Thread: What's in your garden?

Originally Posted by Maanaam

I have some kaffir lime trees in the yard somewhere and also trying to get a plain lime tree to grow as I don't think my missus uses lemon much but that might be because we don't have them at hand.

We have 2 types of the Kaffir lime trees. We have the one variety that does not have thorns. We have another that has thorns that are damn near 2" long and are stiff and could be used as a weapon. They both bear fruit that is never is used (Albeit I cut them and toss in the bathroom for a nice smell). My wife does however use 3 or 4 leaves from time to time in various dishes.

We have 5 regular old lime trees. My FIL grafted them from the large one we have but they produce very few limes and small. I recently bought 2 lemon trees and 1 has a lemon already.

Originally Posted by ootai

The other thing I hate here is the bloody red ants and they seem to invade every tree no matter what it is. I went to pick a couple of limes the other day and got attacked. One bite is no problem but lots of bites bloody hurt.

AHHHHHH Yes...Mot Dang (Red Ants). Brutal bastards. Relentless. I just trimmed my Lumyai trees way back and they assaulted all of us. Bite is annoying and feels like your getting a shot. Thank god no venom. Our trees had 3 BIG nests. My FIL cut each one off into a bag and took the eggs and gave them to his neighbor lady friend. From my wife she has never eaten bugs and my FIL says the same. I have zero need to try and won't.

Originally Posted by ootai

The family try to reduce the numbers by raiding the nests to get the eggs to eat but I think that just makes the ants angrier.

Actually that does work and if you do it enough they will look elsewhere to nest up but they still will raid your yard. They are an important part of the eco system for pollinating trees here along with the bees. The good thing is they do not enter houses. They really do not want to be bothered.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

Medicinal

Speaking of Medicinal, Some time ago my FIL was given this herb by some Thai holistic healer massage guru.... Anyway I do not think it has done anything for him but now he has these herbs growing all around our property. No idea what it is but they grow like crazy and he has been giving them to his granddaughter who dries them out and grinds them up and sells it. It appears to be well known as a healing herb. For me, it grows nice along walls and has big full leaves but he has it everywhere now.



My first lemon and a few new flowers so maybe a few more.



Kaffir lime tree no thorns...



Kaffir Lime tree with deadly thorns.



Speaking of thorns, I forgot the name of this plant but I absolutely cannot stand it. The smell makes me gag. Wife uses it in a a fish dish for her Dad. I said OK Great....you use 2 branches can't we have just one bush? Besides the thorns that are razor sharp the red ants love it. They grow fast and I laugh every time my FIL trims them back as he gets bloodied and I keep saying. "1 Bush.....1 Bush" let me dig them up"...

JPPR2
The quote below was from me not Maanaam.

Originally Posted by Maanaam
I have some kaffir lime trees in the yard somewhere and also trying to get a plain lime tree to grow as I don't think my missus uses lemon much but that might be because we don't have them at hand.

As for that prickly bush (the last picture in your last post) we have several of them here. In post#6 I had a picture of one of them (see below) and if you have a look it is much more "eaten" down than yours. My Missus goes and picks off the young leaves as soon as there are a few grown back.


I also see that you have some dragon fruit cactus growing (in the picture of the lemon) have you had any fruit from them yet? That is one thing I do like eating.
I also found out today that we have some custard apple trees growing at the back of the old house. My sister in law was getting some of them down for my MIL and I seen her so I asked what she was doing and that's when I found out we had them. Learn something new everyday if you want to

Cheers

Originally Posted by ootai

I also see that you have some dragon fruit cactus growing (in the picture of the lemon) have you had any fruit from them yet? That is one thing I do like eating.

Oh Yes we have both the white inside and red inside Dragonfruit. The red inside is very good and much sweeter than the white. I would say we got maybe 20 to 30 or so off each one and have more coming. My FIL loves them and picks and eats them like I would pick an apple and eat it.

Originally Posted by ootai

Learn something new everyday if you want to

Amen to that. Many people do not seem to pay any attention to their surroundings. I am constantly looking around especially on my bike rides etc. In fact not to long ago I saw a lady with a huge Yucca type cactus plant in her yard. One day while riding by she was cutting it back so I asked her if I may take some and she filled up a bunch in bag for me. I came home, stuck them in the ground and now have them around the property and feed them to my tortoises which they love.

Originally Posted by ootai

As for that prickly bush (the last picture in your last post) we have several of them here. In post#6 I had a picture of one of them (see below) and if you have a look it is much more "eaten" down than yours. My Missus goes and picks off the young leaves as soon as there are a few grown back.

