cooked

I gave up on cattle as a source of income some time ago although we still have 5 Brahmins and a nice breeding bull. Everything would be going well until we got foot and mouth (twice) lumpy skin disease (right now) and a year where we couldn't get enough grass and had to sell at a loss. Get your pasture fixed with beasts rotating between fields and I guess 7 rai is just about enough.

Good luck!

20 hours ago, huuwi said:

I did cow poop, but to much gras and weed growing around my lemon trees, that is why i changed to pig poop. The goal for me is to loosen up the clay soil we have. Just where I plant new stuff, to make it easy for the roots to grow. I guess when the plants get older the roots are strong enough to penetrate  the clay.

The problem with adding organic material is that, (and especially in the tropics) is that it rapidly gets consumed, nothing left after a year. 

To loosen clay soil, and I say this after 40 years experience, is to add SAND, which is the opposite of clay, right? It needs to be siliceous sand, which is acidic, not the horrible calcareous stuff that gets hard when it gets wet.

Most sand around here is siliceous, you can test it by adding hydrochloric acid Cleanser Vixol), if it fizzes, it ain't siliceous.

It will mix itself in, no sweat.

On 6/6/2021 at 10:19 PM, drtreelove said:

If you have the clayey soil available, and a fine, washed mason's sand, and real compost, then why use the sack soil with unknown ingredients.

 

Make your own potting soil.  Here's a base mix suggestion, there are other recipies online:

 

Base Mix, by volume:

 

12 parts sphagnum peat

4 parts high-quality worm castings

8 parts pumice (or 6 pumice and 2 sharp mason’s sand)

2 parts Calcium bentonite 

1-2 parts high-quality compost (Biodynamic if available)

 

The clay component is usually missing from commercial potting mixes, but in my opinion it is important. Whether your native soil or a purchased sack calcium bentonite, it is essential for nutrient holding capacity, (CEC, cation exchange capacity).  Otherwise some vital nutrients are leached out rapidly with the frequent watering that container plantings usually get. 

https://www.tiannam.com/product/other/bentonite/

 

To this mix, add a mineralized, slow release COF (complete organic fertilizer) like OrganicTotto bokashi, or hopefully the BGS fertilizer blend coming out soon.  And then recharge the containers or raised beds annually with COF, or after each harvest, before the next planting. 

 

Attached is a COF recipe published by Michael Astera, author of The Ideal Soil.

The amounts are for 1000 sq feet = approx 100 sq meters.

BGS will have most of these bulk materials for sale, I hope. 

Michael's 1000sqft mix.docx 12.49 kB · 1 download

Sorry, I have to say it: this kind of recipe will not be used by anyone in Thailand, too much hustle unless you are planning on manufacturing large quantities of expensive potting soil. I could have googled that myself.

The OP is looking for a good brand of soil in sacks and I don't think you can find this in Thailand.

As far as my experience goes, these soils contain a mixture of dry leaves and street sweepings OR spent mushroom compost. None of it will have been sterilised so you can count on paying for weed seeds or possible soil borne diseases. 

After years of soil improvement I now feel quite at ease taking soil from the garden, maybe adding a little ripe cow manure, and using that as a potting mixture, not perfect but a lot better than when I was buying soil in sacks.

On 6/5/2021 at 4:51 AM, Led Lolly Yellow Lolly said:

Have you ever seen a middle aged farang male trying to dance Thai style? I don't think there's anything in this life more ridiculous than that.

Yeah, right, go and sit in a corner drinking beer, when I go to a wedding (or funeral), they know I'll dance. 

Ridiculous? A Farang that thinks he can do rock and roll.

Just a niggle: I paid B-Quick to mount tyres for a quoted price. They then asked me if I wanted them balanced.... only ฿500 I believe but that was a new one on me.

I planted Tradescantia pallida without realising it would cover so well.

https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/purple-heart-tradescantia-pallida/

It took a year or two to establish, during which time it did make flowers, hardly anything manages to grow through it.

We also have a terrestrial orchid, which I'm afraid I could never find the name of, which also covers nearly as well (but rarely flowers and when it  does isn't anything special). 

Plant  the above mentioned and keep mulching for a year or two. Snakes: you will always have snakes. 

I was offered 2 stroke oil when I desperately tried to buy chain oil a few years ago. They just don't know about it. However, as long as the chain stays lubricated, who cares? I use oil from the last oil change. In a place like Canada (or Switzerland, temps from minus 20°C to plus 40°C) having a reliable oil might be necessary but not here I think. 

A lot of oxygen has been expended on this subject. "Right of way" as in legally and as in what happens every day aren't the same. Wrong question. 

"Is the legal right of way respected in Thailand?" Answer - no. Forget about it.

Expect traffic going both ways on a one way street,  look both ways when entering on to a dual carriageway - stop thinking about UK or USA traffic laws and customs. 

Actually, this question applies to my fish pool, but I guess the question can be asked here.

I have spent several days cleaning our fish pool and have decided that the concrete has become too rough, algae collect easily and cleaning gets worse every year.

So I wonder whether I should use epoxy paint or polyurethane paint? I'll need to smooth out a few holes in the concrete so  whichever I choose I'll need an appropriate filler. 

Thanks.

If I wanted beef liver I'd find out where the slaughter house is and go there at 4am.  That's the way I get grass fed beef.

