Limes

[BHW]

About 3 months ago I posted that we had more Limes than we needed, well now we have established a client base we cannot supply at the moment.

 

We live near Samrong Thap on  highway 226 between Sisaket & Surin, if anybody has say 50 KG + we may be interested in buying of course the distance could be an issue, we also have a market for limes that have a brownish skin, of course both must be very juicey.

 

Thanks Guys.

[Once Bitten]

Sorry can't help you  , we have people asking to buy our Lemons / Limes  but can't supply enough even when picking over 200 / 300kg each time , even the one's with brown skin or that have fallen on the ground people want to buy as many as we can sell. 

 

 

 

Not so long back there was not much demand  , but now its crazy 

 

We are expanding to meet a demand here for  ''Wing Beans ''  by planting 500 new plants along side the rows of the existing Limes / Lemons  .

 

 

 

[BHW]

Yes sure is crazy, we are going to expand as well problem is 15 - 18 months until fruit. When we had more than could sell threw out the brown & ones on the ground, next year we'll juice & freeze them did do 12 lts but could sell 120 lts.

 

I see you planted your's straight in the ground, we did the Thai way plant in cement tanks this time will plant straight in the ground, will make a mix of sand / burnt rice husk / cow poo / coconut husk & rice husk worked OK first lot, what did you use to plant in.

[Once Bitten]

5 hours ago, BHW said:

Yes sure is crazy, we are going to expand as well problem is 15 - 18 months until fruit. When we had more than could sell threw out the brown & ones on the ground, next year we'll juice & freeze them did do 12 lts but could sell 120 lts.

 

I see you planted your's straight in the ground, we did the Thai way plant in cement tanks this time will plant straight in the ground, will make a mix of sand / burnt rice husk / cow poo / coconut husk & rice husk worked OK first lot, what did you use to plant in.

 

Hi

We did originally look at a lot of Thai Lemons growers who planted both in the concrete rings and directly into the ground , it seemed  from what we were told at the time , rightly or wrongly that the planted in concrete rings option gave a better crop return due to being able to concentrate the plant food and water in the confined area of the concrete ring and some how manipulate the crop growing frequency over the year to give a better return along with being able to better restrict weed growth . 

 

But after looking at both the concrete ring option and the direct in the ground way , over all the quality of the fruit produced seemed to be better if planted directly in the ground. 

 

With directly in the ground  the maintenance and keeping the weed population down is an ongoing thing , but personally I think the plants seem to be thriving better directly planted in the ground .

 

One other factor when we first decided to plant directly in the ground was the extra cost of the concrete rings / round flat bottoms. 

 

I'm still fairly new to growing and there are several things I still don't understand . Ive seen Thai growers remove their plants , including Lemon / Limes if the current price for that particular crop is down in price , then straight away they plant another type of crop that does have a good price at that time. It seem an endless cycle of trying to get the best price for a crop , even if it means digging up a perfectly fine crop that will at some future point in time  have a good price. At first I thought that this continuous change of crop types was possibly due to crop rotation issues , but my Thai wife assures me that its mostly due to the Thai grower wanting money now and not in the future when the crop price rises. 

One local Thai grower I know has so far planted , Sacha  Inchi / chili  / banana / string beans / egg plant / in rapid succession , it was a sad sight to see perfectly good young banana plants being dug up because at the time the price of bananas was down 

 

The photos show ....

 

A . This is a shot of a graft on a mature Lemon bush , the Thai owner of the land had several hundred bushes growing and he was grafting from these bushes and then planting those grafts in pots to sell on and that's where we bought our young plants from. The last time we went back to see him , all the mature bushes had been dug up and now he's planted all bananas .  

 

B. I had a brain wave , my back ached picking up all the fallen fruit , then I saw this grabber in a local shop . Its worth its weight in gold , no more bending over and a stiff back. 

 

C . Before we started growing we had a well dug on our land , this shot is of the first day the 2 Thai men started to hand dig the water well. 

 

D. This shot is of one of the Thai men digging away .

 

E. This shot is of the completed well , it has an electric pump to a water sprinkler feed system to the Lemons and at the same time the black plastic pipe drip feed to the Wing bean plants .

 

We use about the same mix as your self , the only thing we learned was to get cow poo from cows that had only been fed grass by the owner , we were told that the cow poo from cows that are allowed to graze freely on the road side can contain a lot of bad bacteria . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[farmerjo]

On 16/3/2561 at 10:09 PM, Once Bitten said:

Sorry can't help you  , we have people asking to buy our Lemons / Limes  but can't supply enough even when picking over 200 / 300kg each time , even the one's with brown skin or that have fallen on the ground people want to buy as many as we can sell. 