My wife only picks when needed. She knows the sour bitter smell does not go well with me and putting it in the fridge is not going to happen. The smell takes over everything like Durian does.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Speaking of thorns, I forgot the name of this plant but I absolutely cannot stand it. The smell makes me gag. Wife uses it in a a fish dish for her Dad.

Might be the only herb/additive/food that I'm offended by in Thai cuisines - with heat, it produces this ungodly smell and taste. Usually used with fish and eggs.
The larger leaves are almost uneatable and loose their potency, hence the young leafy stems are picked frequently to allow new younger growth to flourish, which of course are more cherished.

Stuff grows madly wild everywhere - very hardy and known to be drought resistant.

Well Today was the start of my Hedge trimming. I do it in sections and stop for the day.





When we cleared our lot before our house build started then built our wall to cover the extended property I planted some 250 of these hedges around the walls. They were a mere 3 feet tall when I planted. The idea was to offer privacy while keeping the green look I like as I hate looking at a cement wall that ends up black. I had been keeping these up by myself. however nowadays they are about 12 feet tall and take about 3 hours a day for about 5 days or so to get them all edged up and clean. Last time my wife hired a guy to come in and do them all. He did hack job.

Well I'm back from my visit to Aussie to see the grandkids. Little buggers grow quickly. So I thought I would post a bit more useless information.

JPPR2 Do you use hand clippers to trim your hedge? I have a much, much smaller hedge than you and I went out and bought an electric trimmer to do mine.
It works like a treat and lets you get a good straight edge or top. I guess I'm just trending to being lazy.

Anyway here's some more pictures for those of you who can't read.


This is my "herb" garden. The MIL is trying to grow some mint in the front ring.


This is the other brown ring with a lime tree, an egg plant bush and some other stuff they eat.


Some chives and onions


These are seedlings which were planted just before I left.



The other pictures were taken before I left but this one was taken today.
There is holy basil and red basil. You can see that while I was away there was rain and the weeds are starting to take over.

Originally Posted by ootai

It works like a treat and lets you get a good straight edge or top

A clear photo or a visit from the TD CSI Botany Branch before any opinions can be formed. Did you try your weed wacker previously?

OhOh
Don't know if I can supply a "clear" photo but here's the best I could do.


Looking from the house side.


Looking from the shed side.


The open end of the hedge.


Looking down from the open end of the hedge.


My work saver.

If it ain't good enough for anyone stiff shit, it works for me.

Cheers

Looks beautiful,

It's raining again so I can't go out and work in the garden so I thought I would post a few more pictures to ward of the boredom.


These chives are doing real well, I might have to pull some out to slow them down.


A while ago the MIL planted a lot of cherry tomato plants and now they pop up in random locations even though I thought I had pulled them all out. Obviously some tomato's fell on the ground before they were pulled out.


Some onions the MIL planted while I was away


Along with some Dill


and Coriander


I will work out one day what these Taro need to thrive. As you can see the ones in the foreground are going crazy and the ones just behind them are at best ordinary


Some "Pak Boong" that I planted the day

before

I left. I love eating this stuff.


Before I left we had some seedlings ready to plant and they have turned into...


This, which is Kale


and these which are pumpkins but not the fruiting variety, these are grown for their runner tips, which are boiled and eaten, quite nice.

Cheers

Originally Posted by ootai

These chives are doing real well, I might have to pull some out to slow them down.

If those are garlic chives then maybe get the good Missus cracking on some Gui-Shy?

This thread is making me miss the old days when I had more time to garden/landscape. Now, I've no time to spare, not even to enjoy the blooms in my garden.

David
I didn't know what you were talking about when you said "Gui-shy" although I did recognise it as something I have seen before from your photo so I googled it.
Turns out to find it on Google you need to spell it "Gui Chai".
Anyway I asked the missus about it and her response was why would I spend all that time cooking it when I can buy it for 20baht at the market and the family does buy and eat a fair bit of it.

GracelessFawn
As with everything you have a choice, maybe one you won't make for whatever reason but the choice is always there. I read quite a lot about what is called "Choice Theory" and found it to be true. My favourite expression goes like this "Even if someone is holding a gun at your head and demanding your money you don't have to give it to them!"
However not doing so might not be the right choice.

Cheers

Time for a few more pictures for those who don't like reading too much.


The MIL has planted some cucumbers and this time she will leave them on the ground instead of having grow up on a trellis. I will watch with interest as to how they go.


