Thread: Greenscaping our Retirement Home in Nan Province

Originally Posted by Neverna

Passionfruit and mango jam is also very nice. I recommend making it without the passionfruit pips rather than with them. It's much more pleasurable (IMHO).

Can't get enough passionfruit in any practical application.

Next time you're mulling around the kitchen and looking for something different, try a good banana bread fused with passionfruit.
Heavenly.

I have been commanded by the wife to spread her joy at discovering a whole bunch of large and good quality purple eggplants she didn't know she had. This small garden has been surrounded by netting to reduce pests getting in and having lifted the netting today she found these and a ton of good looking green chilies growing. Apart from grilling them on a BBQ I'm at a loss as to how to make such an amount of eggplants edible. Any suggestions?

For the small purple tropical variety, which break down easier and loose their meaty composition when over cooked - suggest to simple grill the thickly sliced gems over coals, accompanied by a brushed on flavoured oil of your choice or one of the numerous varieties of Prik Nam Pla. Don't over cook 'em...

As you might know, the more common types of eggplant used around are of the Thai/Khmer greenish-white round shaped variety - more complex and hearty, as it doesn't break down too easy.
Could be debated, as they're also know to be called a distant hybrid of the Japanese White Eggplant - hence, their colour and shape.

A super vegetarian dish, looks a bit complicated but after the first time it just gets easier and better. This is a good recipe with tips. A hit with beers.

Baba Ganoush.

https://cookieandkate.com/epic-baba-ganoush-recipe/

So after kicking me out of the butterfly and bee garden the wife planted some climbing roses that unfortunately are thriving. She has tended to let them grow wild and encroach onto the level 1 balcony. After one too many times of me being ripped across the ankle, calf, forearm and bridge of the nose with barbs I made some pretty concerted noise about the perils of inappropriate planting and ripping these out and replacing with rose bushes. End result was I was ignored. So we reached a compromise of sorts, I agreed to provide a support for the runners and she agreed nothing would be allowed to encroach on the balcony.

I designed a support with a rope lattice and got the guy who build the carport and a few other things in for a quote. Wanted 1,800 baht which I was quite okay with. Came back a few days later and installed it. We had some reasonable quality light nylon rope lying about and in the end it was only half a meter short, so we made do. Wife then spent some time rearranging and tying the runners off. Think it will be okay.

Originally Posted by NamPikToot

BiP Really looking forward to this, gardens are my thing and in Thailand the climate allows you to spend lots of time outside year round. Agree with Airport, i made the mistake with some trees and not spacing them sufficiently and disappointingly had to remove them.

Regards your drainage issues, clearly you are prepping to ensure there are no areas where water collects but its worth considering that where the waters migrates to will be more damp than other areas in the wet season - roots generally don't like it too wet so i'd think about what you are planting in those ares - obviously some plants thrive in soil that has a higher water content.

Are u farming in Thai?

Decided to replace the vegetable garden adhoc timber and bamboo shade structures with PVC pipe. First one installed cost approx 600 baht in total. Forgot to get a before picture of it so that is the next one to replace. Will probably make four modules for the long garden and attach them to each adjacent one once installed. Wife is very happy with the first one. My brother is here at the moment so was a boon in getting it made and in position. Will need to make the others basically in situ since without him cannot carry from front of house under the carport around to the back garden.

Put the second of the replacement vegetable garden shade structures in place today.

Not sure what this obnoxious weed is called but I'm determined to rid my yards of it. Has quite a few spikes and hooks along the stems and the leaves fold up when it is touched. My brother who was here last week says they are also in Australia. Anyway I'm going to spend half an hour a day hand pulling these tap root and all until they are gone. Tools will be a screwdriver to lift the stems out of the grass and some thick gloves.

we call it sensitive weed in australia - and you need to pull it out by the roots - it spreads via root system

you can use a pair of combination pliers to grab it , but I just use gloves

Yeah I'm using thick gloves. The screwdriver is also handy to loosen the soil around the tap root as well as lifting the stems out of the grass. I'm getting good at identifying the stems even when the leaves have hidden. Regards, -BiP

Originally Posted by baldrick

we call it sensitive weed in australia - and you need to pull it out by the roots - it spreads via root system

you can use a pair of combination pliers to grab it , but I just use gloves

BiP
good luck getting rid of that weed. I hate the f**king things.
I see one grab it to pull it out and always forget about the bloody prickles.
Can't get rid of it with the lawnmower as it is a low growing bastard of a plant.

