first project is going to be growing a date palm inshaAllah... also wouldn't mind growing tomatoes... other fruits and veggies... but I have no idea where to start!!!
Any ideas/suggestions will be gratefully recieved :)

if you take a look at this new sticky thread, it has 2 minute vid turorials,, as you can tell its so simple !!. feel free to ask any questions you may have on that thread please.

http://www.muslimgrower.com/discussionforum/showthread.php?t=262

[dhakiyya]

yes, nice videos... definitely got to try to grow tomatoes. My mum gave me a couple of tomato plants when I lived in the UK, but they got leaf miners and died :(

[edibles]

you should try pomegranates, they come from hot arid climates(although a cool winter would help with fruit)

mangoes would love your climate (ive seen one in pakistan in places with temps hitting 53C) i would not grow them though, they get massive you might have a problem with the container.

guava is a nice one you should consider.
here are some others i have seen in my home from home in Pakistan(45C max, quite dry):

Oranges and other citruses
Date palms
Sugar cane if you can provide the water(needs a lot)
loquat(quite big)
rice(prefers to be in standing water)
tea leaves
miracle fruit(though i doubt you will find as very rare)

[dhakiyya]

Thank you for your delicious sounding suggestions... :) date palms are definitely okay here... the oasis where I live has over 2 million of them! The other suggestions sound good... will have to ask people who have farms on the oasis what they grow, althouhg most of the farming is done in the shade of the palm trees, so might be difficult to replicate that in the garden without having huge palm trees???? hmmm...

and thank you rainbox too... sorry I forgot to reply to your post yesterday!! Your container garden on the barge sounds so interesting :) and thanks for the advice about containers :)

[~Obsidian~]

The Royal Horticultural Society set up some 10m x 10m raised plots to show people just how much could be grown in a small space. They have mixed fruit/veg and just veg ones.

I saw this one and thought it might be a good indication of what kind of veg you can grow in the desert where retaining moisture is going to be a problem, the vegetables are drought tolerant mediterranean vegetables - not 100% desert hardy but its a start!

PDF Picture (http://www.rhs.org.uk/growyourown/documents/HydeHallDrought.pdf)

[dhakiyya]

thanks :)

[Riz]

^ so....

what have you decided to grow then !!!?