The long beans I planted before my holiday are producing really well and now I have planted the next crop in front of them.
I will plant a row of snow peas in front of that as my idea is the snow peas won't be too tall that they block the morning sun from the beans behind and by time the new beans are tall enough to block the ones behind them the old beans will have finished producing. I will wait and see.
While I was away the MIL hacked down most of the banana plants, don't really know why but I seemed to get the idea that they were being blown onto the beans.


In the background you can see the MIL's taro and yams are growing really well.


While I was away the one thing that grew exceptionally well was weeds, all it takes is a bit of rain and some sun and then they overpower everything.


My idea of using straw to cover the ground to stop the weeds worked really well here, this patch is under the shade house roof and there are no weeds at all.
I am planning on planting some "Queensland blue" pumpkins here as I bought some seeds back with me.

That's it for today.
Cheers

^Not much choice when you weigh-in the interest of public service.

You seem to have a variety of fencing types, which do you find the best. Your weed killing straw may appear to have worked for now, but they will return. Go away for another month ........

OhOh
I'm sure that the weeds would eventually prevail but I am very happy they have been conquered for at least 6 weeks now. Once the pumpkins grow over the top of the straw I am sure the weeds will also appear again.

As for the fences, yes we do have some variety.

This is the original fence around the house. I had some 2m posts made with 5mm rebar inside instead of the crappy little steel they usually use in cement posts. Barbed wire at 200mm centres. Just wanted to stop people and dogs.


However like everything there are changes to the rules in that now the missus wants to keep out chickens so you can see the additional mesh and tin to block the bottom. It doesn't really work as the dogs push their way through the mesh (and scratch their back at the same time on the barbed wire) and then the chickens just find the hole made by the dogs. When we chase the chickens out of the yard they just take flight straight over the top of the fence.


The MIL uses this string mesh and it seems to work quite well.


The shade cloth that has been left on the ends of the shade house works well but I have to be careful when I am using the weed-wacker there so as to not cut it up. I have a wire down at the bottom which I tie the shade cloth to.


When I took the shade cloth off the end of the shade house I needed something so I used this plastic fencing and while it is good in that it doesn't rust it does "tear" as shown when it is put under tension. I ended up threading a wire along the top and bottom.


The chickens haven't yet learned to fly over this plastic fence but they did quite quickly learn to go under it where I left space for the water drain. As shown I had to make a stick fence in the drain to stop them.


This fence is the first one I made for the garden to keep the chickens out but they soon learnt to jump/fly up onto the cement posts and then jump into the garden. Not so dumb chickens.


I have tried to show the main problem with this steel fence in that the wire is very thin and rusts out very quickly. It also breaks and if I forget when I am handling it I get "pricked" a lot by the fine wire. Its like getting stuck by a pin lots of times. I will never buy this crap again.


Finally this is the best "fence" the front wall keeps everything out.

If I were to build a new house fence at the back I would use the same 2m posts but put the chain mesh wire along it and bury the bottom 150mm into concrete.
Below is the wire mesh I would use. Same as what we have on our back gate.


Cheers

Thanks for the close ups and your experience of the different types.

This is not actually related to my garden but I thought it was fascinating anyway so i thought I would share it.

Yesterday morning the Missus spots a truck going past with those big concrete water storage jars on it so she stops them and buys 2 for the farm house.
I got the job of getting on the bike and showing them the way out there, it is about 4 kms from our house. The BIL lives there and has been struggling over the past few years having enough rain water storage so here you go have 2 new "jars"
Anyway before we left I asked the missus, "How are they going to get them off the truck?" She says to me, "Don't worry they have a way to do it."
I thought that they would have needed a crane of some sort, any way the way they did is shown below I reckon it is ingenious.


Firstly they move the jar over so it is hanging over to the edge of the truck.


They then place boards under each side of the bottom of the jar.


Once they have the 2 boards in position they pour water over the top of the boards and then they stand on the boards and let the jar slide down the boards.

I have a short (15sec) video but how can I post the video of it sliding down. The insert a video option wants a URL but it isn't on YouTube or anything its on my PC.
Help is needed.

Cheers

If you PM me the file, I have a you Tube account and can post it for you.

My garden is full of mushrooms at the moment, fvcking thousands of the horrible looking things.
Must be the record breaking summer and damp mornings, never seen so many before.

Can you make mushroom wine, Chitty?

Don't be putting ideas in my head Nev, i've still not sampled the last batch I made

Here's the filthy fookers, overrun with them today.


Anyone ideas for exterminating them?