Sunday 6 June 2010

Drought in our garden

Drought in our garden

That's just our garden, unfortunately all of Koh Samui is suffering. The wells are running dry around the island and the Government water supply has dried up a while ago already.

This years rainy season didn't materialize and although it made for good turnover in the tourist industry during unusual months, now the invoice is being presented.

This papaya tree has dried up, due to the lack of sufficient water, the leaves are just hanging about and the fruits have shrunk in size or are non existant.

This papaya tree has been helped out of it's misery and it just tumbled over, not being able to carry it's own weight anymore, let alone any fruits. Just about three months ago, our garden was in full blossom, including these papaya trees.

The banana trees are also having a hard time and they can't carry the weight of a cluster of bananas and tumble over. Really a sad sight.

Here's another banana tree that toppled over, I'm not sure if the banana's will actually keep growing. So far they're still green and haven't been rotting, although the trees toppled over a good two to three weeks ago.

Besides this some trees are losing all their leaves and things in general just turn brown all over our garden. There are some plants that still blossom so there's still some colour around.

I can only hope we get some continual rain soon, just an hour or two per day for a couple of days in a row. That would be nice.

Besides the drought we are experiencing also very high temperatures which causes a coral bleaching problem in the local waters around Samui and Koh Tao. The local water temperatures are an average of 2 to 3 degrees higher than usual.

Camille

9 comments:

Mike said...

Camille I am not sure when you should get rains. But things look bleak, where do you get mains water from?

Here the SW monsoon has arrived and we are getting an afternoon shower most days although I believe PKK is still considered a drought area.

I read yesterday that all dams across the country are very low.

Hope you get some rain soon.

Malcolm and Ciejay Burgess said...

Camille , The same for Whang Pho the cities up out odf the valley seem to be getting a little shower now and then , BUT for us like you nothing , if we did not give our plants a little drink of water every night from the hose they would surely die , our banana tree did the same as yours and our fruit never did get mature , hope yours does , seems like the weather is changing all over the world . Take care and tell the family for Ciejay and Me . Malcolm

Camille said...

Hi Mike,

We need rain indeed and soon!

Our main water is coming from a well, that so far hasn't dreid up yet.

Tomorrow I'll have an article about a new well being dug for my wife's youngest sister.

Camille said...

Hi Malcolm,

We try to give our garden as much water as possible, our hoses are doing overtime!

Take care my friend and hope you get some rain soon.

Martyn said...

Camille I hope the rain comes soon to your island, your garden is certainly in need of it. I have spoken to Wilai most days since my return to the UK and her village in Udon is getting rain most days now, unlike when I was there. I'm sure yours will come.

Perhaps they should push forward Thailand's New Year Songkran Festival to July when there's plenty of water about. What a waste of the much needed wet stuff it is throwing it about in April.

Camille said...

Hi Martyn,

Funnily enough we just had an half hours shower about 2 hours ago! Yeah! Yippee!

Having Songkran during April does indeed puzzle the mind...

Anonymous said...

Sure you probably do it, but use your grey water (if you wash dishes, yourself, try and do it in a bowl) and throw the water over the garden afterwards. It won't solve the problem but would help some of the planting.

Camille said...

Thanks for the tip and done that in various degrees and variations!

Samui Mostwanted Team said...

The last month was really hard and i had to order 4 times water from private water companies. Ko Samui have to pay the bill! I guess still there´s no building stop on Samui we`ll have this water problem again next year.