What Kind Of Vegetables To Grow?

[nokia]

Hey farming folks,

Anybody manage to grow their own backyard vegetable garden for personal consumption with the use of minimal pesticide?

What kind of vegetables is suitable for growing in a small garden plot? Are leafy vegs or legumes more suitable in the LOS's climate? Any comments is appreciated.

Cheers!

[chownah]

Go look at the vegetable seeds for sale and those are the ones you can grow....just about everything except for root crops.

lettuce has always grown well and seems to have no pest or disease problems. Chili peppers and the various type of eggplant dowell.....brocolli and cauliflower also.....pak ghat does well too but there is a bug that eats the small plants so you need to time this one if you don't want to use pesticides. Cabbage does well....corn too....and lots of others.

Tomatoes are difficult and you need to get them to grow fast so you can harvest before they succumb to various diseases.

Chownah

[roietjimmy]

Go look at the vegetable seeds for sale and those are the ones you can grow....just about everything except for root crops.

lettuce has always grown well and seems to have no pest or disease problems. Chili peppers and the various type of eggplant dowell.....brocolli and cauliflower also.....pak ghat does well too but there is a bug that eats the small plants so you need to time this one if you don't want to use pesticides. Cabbage does well....corn too....and lots of others.

Tomatoes are difficult and you need to get them to grow fast so you can harvest before they succumb to various diseases.

Chownah

Good info, I too want to expand the selection in our small garden. Watermelon and pumpkin (fuktong) seems to do well in mine along with most all the leafy veggies. Also have an abundance of lemon grass. I will try brocolli and cauliflower. I would like to try tomatoes. How do I get them to grow fast? Also, do you know if the larger varieties of tomato such as beefsteak in Northern Hemisphere would do well here? I have never seen them at seed stores or markets so guess they won't do well.

BTW, I am in Isaan.

[chownah]

To get tomatoes to grow fast give them a good soil (I'm organic so I'm big on lots of organic matter in the soil) and I put them in full sun.....although some people say they do well or maybe even better in shade or partial shade. Whether organic or not don't give them too much nitrogen as this will delay onset of flowering and subsequent fruiting...lots of phosphorous is good. About now is the time to start plants or plant out starts if you have them in pots. I have started tomatoes in pots and then transplanted out and I have direct seeded in the garden and then transplanted when big enough....both seem to work equally well. Best to not water on the plants I guess because this encourages some diseases and don't splash dirt or mud onto them if you can help it because this causes disease too.....in fact my experience has been that your plants WILL die from disease and the hope is that you can get a good crop of tomatoes before they succumb.

Primitive types of tomatoes are more disease resistant than the inbred types.....beefsteak tomatoes are inbred to get the huge size and great taste...but...this process purged them of their disease resistence....ooops...very very difficult if not impossible to grow in Thailand. Primitive types have smaller and sometimes harder fruits......sounds like Thai tomatoes, doesn't it.....my guess is that Thai tomatoes are much closer to the primitive strains that all tomatoes have been bred from. My experience has been that you can get a very flavorful tomato here if it gets enough vine time before picking...and that even some not quite ripe picked tomatoes can ripen up on the shelf and be very tastey.....obviously the market tomatoes don't always make it....one reason is that for somtam you don't need really ripe tomatoes and in fact I think that a completely ripe tomato is not preferred for somtam.

Dinner time,

Chownah

[roietjimmy]

To get tomatoes to grow fast give them a good soil (I'm organic so I'm big on lots of organic matter in the soil) and I put them in full sun.....although some people say they do well or maybe even better in shade or partial shade. Whether organic or not don't give them too much nitrogen as this will delay onset of flowering and subsequent fruiting...lots of phosphorous is good. About now is the time to start plants or plant out starts if you have them in pots. I have started tomatoes in pots and then transplanted out and I have direct seeded in the garden and then transplanted when big enough....both seem to work equally well. Best to not water on the plants I guess because this encourages some diseases and don't splash dirt or mud onto them if you can help it because this causes disease too.....in fact my experience has been that your plants WILL die from disease and the hope is that you can get a good crop of tomatoes before they succumb.

Primitive types of tomatoes are more disease resistant than the inbred types.....beefsteak tomatoes are inbred to get the huge size and great taste...but...this process purged them of their disease resistence....ooops...very very difficult if not impossible to grow in Thailand. Primitive types have smaller and sometimes harder fruits......sounds like Thai tomatoes, doesn't it.....my guess is that Thai tomatoes are much closer to the primitive strains that all tomatoes have been bred from. My experience has been that you can get a very flavorful tomato here if it gets enough vine time before picking...and that even some not quite ripe picked tomatoes can ripen up on the shelf and be very tastey.....obviously the market tomatoes don't always make it....one reason is that for somtam you don't need really ripe tomatoes and in fact I think that a completely ripe tomato is not preferred for somtam.

Dinner time,

Chownah

Great and big thanks. I will try the tomatoes as you suggest. May not get much yield but who cares. The enjoyment is in the trying when you don't have to depend on selling them. A little like fishing. The fishing is always great but the catching varies from bad to good.

[PhimaiPaul]

spent few months in Thai last year and a took a packet of runner bean seeds with me, these grew very well and the locals loved them.

Paul

[nokia]

Excellent advice from chownah, a master gardener. As a "lazy gardener" myself, who enjoys harvesting but who experiences other garden activities as drudgery. I think my solution is to put aside the idea of building my garden around familiar annuals such as lettuce, spinach, and peas. Are there any perennial vegetables or leaf spinaches that have edible leaves, stems and often other parts that will do well in LOS? How about root vegs like sweet potato, tapioca, potato etc ?? Is tomato a perennial or requite re-planting after a/few seasons of fruit?

