I was going to start a thread about our experiences on the small holding we have this year. However, that wouldn't be enough for a thread so I thought it best to throw it open to the forum to share their experiences as well. There's plenty of diversity here in Thailand and we might be able to give each other some ideas.
Anyway, I live in a pretty rural part of Isaan in Sakon Nakhon province, Terry did a thread on his trip to the city a few years back. They have made the main road to the village concrete now but the road to the farm is still dirt track.
We are outside the reservoir catchment areas and it has been single season rice for years and years with heavy clay soil that is difficult to plough if too dry or too wet...meaning most of the time. The dirt track above has an underground river below it and I've seen a crater open up and swallow one of the teacher's cars a few years ago, about where that car is now.
About three years ago they put power along the road and this had led to people being able to use deep well pumps to irrigate small areas of land. There isn't enough water to grow a second season of rice but it is possible to use some land for additional crops. In 2020, following the start of Covid, I was here for 3 months and wasn't sure if I would be able to get back for the foreseeable future. We decided to dig a deep well and fit a pump and see what we could grow. To start with I was interested in using the land to grow for the family with a mixture of vegetables to keep us going. However, things brightened up and we returned leaving the family with the ability to grow a small amount of crops in the dry season.
Cucumber was their choice of cash crop and they did pretty well growing them. However, crop rotation is not something they really know about here, since they've only really grown rice in the same fields year after year. It took three crops in a row in the same field before they understood what I was talking about. The problem was, however, what to grow that would make a small amount of money for them. My suggestions to rotate with beans and root crops met with disdain because the effort was too much for little gain. In the dry season it takes some real incentive to do anything, let alone grow crops for seemingly little benefit.
Over a few glasses of wine, I suggested they try growing flowers, African Marigolds, because I know they are reasonably easy to grow and good for the soil. She phoned around and found a supplier that could provide plants and provide a market for the flowers. It sounded good so she had 6000 plants delivered in November to cover about 1.5 Rai of land and see how well they did.
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