Your August Tropical Homestead Checklist

A blocked drain turns every storm into a pond next to your house. And still water is a mosquito nursery.

The CDC, the US health agency, says to empty, scrub, turn over or cover anything that holds water once a week. Gutters, ditches and drains count too. Ready.gov, the US emergency agency's website, adds clearing drains and gutters to every storm checklist.

Moving water is far stronger than it looks. Ready.gov says just 15 cm of fast-moving water can knock you down, and 30 cm can carry away a car.

Thirty centimetres is about the length of a school ruler. Floodwater can also hide sewage, sharp debris and live power lines, so never walk, swim or drive through it.

If you had to wade through it, wash with soap and clean water, and see a doctor if you feel ill in the month after.

If you have a well, a flood can wash dirty surface water into it. Health departments advise testing well water for bacteria after a flood, even if it looks clear.

Until the well has been disinfected and a test comes back clean, drink stored or bottled water. Boiling kills germs but not fuel or chemicals, so if the water smells of fuel or looks oily, don't use it at all. Our guide to off-grid wells explains how to keep well water safe.

August gardens are full of leafy crops like kangkong (water spinach) and amaranth, which thrive in hot, wet conditions. The World Vegetable Center, a research group for tropical vegetables, has sent kangkong seeds in flood-relief kits because it grows so fast.

Pick some every few days and enjoy it fresh. Then sow seed for another short row, so the harvest keeps coming, the way June's list started.

So what should you plant in August in the tropics? Garden calendars from cooler places count the months from the last frost of spring. A tropical planting schedule counts from the rains instead, and every place keeps its own rain calendar. Your local weather service and the growers around you can help you learn yours.

One good guide comes from the University of Guam, an island in the western Pacific north of the equator, right in the middle of typhoon country. Its table of common vegetables for home gardens splits them into plants you can start in any month and plants that wait for the drier months:

So in August, plant from the top of the list. These plants handle wet conditions: greens, green onions, okra, eggplant, peppers and sweet potatoes. The bottom of the list is next month's job. Use August to get a bed and some tall supports ready for the beans, because September's list stakes them.

Plants that like a cool winter are harder. The university says peas and brussels sprouts don't produce on Guam, but lettuce, broccoli and kale can grow well if you plant the right varieties. Many seeds sold there don't suit the hot, humid climate, so buy seed varieties made for the tropics.

August rain is hard on young plants and seedlings. The Guam guide says never to put a garden in a low spot where water puddles after rain, because soggy soil can rot the roots and kill the plants. Raised beds and containers with plenty of drainage holes keep roots out of the puddle. Pick the sunniest spot you have, too: the university says most vegetables need at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sun a day, and grey August skies don't give much. When you plant tall crops and short ones together, put the tall ones on the north side, so they don't shade the rest.

Big seeds like corn, beans and cucumbers can be sown directly into the soil. Eggplant, peppers and tomatoes do much better started in small containers, like the seedling trays from April, and planted out once they're big enough.

The university's method is simple. Put two or three seeds in each hole, two or three times deeper than the seed is wide. When the sprouts are a few centimetres tall, keep the best seedling and gently pull out the others.

Wait until each of your seedlings has four or five true leaves. Those are the real leaves that come after the two tiny seed leaves. Seedlings raised in the shade then need about 10 to 14 days of "hardening off": more sun and less water each day, so the seedlings survive the move outside without a shock. Plant them out in the late afternoon or on a cloudy day.

Growing in pots? Check the moisture with a finger first. Pots dry out quickly on sunny, windy days, the university says, and pots standing on cement dry out even faster because of the heat bouncing off it. More sun, wind and heat increase how much water plants require, so a big tomato in a pot may need water once or twice a day.

Most vegetables need feeding to grow well, but what you feed depends on what you want to eat.

Nitrogen makes leaves green and fast, so the Guam guide suggests a fertilizer high in nitrogen for leafy greens. Too much of it on fruiting plants gives lots of leaves and fewer fruits. Phosphorus and potassium help with flowering and fruit, so fruiting plants like eggplant, beans and cucumbers want a more balanced feed. Compost and manure work too.

Our off-grid vegetable garden guide has more on soil and beds.

The rains bring wild mushrooms and greens. Some are great food, but others have deadly look-alikes.

One mushroom, the death cap, is thought to cause about 90% of all deaths from eating wild mushrooms. So eat nothing wild unless an expert who knows your area has checked it.

Our guide to foraging for wild food explains the golden rule.

August is one of the darkest months for solar power in much of the northern tropics. PVGIS, a free solar tool from the European Commission, shows one kilowatt of panels making about 3.3 kilowatt-hours a day in Manila and 3.5 in Bangkok.

A kilowatt-hour is about what a small heater uses in one hour. June's habits still hold, and a battery monitor, a little screen that shows how full the battery is, helps you decide what can run tonight. Our guide to battery monitoring explains how it works.

When a typhoon is forecast, top up the battery, power banks, phones and torches while the sun still shines. After the storm, the sky can stay grey for days.

Storms are when generators come out, and when people get hurt. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 50 of the 51 reported carbon monoxide poisonings involved a generator.

Carbon monoxide is a gas you can't see or smell, and it can kill. So April's rule never bends: never indoors or in a garage, and more than 6 metres from windows and doors.

When a typhoon is forecast, close up. Ready.gov suggests fitting storm shutters over windows, and anything June's sweep missed comes inside: garden chairs, buckets and roofing scraps can turn into flying missiles in strong wind.

Walk around the house and look up, too. Dead branches hanging over the roof are worth cutting back on a calm day, before a storm does it for you. Then check that June's stock of medicines, food and water is still full.

Don't touch wet electrical equipment, and don't stand in water near it.

Turning off the main switch does not make an off-grid system safe: the battery and the solar panels stay live. If water reached the batteries, inverter or wiring, keep away, open the battery and solar isolators only if you can reach them while standing dry, and have an electrician check everything before you switch back on. Never charge a battery that has been under water: a damaged lithium battery can overheat and catch fire.

Dry out the house quickly. Next month's list for the tropics in September shows how to clean up mould safely.

Our guide to building an off-grid home explains what keeps a house standing.

Storms leave piles of broken things. Branches, leaves and grass can go on the compost heap or become mulch, while broken metal and glass need a separate pile.

Leaves and twigs are what gardeners call "browns", the dry part of a compost heap. They balance wet kitchen scraps, and in the wet season they're often hard to find, so a storm hands you a free supply. Our guide to home composting explains how to mix the two.

Lithium batteries are the dangerous part. The US Environmental Protection Agency says they should never go in household rubbish or recycling bins, because a crushed battery can start a fire.

Tape over the metal ends and take them to a battery collection point. Our guide to off-grid recycling covers batteries, oil and other tricky waste.