Your December Tropical Homestead Checklist

A kilowatt-hour is an amount of electricity, about what a small heater uses in one hour. In December most tropical homes have more of them than they need, and a battery that's already full by mid-morning is a sign there's free power left on the table.

So bank it somewhere a battery can't. A solar pump can run straight off the panels, with no battery, and fill a tank while the sun shines. The University of Arizona puts it simply: it's cheaper to store water than to store energy.

A raised tank then feeds the house by gravity, day or night. Our guide to off-grid water pumps explains how solar pumps work with and without batteries.

Now is the time to ask an honest question: did the system get through the grey weeks of July and August?

If the generator ran a lot, or the lights went out, the system was too small for the darkest month. Our guide to how many solar panels you need shows how to size for the cloudy months, not the sunny ones.

The days get hotter from here, and heat is hard on batteries. Keep the battery box shaded, off the sunny wall, with air moving through it. January's list has the numbers behind that rule.

The tanks won't refill until May for many tropical homes. Every litre saved now is still there in April.

Small leaks matter, as July's dripping-tap sum showed. Walk the pipes and taps once more and fix any drip that has started since.

The dry season is the easier time for tomatoes. Researchers at the University of the South Pacific in Samoa say heavy rain, heat and damp air hold back tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and Chinese cabbage in the wet season. On their tomato plants, a leaf mould was the worst disease.

So what should you plant in December in the tropics? Each place keeps its own rain calendar, and the growers around you know yours best. But one good guide comes from the University of Guam, on an island in the western Pacific north of the equator.

On its planting table, no new window opens in December. The good news is that each window from September and October is still open, so December sits right in the middle of the best planting time:

Cucumbers are the quickest, so seeds sown in early December can be on the plate before February. Leafy greens, green onions, okra, long eggplant, hot peppers and sweet potatoes grow on Guam all year round.

Beans, corn and cucumbers go into the soil as seeds. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers do much better started in pots and moved to the bed when they have four or five true leaves, the guide says.

Seedlings raised in the shade need 10 to 14 days of getting used to the sun first, with a bit more light and a bit less to drink each day. Growers call it "hardening off". Plant them out in the late afternoon or on a cloudy day, not in the midday heat.

Most vegetable plants need at least 6 to 8 hours of full sun a day, and a clear December has plenty. The sun dries the soil fast, though, especially when it's windy. Push a finger about 5 cm into the soil to feel for moisture, and only water when it's dry. Aim at the soil, not the leaves, because wet leaves help diseases spread.

Leafy crops like Chinese cabbage and herbs like basil do best with a feed richer in nitrogen, the part of the feed that keeps leaves green, the guide says.

Look under the leaves and at the new growth every few days too. That's where insects like aphids and whiteflies hide, and they're easier to stop while there are only a few.

January and February cover watering at dawn and mulching. Our off-grid garden guide covers soil, watering and space.

Open the grain store and look for what October's list said to throw out: grain that looks mouldy, discoloured or shrivelled. Look for holes in bags and droppings on the floor too, the signs that November's rat-proofing has a gap. Catching a problem in December saves the store for the rest of the dry season.

After a year of storms, floods and harvests, a quiet month is a gift. Use the cooler mornings for small jobs and keep the hottest hours for rest.

While you remember the wet season, walk around the house with a notebook.

Which corner leaked? Which drain overflowed? Where did mould grow?

That list becomes April's work, when you fix the roof before the rains. Our guide to building an off-grid home explains what keeps a house dry and standing.

December is a good month to plan next year's shade. The US Department of Energy says the air right under a tree can be up to 14 °C cooler than the air above a nearby blacktop parking lot.

Pick a spot where its shade will fall on the house later. Then plant the tree in February, as that month's list explains, if you can water it through the dry weeks, or when the rains return, so it gets a whole wet season to take root.

Dry leaves are easy to find now and hard to find in the rains. Bag some up and keep them dry, so the heap has browns all year. Keep it damp as November's list set out, and cover kitchen scraps with a layer of them. Our guide to home composting explains the mix.