Mulberries

[maidu]

this fruit has probably already been touched upon in this section, but I've found mulberry trees grow rather well where I reside in northern Thailand. Even without 'babying' them with lots of water and fertilizer, they grown small to mid-sized, and produce an ok amount of berries.

Nobody is going to get rich growing them, but it's a nice addition to a homestead - to have 2 to 3 modest-sized crops of lovely berries each year.

Update on Brazil Noi: I've posted years ago on a tree which is related to Brazil Nut (more nuts per pod, but nuts are smaller than standard Brazils). My 40+ trees are producing 2 modest crops annually. Similar to my comments on mulberries, above, they don't need any babying, and probably aren't going to make anyone a millionaire. Yet, they're an attractive evergreen, have no diseases, and yield many nuts - can be eaten raw, but particularly tasty when roasted.

Update on introduced citrus: I'm probably the only person in Thailand who grows seedless pink grapefruit (or grapefruit of any kind). My trees, started from seed, started producing quantity last year (at 14 years). Fruits were small, but that's largely due to the fact that I don't fertilize or water as much as I should. I wound up juicing the whole crop, which lasted from August through just past December. Satisfying.

Still looking for muscat (or any table) grapes. Kiwi, Figs that don't die a year after I plant them. Will trade. I got vanilla vines growing (man, they're slow), but they haven't yet flowered.

[gamini]

very nice topic. Yes mulberries easy to grow anywhere and make a nice drink. A few years ago I made a lot of mulberry wine (500 bottles) , Doing it properly with all the right ingredients. It was terrific but my farm was 3,600 feet above sea level and I was able to keep the wine nice and cool until it matured.We even built a cellar into the mountain. But you could use a large refrigerator to season the wine.

We tried Kiwi fruit but no luck. We grow figs and pomegranate near Hua Hin now

[xen]

Maidu,

I am extremely interested how your Vanilla orchids go . I believe there are about 17 different varieties world wide . I haven't moved permanently to LOS yet but that is a crop that i would like to try although they are extremely labour intensive. Have yours produced beans yet? Are you planning to do all the processing yourself?

I think Mulberries are native to your general area - what i learnt as being termed lower Himalayas so they should do well. I remember flying into Chaing Mai in the eighties and talking to a Thai guy sitting next to me about mulberries and he offered me a job of manager of a mulberry farm near the border as he found it difficult to get people to stay. That was the days of the Shan army and the opium trade. He told me that he grew the mulberries for the silk trade in Chiang Mai.

Edited April 17, 2013 by xen

[rice555]

Hello All, this is along Hwy 224 a few miles before Korat Immigration Office, the bus was bumpy so the picts

are not that good.

rice555

[maidu]

Thanks for the photos. I didn't know they were grown like bushes, but it makes a lot of sense to grow them that way, because they get stringy (lots of long suckers, no reference to your brothers) if grown like a tree. The tree of mine which is yielding the most berries is, perhaps not surprisingly, the one which was most trimmed back - to allow more shade for my clothes drying lines.

I'm no expert on vanilla, but I had one cutting kindly given to me by a ThaiVisa member (can't recall name) about 4 years ago. It's been growing well, and I've taken cuttings from its leading end - and propagating a few added vines. My success rate is mottled, partly because of neighbors' chickens who destroy all they can with their scratching, and I don't baby the plants enough. They haven't yet flowered. I've heard the story about how, when they were taken out of Mexico, they didn't yield because the special fly (from their endemic region) wasn't taken with them. ....and how it was a 14 yr old slave boy who figured how to get the flowers to fertilize - using a little stick method.

[xen]

Thanks for the photos. I didn't know they were grown like bushes, but it makes a lot of sense to grow them that way, because they get stringy (lots of long suckers, no reference to your brothers) if grown like a tree. The tree of mine which is yielding the most berries is, perhaps not surprisingly, the one which was most trimmed back - to allow more shade for my clothes drying lines.

I'm no expert on vanilla, but I had one cutting kindly given to me by a ThaiVisa member (can't recall name) about 4 years ago. It's been growing well, and I've taken cuttings from its leading end - and propagating a few added vines. My success rate is mottled, partly because of neighbors' chickens who destroy all they can with their scratching, and I don't baby the plants enough. They haven't yet flowered. I've heard the story about how, when they were taken out of Mexico, they didn't yield because the special fly (from their endemic region) wasn't taken with them. ....and how it was a 14 yr old slave boy who figured how to get the flowers to fertilize - using a little stick method.

The vanilla orchid needs to be hand fertilized - one of the reasons that it is so labour intensive and hense, vanilla so expensive. I know they must be well drained and grown in shade - natually under the canopy of trees.

Best of luck with them

[rice555]

Hello All, after having to make a return trip to Immigrations the next day and another

attempt to get another pic of the place, I ended up with these two. Almost got the main

double caterpillar shot, but the second pic says they sale silkworms, so the plants are

for the food supply. The have 4 or so plots of plants at different stages of growth.

rice555