Your November Tropical Homestead Checklist

Weevils and other small beetles eat stored grain from the inside. Researchers at Purdue University in the US found a cheap way to stop them without any poison.

Their PICS bag is a woven sack with two layers of thick plastic inside, tied shut so no air gets in. Insects inside keep breathing, use up the oxygen and die.

The bags were first made for cowpeas, a kind of bean, and have since been tested on maize, sorghum, rice, peanuts and beans.

An airtight bag isn't a drying machine. Whatever water goes in stays in.

In a trial on farms in Kenya, maize kept in airtight bags for 35 weeks stayed free of aflatoxin build-up when the grain was drier than 14%. Aflatoxins are mould poisons the World Health Organization links to liver cancer. So finish drying first, then seal.

Plastic bags don't stop rats and mice. Store bags off the floor, in a room or bin rodents can't chew into, and check them often.

Our guide to off-grid food preservation explains drying, storage and other ways to keep food without a fridge.

The Harmattan, a dusty wind from the Sahara, starts blowing over West Africa around November and keeps going until about March.

In a study in northern Ghana, a test panel lost almost 29% of its power to settled dust between November and February. PVGIS only counts a small, general allowance for dirt, so a panel under Harmattan dust makes less than the tool says.

Clean from the ground with plain water and a soft brush on a long pole, early on a cool morning. Our guide to cleaning solar panels explains what to use and what to avoid.

A kilowatt-hour is an amount of electricity, about what a small heater uses in one hour. From now on, most tropical homes have more of them than the wet season gave.

Use the surplus for jobs you put off in the wet season: grinding, sawing, pumping water up to a high tank or running a solar dryer fan. Our guide to off-grid power shows how the panels, battery and inverter fit together.

The tanks are as full as they'll get until May. Count the months ahead and the people in the house, then do the sum.

A 5,000-litre tank gives four people about 25 days at 50 litres each a day, or about 62 days at the bare minimum of 20 litres each, the figure from a report for the World Health Organization. Most homes use more than the minimum, so plan honestly, and redo the sum in February.

Shower, bathroom sink and laundry water can water fruit trees in the dry months. Scientists call it greywater, which just means used water that didn't come from a toilet.

Our guide to greywater systems explains how to reuse it safely.

Open every window and cupboard on dry, breezy days. Wash or throw out anything that grew mould during the rains.

The tiny spores of mould can irritate your lungs, so clean it up the safe way from September's list: an N95 mask, gloves and goggles, water and detergent, and never bleach mixed with ammonia or other cleaners.

The dry season brings heat as well as sun. Fix shade cloth, check fans and keep the battery corner shaded with air moving through it.

Our guide to off-grid cooling explains how to keep a house cool without burning battery power.

A compost heap that was soggy all through the rains will soon dry out. Keep it damp, like a wrung-out sponge, and keep kitchen scraps covered with 10 to 20 cm of dry leaves.

That compost has a job waiting, because the garden is about to get busy.

So what should you plant in November in the tropics? Garden calendars from cooler places spend November protecting tender plants from frost and getting ready for winter, as our temperate November list shows. In the northern tropics, the rains are ending and the sun is coming back, so it's planting time instead. Every place keeps its own rain calendar, though, and the growers around you know yours best.

One good guide comes from the University of Guam, an island in the western Pacific north of the equator. From October to March, every crop on its table of common garden vegetables is in its planting window. November sits right in the middle, early in the dry season, so it's a perfect time to plant a little of everything:

Cherry tomatoes, Chinese cabbage and watermelon joined the list in October, and the year-round crops continue as before. A watermelon sown in early November is ready around mid-January. Tomatoes need stakes, a trellis or a cage to keep them off the ground, and beans and cucumbers need a trellis, a frame of sticks and string they can climb. December's list explains why the dry season suits them.

What about lettuce and other cool-weather greens? Pick the seed with care. Many seeds sold in Guam don't suit the hot, humid climate, the university warns, so buy varieties made for the tropics.

Give the garden the sunniest space you have, because most vegetables need at least 6 to 8 hours of full sun a day. Big seeds like corn, beans and cucumbers can go straight into the soil. Eggplant and peppers do much better raised in small pots and planted out once the seedlings are big enough, with four or five true leaves. Plant them in the late afternoon or on a cloudy day, so the midday sun doesn't stress them.

Now the dry season makes every drop count. Before planting, the Guam guide says to cover the soil with mulch, like dry leaves or dried grass clippings. Mulch saves water, keeps weeds down, helps roots grow and keeps the soil cooler, so mulched beds need less from the tank. Lay it 5 to 8 cm thick, and keep it 5 to 8 cm away from the stems.

Give each drink slowly and deeply, at the soil and not the leaves, so the roots grow deeper. In a raised bed or a pot, push a finger about 5 cm into the soil first, and if it's still moist, wait. Pots dry out fast, especially in sunny, windy weather, and a big plant in a pot may need a drink once or twice a day, so count the garden in Step 6's sum.

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