 

 

 

Not so long back there was not much demand  , but now its crazy 

 

We are expanding to meet a demand here for  ''Wing Beans ''  by planting 500 new plants along side the rows of the existing Limes / Lemons  .

 

 

 

How old are your trees in the picture ?

[Once Bitten]

On 3/20/2018 at 6:41 PM, farmerjo said:

How old are your trees in the picture ?

Hi , sorry I missed your question 

The trees are about 2 years old , we originally purchased young plants as shown below in - A

 

 

Clearing the ground - B

 

 

and planting in the ground - C

 

 

 

We have just planted some Wing Beans and as soon ast they get bigger we will install some netting so they can start to climb - D

 

 

 

[kickstart]

On 17/3/2561 at 1:28 PM, Once Bitten said:

We use about the same mix as your self , the only thing we learned was to get cow poo from cows that had only been fed grass by the owner , we were told that the cow poo from cows that are allowed to graze freely on the road side can contain a lot of bad bacteria

Cow manure from cattal grazing road side verges can not contain any bad bacteria,the quality will not be so good ,compaied with cattal grazing lush grass and feed a concentrat diet .

The digestive system of cattle  is complicated with 4 stomachs/compartments ,food passing though in various  stages of digestion ,and the ph of the stomachs is critical any "bad bacteria" entering the system is normally a management problem ,cattle eating to much of one food ,causes the gut ph to drop, then ruination  ceases other bacteria take over causing problems ,which in some cases can be fatal ,normally only effects 1 or 2 cattle in a herd .not the whole herd ,this problem normally  effects dairy cattle.

As most beef cattal are on a low input system ,rough grass and rice straw,and they have very few digestive problems they manure will be allright to use.

So ,around here  beef cattle manure  is being baged up and sold from the cattal yard ,most will end up on local fields and gardens ,with out any problems 

[farmerjo]

On 31/3/2561 at 1:54 PM, Once Bitten said:

Hi , sorry I missed your question 

The trees are about 2 years old , we originally purchased young plants as shown below in - A

 

 

Clearing the ground - B

 

 

and planting in the ground - C

 

 

 

We have just planted some Wing Beans and as soon ast they get bigger we will install some netting so they can start to climb - D

 

 

 

Thanks for that,just trying to get an idea of where our 6 trees are at.

About the same age,nothing special done here just deep ripped a line 450mm deep then trees put it.

FIL gives the odd bucket of water and fertilizer.

Your trees look well advanced with the extra care.

 

[tifino]

 

you could always increase diversify a little, to increase your client base...

 

replies so far, with pictures, show falang limes

What about adding Kaffir Limes to your mix?

 

It isn't really just about the fruit itself; but Thai women go nuts over their leaves - the pictured below, 2 segmented ones of a Kaffir

over the long haul, a kaffir in Thailand will never need to be pruned down by the farmer, nor wayward elephants...

The Thai mrs, and all her visiting girlfriends will themselves furiously pick off whatever Kaffir leaves that they can reach!

 

it is for their skin treatment  (stay young fantasy)

 

 

[jojo83]

On 31/3/2561 at 1:54 PM, Once Bitten said:

Hi , sorry I missed your question 

The trees are about 2 years old , we originally purchased young plants as shown below in - A

 

 

Clearing the ground - B

 

 

and planting in the ground - C

 

 

 

We have just planted some Wing สมัคร king168 Beans and as soon ast they get bigger we will install some netting so they can start to climb - D

 

 

 

 

Wow, I dream of having a garden like this. How much is this investment?

[Once Bitten]

22 hours ago, jojo83 said:

 

Wow, I dream of having a garden like this. How much is this investment?

The land ( 1Rai ) came with the property .

 

To days pick all seem to be good 

 

 

 

Spotted we had some visitors 

 

 

Our Mafai seem to be doing well 

 

 

 

For Lemons to day we were paid 300 Baht per 10kg bag 

[Once Bitten]

On 4/3/2018 at 7:58 AM, tifino said:

 

you could always increase diversify a little, to increase your client base...

 

replies so far, with pictures, show falang limes

What about adding Kaffir Limes to your mix?

 

It isn't really just about the fruit itself; but Thai women go nuts over their leaves - the pictured below, 2 segmented ones of a Kaffir

over the long haul, a kaffir in Thailand will never need to be pruned down by the farmer, nor wayward elephants...

The Thai mrs, and all her visiting girlfriends will themselves furiously pick off whatever Kaffir leaves that they can reach!

 

it is for their skin treatment  (stay young fantasy)

 

 

We have a few growing on our land that were originally there when we purchased it 

 

 

[Once Bitten]

Bit off topic , We have tried a few other things as well