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KawDang

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Posts posted by KawDang

    De-mulched, denuded but still determined

    in Organic Farming, Smallholding and Kitchen Gardening

    Posted

    I'm about 4 months into developing a small organic garden and after this morning I just need to stop for a breather.

    By way of back story, during the last Son Kran I started developing a food forest on a barren, over-sugar caned 1.5 rai field in a Kalasin village. As well as providing a self sufficiency of food this will also be the outlook from the house we are going to build here one day.

    First up I spent 15k on some preliminary earthworks. A man with a digger put in 2 ponds, one at each end of the field, roughly 70m apart with about a half metre fall between them. I was told that when the rains do come (they started late this year) there is a torrent that rips down the field and I wanted to capture this water and keep it in our field as long as possible.

    So in between the ponds (which are almost totally rain fed) the digger also built two large interlocking swales about half a metre high. And then built up each side of the field with raised strips a couple of meters wide, into which each swale connects. The idea being once the top pond overflowed the water would meander around the swales down to the bottom pond.

    The bulk of these raised areas was provided by trucking in a lot of logs from a nearby field, belonging to mama-in-law. These logs came from mature trees she had had felled on our 1.5 rai organic garden field a year or so earlier - I comprehend the Laos language enough to recognise 'crazy falang' when I hear it.

    Along this intended re-route of the water I had the digger scoop out 7 banana circles (which are turning out to be the most unsuccessful banana circles in South East Asia - another topic).

    The rains eventually came and the water routing strategy has pretty much worked. Early on I did have to get out in a lightning storm to hack a relief drain through the bottom of the lower pond. And then the top one. No-one could have prepared me for the overwhelming volume of water coming down. But now with these overflow channels in and a couple of secondary swales also in place the big wet is pretty much behaving as gravity tells it to.

    When it comes to the gardening itself I need to point out I work in Bangkok and only make it up here every fortnight for a weekend. After this morning I've decided to up the frequency to every weekend.

    Also, since Son Kran my better half has opened a shop in the village, allowing none of the gardening time she initially had.

    I've tried to be smart with the planting strategy and follow what I'm picking up from permaculture reading. So lots of pioneer nitrogen fixers like Don Khae & Macaam (incidentally, the same species as the foundation logs of the raised beds - mama used those Laos words on me again). Banana circles with banana, papaya and coconut as primary plants and with man keao (sweet potato) as ground cover. In between in the low-lying areas I planted a lot of peanut as a nitrogen fixing ground cover, and more man keao.

    On the raised areas I've also planted a few citrus, pomegranate, mango, sadao (neem) as well as Thai olives (we'll see). In hindsight putting these feature trees in was probably a bit premature. The heat, the late rain as well as generally pretty lousy soil have resulted in a slow start for most (or worse).

    But I think my main mistake, so far, was not saturating every bit of dirt with ground cover.

    So four months on, after a healthy eight weeks of rainy season, after fortnightly stints of planting & mulching, what I've got is 1.5 rai of waist-height grasses and half a dozen thriving 2 metre tall macaam, don khae and Thai olive trees. And some barely visible feature seedlings. At least the peanuts and man keao have taken off.

    I have to be philosophical. I know my intermittent visits mean compromise. In the long term picture, as long as my pioneer & feature trees get established and the topsoil gradually gets improved with chopping & dropping the ground cover, I'm ok with that. I was intending when the peanuts & man keao are harvested in a couple of months time to sheet mulch these areas with cardboard. The shop has a restaurant attached which produces a lot of compost (more compost than dishes sold by my calcs...). So as soon as I can get a functional compost area this will also contribute to improving the topsoil in the long term.

    Last weekend I brought my kiwi nephew up to visit the village. And like me, he totally fell for the 5kph pace of the place. We took advantage of the soft ground brought about by some rain and threw ourselves into a bit of weeding. Just pulling up the interloper, shaking the roots and laying them between the good plants to decompose. We got a lot done, if nothing else rescuing the seedling feature trees from being overgrown, but still 60% of the field remained a thriving weed plantation. I resolved to just let the pioneers grow up (maybe even add some more) to get some shade provided, figure out what's going on with my failing banana circles, build a decent composting area, chop & drop my ground cover, sheet mulch the area of weeds remaining. Yes, I thought - these are realistic objectives that will allow me to learn as I go in the years ahead without getting stressed out by things like crop failure.

