Desert Sand Storm vs Bonsai Food Forest Garden Dome Burlap Shade Cloth Mitigation Defense Tactic

Out in the remote desert, I'll often get hit with surprise sand storms that seem to come out of nowhere. With little time to prepare I try to keep everything in a state of constant readiness. I've learned my lesson about leaving items outside, unsecured. Anything than can be knocked over or blow away will be, and sometimes they're difficult if not impossible to retrieve. Now I'm at a point where I'm confident little if anything will get lost or damaged by the wind, however I'm never 100% sure. I'll tend to first put on a mask and eye protection. For the worst storms I have goggles and N-95 masks, though for less severe storms I'm fine with a t-shirt mask and protective sun glasses.

After evaluating the situation as much as possible from within a sheltered area, if it feels safe, I'll go outside and make sure nothing is danger.

This time nothing was missing, however the wind-breaking burlap shade clothes had been blown off the container gardens. There were a lot of new seedlings coming up that were being sand blasted by the storm. I had to quickly go into the garden dome, weigh the burlap down with rocks and give a good watering to the plants to make sure they'd recover from the stress. As I was watering I was even more astounded and appreciative of how well the burlap works to prevent the plants from being knocked around by the wind. The burlap fabric creates an unbelievably effective wind break. While other fabrics around base-camp were getting thrashed, the burlap was completely still, and thus all of the plants it covered were all one still unit. This is a serious game changer, because I've lost a signficant percentage of my plantings due to these sporadic and until now, very difficult to mitigate winds. Many seedlings that for sure would have been dead within a few hours of such storms are doing fine under the burlap. I just need to be sure to keep them weighed down with rocks ongoing.