I must say you are turning your back garden into a "farang" garden not a Thai one with all that neat a tidy framework. The ramshackle haphazard bamboo looked more authentic Thai.

I spend time everyday pulling weeds
Just got one of these of Lazada, if the grounds soft work well, trouble is the ground isn't that soft! https://www.lazada.co.th/products/ga...793390247.html

I like the look of those tools Airportwo but quite reluctant to buy sight unseen. So much garden tools and a lot more sold here are inferior quality and last a very short time. And almost all of our land is hard fill containing rocks. Not sure if I posted this before but a steel rake I got in Thailand had a tooth break off. I kept in and had the wife take it to the local metal shop (I stayed in the car to avoid a farang pricing opportunity) and had them weld an additional cross piece and weld the teeth to it and strengthen the welds to the original cross member. I can't quite remember what she paid, it was one of 100 baht, 160 or 200. Even if 200 it was money well spent and I can use a bit of force with the rake now confident it is not going to fall apart too quickly.

Originally Posted by Airportwo

I spend time everyday pulling weeds
Just got one of these of Lazada, if the grounds soft work well, trouble is the ground isn't that soft! https://www.lazada.co.th/products/ga...793390247.html

We've got bananas fruiting. The wife's father brought these up from Nakhon Pathom in February. Kind of excited, never grown bananas before.

Originally Posted by BoganInParasite

I like the look of those tools Airportwo but quite reluctant to buy sight unseen. So much garden tools and a lot more sold here are inferior quality and last a very short time.

Agree about the quality of the tools, I was dubious about these but was pleasantly surprised that they are reasonable quality and didn't bend distort or fall to pieces on first use! TBH I bought two sets, expecting the first one to fall to pieces - I was wrong
The land here in Udon just gets harder and harder the further into the dry season we get, I have a few rakes also! decent shovels are near impossible to find!

Originally Posted by baldrick

we call it sensitive weed in australia - and you need to pull it out by the roots - it spreads via root system

you can use a pair of combination pliers to grab it , but I just use gloves

....and they're considered edible in some local circles as an herb like additive.

Originally Posted by HuangLao

....and they're considered edible in some local circles as an herb like additive.

Jeff, please tell me you can pronounce Herb correctly, not like most yank fukwits without the H.

Bip and Airportwo
Here's my array of tools mostly brought over from Australia 10 years ago. So far they are some of the few things that haven't ben pilfered, lost or damaged.






Also BiP if you haven't grown bananas before you do know they only grow 1 bunch per plant, so then you need to chop it down.
MIL chops the stalks up and uses them for mulch.

Ootai, my favourite gardening tool is my Roughneck Mattock, weighs about 5 Kgs and goes through the soil like butter

Nice tool collection ootai. Lost mine when I walked out of my home at the end of 2006 never to return.

Anyway...our kaffir lime tree died. Dropped its two fruits and leaves and gave up the ghost in less than a week. Drove up to Thung Chang yesterday afternoon to get another. The wife was with me, always dangerous. Only collateral damage was two more climbing roses and five bags of potting mix. Think myself quite lucky this trip.

We continue to have increasing success in growing fruit and now vegetables organically, absolutely no chemicals used for fertilizer, disease or pest control. In less than a year we've turned our once barren vegetable garden dirt and fill into a fertile soil. We started off by adding mulch and manure. Over the last four months it has come ahead quickly thanks largely to the compost spreading. Here is a typically compost input from the kitchen on a day our homestay has guests. Lots of fruit skins, seeds, off-cuts, egg shells and mushroom 'roots'.

BiP coming along. Ref the compost my only concenrn would be providing an idea nesting site for snakes. We get loads of leaf fall which at the moment gets burnt but once i become the head gardener composting is definitely on the cards.

I did notice that when we used organic matter like rice husk in pots it seem to act as ideal termite food and they merrily converted it into houses.

Originally Posted by NamPikToot

my only concenrn would be providing an idea nesting site for snakes.

Like snails, they don't like the journey across crushed eggshells.

We compost in plastic bins, nothing on the ground. We also turn the mulch and compost directly into the soil so there is nothing for any nasties to either hide in or build homes. Since we put the mesh around the whole of the yard we've only had three snakes come in. Two harmless golden tree snakes that I encouraged to leave and another 1.5 meter long snake that I didn't recognize so it unfortunately paid the price.