1 minute ago, Morakot said:

 

To keep your green roof free from weeds use the right selection of mosses, sedums, succulents, herbs and grasses.

That doesn't work in temperate climes and it certainly won't work here.

3 hours ago, Bigz said:

Last week a walk in vaccination centre was up and running at the stadium. Anyone could got a vaccine there without online registration including foreigners. I'm not sure if it's still open. Most people in my village supposed to get the jab at the local hospital in early June.

I don't want the jab, and I have had quite a few in my time. However we were obliged in our village to register and are now waiting, we had a couple of PCR positives n(not cases) nearby so I expect that's why.  

Anybody that goes running or cycling, especially early morning when the dogs object to being woken up the most, might think about getting a rabies injection. 

I got bitten two years ago one week before a 10K race and felt no ill effects at all from the injection. 

17 hours ago, AlexRRR said:

Your living in a dream......Thais dont mix well.....she will feel out of place for sure, been there done that so i have a good idea what im talking about....most likely she will radiate too her own kind in your country and these girls will word her up on the situation depending on her and the type she is so good luck and your going to need it.....

BS.

5 hours ago, placeholder said:

Speaking of horrible advice...

"Boric acid is not safe for humans. Boric acid poisoning may be acute or chronic. Acute poisoning occurs when individuals swallow powdered cockroach-killing products that contain boric acid. Chronic poisoning occurs when individuals are repeatedly exposed to boric acid."

https://www.medicinenet.com/is_boric_acid_safe_for_humans/article.htm

Two years ago I was unable to find Borax anywhere, places that sold it before had none. This was shortly after a murder case using Borax. This product, Chaindrite,  is much, much less toxic to humans.

The above stuff is very easy to use, cheap and I have seen it in BigC and Makro, A second application may be necessary after a month or two.

As for the "You want to poison everything" comments, I would like to see how you work in the garden or prune a hedge infested with these things. You'll get hundreds on you before they start biting in sync.

This happened to me quite often last year. The promised code never arrived.

I eventually got the message "your IP is part of a block suspected of spamming" or something. I used to look for stuff without logging in and use my phone to order, no problem there.

On 5/19/2021 at 10:54 AM, Kanada said:

Maybe the altitude up here but I had pretty good luck with both peas and Thai longbeans 2 years ago so I'll probably try again ????

Corn was looking good and then bugs got it really bad before I noticed so I gave it up....and I raised the worlds tiniest watermelon so wont be putting those in again.

Id love to try some pumpkins like we have back home (I dont even recognize these grown here) and some sunflowers that grow 8' high with the huge heads) but keeping it simple.

Also proper green onion sets....if I could find them! They are grown by the truckload commercially here In Samoeng as is garlic but they're different than I'm used to.

I took me some time to adjust to the fact that I was no longer living in a Swiss mountain village. I went through the same game: I wanted potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries etc. I took me some time to realise that one of the plants I was weeding out was in fact Malabar spinach, that Pak choi is easy to grow and is eminently edible, Pak Bung is the easiest vegetable in the world to grow, we have bitter melons and ivy gourd looking after themselves, a couple of Moringa trees, Chaya ... all of which are of a different taste to what we are used to but which I can and do eat every day. We also have plenty of Turmeric, Ginger and Basil. 

As I say, it took me some time.  I gave up on melons (require too much pesticide), tomatoes. garlic and onions, even chili. 

For larger surfaces I would bang in bamboo stakes every 40 - 50cm and then interweave with split bamboo, which looks quite nice. By the time they have rotted away (?three years) it'll be time to renew the soil. 

I never heard about the dangers of burying wood at the bottom, I only heard that it was very advantageous to do so, as their rotting provides nourishment  to the soil as well as drainage. Called Hugelkultur.

42 minutes ago, Kanada said:

Yes I’d be surprised if water got inside the concrete to the rings

There seems to be some confusion between the concrete rings meant for cesspools, which will break and rust really easily, and concrete rings meant for road drainage and are more expensive. 

17 hours ago, Sheryl said:

From his posts he had serious hypertension and is also in atrial fibrillation with a rapid ventricular response. 

 

Diet is nto going to fix that. And additional salt could be dangerous.

 

 

As I was careful to write, this is anecdotal. Both my wife and I fixed the dizziness problem with a minimal increase in salt intake (1 teaspoon a day). Diet is the most important aspect of a healthy life style and is usually the most neglected. 

15 hours ago, drtreelove said:

It depends on what you plant.  There are durable, low maintenance, perennial flowering ground covers that squeeze out weeds once established.  Ask at a local garden center or a landscape designer.  

 

Plant Lists - Thai Garden Design - The Thai Landscaping Experts

Of course. I have actually tried using some of those plants, not particularly (not at all) a sea of flowers, which is what the post is about, and although they do cover the ground pretty well, it is a constant struggle between one plant species and another, so maintenance free... not really.

Just anecdotally, I was having dizzy spells, not as bad as yours, until I started to take additional salt to my food and went Keto. 

Same thing with my wife, her dizzy spells disappeared. She also had high blood pressure, now solved by going onto a Keto diet. 

I'm glad I changed my diet before letting myself in for a never ending and ever increasing series of medicaments, but up to you of course.