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[jandtaa]

Hi SD2

Very nice pet project to have !! What's the spacing of the trees just out of interest ??

J

[soidog2]

jandtaa, on 2009-10-22 12:06:48, said:

Hi SD2

Very nice pet project to have !! What's the spacing of the trees just out of interest ??

J

5 meters. give or take .

At harvest time it's incredible fun. Most growers, for financial reasons need to produce fruit twice a year.
We let the trees go through their natural cycle, by letting fruit ripen, before picking once a year.
That way we use less chemicals, the fruit has much better flavor than commercially grown stuff.

By January, people already start asking when will we be ready to sell! (Season starts in April/May)

[Lickey]

Strange days indeed!! got Mr Poo to dig in the Pidgeon pea plants into the salad beds, [added N] covered the 10 beds with differenent mulchs,banana leaves,bamboo,tamarind waste from under the trees, so all looks good,,, done my usual walk round the banana/papaya plantations, Found 40 or so hands of banana and 30kilos of Papaya, [nice load for our honda wave!!]
On my walkabout, i saw a lot of tamarind pods on the ground, I tried one, it was lovely,deep golden brown sweet pulp, Im thinking, this cant be?? 6 weeks early?? so i collected a load of pods, took home to the mrs, she was suprised that they were ready so early, she put it down to temps of 36c daily after the end of the rainy season, So my normal 4hrs a day on the farm is 2hrs choosing which bananas to cut and 2 hours tamarind picking,so it doesnt leave me a lot of time for the salad beds,
Bananas are easy, take home,wash,dry, put in a paper lined bin with some acectelyne gas,24 hhrs and you have ripe bananas, 1 hour max, now Tamarinds,mmm they come in all different shapes and sizes, you need a hand that can tell the difference between 005gramme and 004.5gramme,thats the difference between a sweet and a not so sweet pod, My evening job is the intial sorting, the large pods go into a box,and mrs [with 20odd years of experience does the final sorting and bagging] Guaranteed good at 60bht a kilo, i do the smaller pods, 30bht a bag, but should be mostly good,,

4 days, 1455bht and counting,,, and a long season this year,

        Happy days are here again!!  Cheers all, Lickey,,

[Foreverford]

Lickey, on 2009-11-21 03:34:49, said:

Strange days indeed!! got Mr Poo to dig in the Pidgeon pea plants into the salad beds, [added N] covered the 10 beds with differenent mulchs,banana leaves,bamboo,tamarind waste from under the trees, so all looks good,,, done my usual walk round the banana/papaya plantations, Found 40 or so hands of banana and 30kilos of Papaya, [nice load for our honda wave!!]
On my walkabout, i saw a lot of tamarind pods on the ground, I tried one, it was lovely,deep golden brown sweet pulp, Im thinking, this cant be?? 6 weeks early?? so i collected a load of pods, took home to the mrs, she was suprised that they were ready so early, she put it down to temps of 36c daily after the end of the rainy season, So my normal 4hrs a day on the farm is 2hrs choosing which bananas to cut and 2 hours tamarind picking,so it doesnt leave me a lot of time for the salad beds,
Bananas are easy, take home,wash,dry, put in a paper lined bin with some acectelyne gas,24 hhrs and you have ripe bananas, 1 hour max, now Tamarinds,mmm they come in all different shapes and sizes, you need a hand that can tell the difference between 005gramme and 004.5gramme,thats the difference between a sweet and a not so sweet pod, My evening job is the intial sorting, the large pods go into a box,and mrs [with 20odd years of experience does the final sorting and bagging] Guaranteed good at 60bht a kilo, i do the smaller pods, 30bht a bag, but should be mostly good,,