[ozzydom]

Your particular location will dictate to a large extent what you can grow in Los,,vegetables that do ok in the North will probably be no good in Isaan and vice versa.

[nokia]

Your particular location will dictate to a large extent what you can grow in Los,,vegetables that do ok in the North will probably be no good in Isaan and vice versa.

i'm in the north, CM. Are u a gardener too? Cheers!

[lesi]

Hi.

Im new here, what about seeds exchange ?? we dont need use money and time find what we can use..

I have a lot of different vegatables and get new ... many..

Some of them i sell / eat other I use for make new seeds..

I have now.

7 different chili, come about 40 more

6 different Eggplants, come about 20 more

And all the other vegatables.

And I try find new all the time.

I also have a few flowers, but that come next when I have time..

Sorry if my English not perfect, Im danish and try learn Thai

I live in Lopburi and try have all in my 10 Rai. But I can easy use 10 more.

Lesi

[nokia]

Hi lesi,

Welcome. Your English is not bad. This is a gd idea, maybe in the future?

At the moment, i'm still a "lazy gardener" and i've not even bought the seeds yet.

Do you really plant vegetables(chilli, eggplants etc) on all the 10 rai alone without any helpers?

You must be an expert & hardworking gardener. I'm planning to start with a tiny 1 metre square plot first. haha

Maybe there are other expert gardeners in the forum will be interested trade seeds with you too?

Cheers to havearbejde!

Hi.

Im new here, what about seeds exchange ?? we dont need use money and time find what we can use..

I have a lot of different vegatables and get new ... many..

Some of them i sell / eat other I use for make new seeds..

I have now.

7 different chili, come about 40 more

6 different Eggplants, come about 20 more

And all the other vegatables.

And I try find new all the time.

I also have a few flowers, but that come next when I have time..

Sorry if my English not perfect, Im danish and try learn Thai

I live in Lopburi and try have all in my 10 Rai. But I can easy use 10 more.

Lesi

[Sapillyder]

Excellent advice from chownah, a master gardener. As a "lazy gardener" myself, who enjoys harvesting but who experiences other garden activities as drudgery. I think my solution is to put aside the idea of building my garden around familiar annuals such as lettuce, spinach, and peas. Are there any perennial vegetables or leaf spinaches that have edible leaves, stems and often other parts that will do well in LOS? How about root vegs like sweet potato, tapioca, potato etc ?? Is tomato a perennial or requite re-planting after a/few seasons of fruit?

I'm also curious about root veggies. Where I live in Kalasin, potatoes are a rarity and I need to drive over an hour and a half to buy them and then they come wrapped individually in foam protectors, as though they were an exotic tropical fruit.

[RickFarang]

Up here in Udon, you can add onions and basil to the list of plants that work.

[Gary A]

I think a semi organic garden will work up here. By semi organic I mean that you plant a variety of vegetables and without a doubt the insects will prefer just one over the rest. That favorite of the insects you can spray with insecticide and if you like, not keep that particular vegetable.

[rice555]

Hello nokia, looking at the local seed store is a good idea, how ever there is very little info on the verity inside. To get a idea of what's you can go to www.seedquest.com and down on the the page on the L/H side and click on "white pages". When that page opens, click on "Thailand".

Now you see what Co's have web sites and maybe find what your looking for.

Most of the places you can order from, you most likely need someone who speaks Thai to order for you.

I'm in Korat, 5Km from downtown, I've had very little problems with tomatoes, beefsteak were so so, but had good 300-350grm Black Krim's and regularly turn out 170-220grm good tasting fruit for the growing conditions of Thailand outdoors. In 7 years I've tried 74+ verities of tomatoes, 3 tomatillos. For best results I use a Hyb. with a good disease package.(VFNT or VFFN) I still grow some O/P "Open Pollinated" as the flavor is hard to beat.

Sweet and bell pepper, hot chillies - habanero - serrano -jalapeno - anaheim and ancho. eggplant, okra, green beans, corn,(Hickory King for masa) swiss chard, summer squash and melons, work for me.

While I'm sitting here waiting for my next batch of seed to arrive in my friends pocket, I'll trying to figure out what "Primitive" and "Inbred" tomatoes are??? I know O/P, F2, F1-Hyb., and GM are.

www.tomatogrowers.com is a good place tom's egg& pilk

Keep the green side up.

rice555

[Somtham]

...Sweet and bell pepper, hot chillies - habanero - serrano -jalapeno - anaheim and ancho. eggplant, okra, green beans, corn...

Keep the green side up.

rice555

Anaheim chiles?? Oooooooooooo I'm dying for a chile relleno right now!! Care to share some seeds?

rgds

[Pond Life]

The seed exchange sounds like a great idea.

A tip for tomatoe growers that I've tried this year & seems to be working is Marigolds.

They have something in them that is suposed to repel insects in general & Nematode worms in particular.

Interplant them every 3 plants.

Other veg we've been sucessful with, pumpkins, chilli's, small Makua, lettuce, any type of bean.

[AlexLah]

As for now, Spinach is OK, Basil OK, Coriander is OK, Tomatoes yes I got the small ones but after about 3 months they die.

Have tried many different soil and seeds but no big juicy red tomatoes.

Cucumbers I tried but no good result, I get them but they are very small.