    Then this morning there was an Isaan moment. I arrived late last night and at 6am went out for my usual review of the battlefield. In the intervening week my better half has taken it upon herself to surprise me by paying some locals to tidy up the garden. There it lay before me, denuded of every weed. Between each clump of man keao and peanut lies an expanse of bare, over-sugar caned pink dirt. The raised berms of the banana circles are now gleaming terracotta, better exposing the half-hearted banana, papaya and coconuts. Between each thriving macaam and spindly som-o lies a perfectly manicured patch of microbe-depleted soil.

    I'm overwhelmed, struck dumb and I can't determine which clamour in my head is the loudest - erode me or overrun me with new weeds.

    Bless her - I know she means well. Her attention must have been distracted that time I was reading aloud from Sepp Holzer's chapter on green manure. I thought she was as blown away by it as I was.

    Similarly, when I was blah-ring on about us doing it different from the neighbours - we'll plant 5 species where they plant 1 - we'll never see the colour of our dirt again - blah blah blah - something else must have stolen her attention.

    Hence me sitting here in front of our 5kph restaurant taking a breather. I've suddenly got a clean slate I kinda didn't want. And I'm not sure which way to turn now.

    Nearly all setbacks are opportunities and I would appreciate any advice from the wiser ones out there what to do at this juncture.

    The options I'm contemplating this morning are:

    1. Get ground cover in ASAP - more tua lisong and man keao (or other options worth looking at?)

    2. Getting a whole lot of mulch down - I can get as much kratin (leucaena) and rice husks as I want

    3. Learn to speak Isaan

    4. Bring in some good topsoil - I felt this was being a permaculture cheat initially. I've since found it's pretty cheap to get it by the truckload so...

    If it's not obvious by now I'm new to gardening. And new to living in this part of the world. Saying that I know I'm into both for the long term. The lower pond now has a few thousand fingerling bpla nin (talapia) in it - 3 weeks ago I thought I'd already killed the original 5 adults we put in there originally. So I look forward to any advice received and in the meantime I'm heading back to the battlefield this afternoon. I've got grapes to plant...

    Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

    Wind turbine generator

    in DIY Forum

    Posted

    I've had some initial discussions with the Aussie manufacturers of the Ecowhisper

    http://www.resau.com.au/main/page_ecowhisper.html

    Basically I just like this product. Don't know what Thai customs would make of it but have time to research that.

    I'm at early feasibility stage - going to do at least 12 months wind monitoring on our land in Kalasin before that goes into a cost/benefit comparison with PV.

    Interested to hear how you progress in the meantime.

    Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

    Lupins in Thailand

    in Organic Farming, Smallholding and Kitchen Gardening

    Posted

    Update -

    Troysantos the Kasetporpaeng link does look great. It will take some preserverance with Google Translate to see if I can get any traction - at least until the paasaa Thai ramps up

    Given the translation of Lupin in the Thai version of Wikipedia is simply a transliteration - ie ลูพิน - I'm not filled with hope there's a locally available species out there...

    Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

    Fitting out a small shop in Kalasin

    in Isaan

    Posted

    I'm inclined to agree judging by the 'business plan'. But the overheads are zilch, I may come out of this with a spectacular beer fridge & I get to sharpen my paasaa Isaan behind the counter.

    In return the locals get to learn the Kiwi word for credit...

    Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

    • Like 1

    Practical pond design tips

    in Real Estate, Housing, House and Land Ownership

    Posted

    Hi

    I'm having fun with my first 2 ponds on our small farm in Kalasin. Part decorative (next to the proposed house site) but also functional - the family's supply of bpla nin and pak bung, as well as generally retaining precious water on our 5 rai (rather than letting it run off totally un-utilised)

    Last week big rains severely washed out the banks of both (1 is at the upper end and the other about a metre lower, 100m away at the other end of our land).

    The British racing green water has been replaced with calf-poo brown.

    We're addressing site drainage issues separately - I was just plain overwhelmed by the volume of water cascading off the road and neighbouring properties and down across our site.

    But I also need to think through what to do (probably next dry season) to reshape the pond edges, possibly including planting, forming hard edges, terraces etc so these ponds can develop into lasting & attractive ecosystems.

    Pond design references online are largely British or N. American.

    I would much appreciate any practical suggestions in terms of planting, edge materials/construction from folk with more local experience and the same objectives with their ponds.

    Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

    Where's the rain?

    in Isaan

    Posted

    Interesting to read how localised the rain is - while there were 2 or 3 rains a day or so ago in KK, here about 80 km away it remains tinder dry. I imagined when rainy season hits it would be widespread and persistent - although I realise the season hasn't truly kicked off yet.

    At least the long dry weekend has provided the chance to dig a few relief ditches and plant another load of fruit trees.

    Fingers crossed for some damp soon

    Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

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