4 days, 1455bht and counting,,, and a long season this year,

        Happy days are here again!!  Cheers all, Lickey,,

Hi Folks. Choke Dee Lickey it's a great feeling when you can see the gains of a lot of hard work, I hope the counting goes on for a long time.
We harvested the paddy rice this year on one farm and it has all been cleaned and bagged and then put into our storage shed. This is a 14 rai farm that is in its second year of poison free and this is the first crop of all organically grown paddy. We used cover crops of Paw Tueng (sun hemp) and Sanoh Africa (sesbania rostrata) and about 13 tons of well aged cow manure from many small scale milk farmers. I am going to try to create bio-char from the straw that was left over from the mechanical separation of the paddy. That straw was given away last year but all the remaining straw in the fields was incorporated into the soil. This farm was planted by scattering seed by hand and discing it into the ground as opposed to hand transplanting seedlings (a cost difference of 50-60,000 baht).
The crop was hit by lack of water in the early season as we experienced a real drought as the rest of the country was flooding. We were able to irrigate once and that was a huge advantage, thereafter flooding was an issue as the levees still need work but we barely survived the disasterous floods of last year as the klong rose over 3 meters and was about 20 centimeters from flooding for weeks (the main levee road will have to be raised nearly another meter for about 1/5 of a kilometer and we will use the dirt from the pond and canal that we will build on the farm to do this along with trying to make an entire road around the farm that will be able to handle vehicle traffic and every type of tree known to man).
The rice looked weak and slightly yellow early on as the earth was going through the metamorphis towards sustainability. The tried and true methods finally kicked in and the growth was exceptional and the set of seed was excellent to the point that with all the effects from the Phillipine typhoons nearly all the crop was knocked down due to the exceptional height and heavy seed set and the very very strong winds and rain. Fortunately the rain stopped and there was virtually no rot as the crop laid on the ground. We were able to hand harvest the entire crop and when cleaned we got 72 bags of paddy. That comes to a bit over 5 bags per rai and usually we get over 90 kilos in the bags so the yield was in the 450-500 kilo range.
Soon we will start the earth moving and grading to build levees and roads to achieve good water retention and drainage. This year we will try planting just Paw Tueng as a cover crop by irrigating the farm and pre-germinating by soaking the seed for 2-3 hours then scattering the seed in the stubble and then we will cut the stubble down over the top of the seed using "weed wackers" modified with circular saw blades with carborundum tips. All of this will be disced in when the beans start to flower. Hopefully we may be able to get two crops of beans in before the rice goes in again.
Anyone know anyone looking for organic Hom Mali paddy? Anyone know where there is large quantities of manure for sale?? Also of note we murdered a lot of tadpoles this year so there is plenty of vacancies at the Hilton Frog Condos on the old farm, this will be chalked up to the learning curve for our eventual commercial production of frogs. Our two other farms will be finished with the rice harvest soon and we will be able to evaluate what we have achieved with them.

[pigeonjake]

hi lads and ladys, i think this is a great read, thank you to all, i was a keen gardener in the uk, ive got 7 rai  in lampaimart near buriram, but at the moment i still work in bkk, but hopefully ill be changing jobs and going to work in angola 6 weeks there and 3 at home so that will be ok for me, oh how i long to give it all up and retire, not long now, im 49, 6 years to go,on my 7 rai that as never been paddied, ive got a 4 ponds that ive had dug just over a year now, there full and holding water, i did put a few fish in just to see how they went, not for selling more for us mama and papa,i should of said there was allready 2 small ponds maybe 4 mts square, the ones ive had dug are 10x4 2mts deep with the soil banked up another mtr,ive got a nice area with trees mango,coconuts, and a few other trees, that i know you can eat but cant remember the names,in all im going to have about 5 rai to work with, ive allready done some work on the shady houses for my veg,ive been growing spuds in bags,and im going to have a few sheep too, good manure from them and good meat,and of course some laying hens, see im from farming back ground in lincolnshire, but im no expert by far not, so ill be reading this every chance i get, and hopefully ill be able to add the odd piece when i get going full time, thank you to you all,, ron

[jandtaa]

Hi Folks

Welcome to the forum Ron hope you find some useful info here and feel free to pick the guys brains if you have any questions that you can't find the answer to in the archives.

Strange days indeed Lickey !! We're just completing the rice harvest (been at it for three weeks now, it's a community effort round these parts so you work out how many days labour you require to harvest your crop and then work for others in the village for the required amount of days and they repay the favour, additional labour that may be required are payed in rice. It's a nice system and means that labour costs are kept to a minimum although it works best on holdings of 20 rai or less to get your harvest in for free.) It seemed a short rainy season this year and the weather really hot leading to weakened tillers in the rice crop which was flattened by the winds that herald the start of the cool season. Most years the odd patch of rice gets blown down but this season the whole plain was laying flat, it really makes for hard work at the cutting stage as if it isn't bad enough already !!. It also seems that the lack of rain has affected quantity with everyone reporting lower yields than normal.

FF, good to see you back on the forum and glad the organic rice did well for you. Yeah I agree about the difficulty of sourcing raw materials such as manure etc.. This year I managed to get 30 large rice sacks of cow bedding from an uncle. I always spend a couple of days with the guy when I return to LOS on the small farm he manages for a spot of fishing on his 2 rai lake a BBQ and a few beers. Whilst there 5 or 6 different guys turned up enquiring about the availability of manure, lucky I got in first. At the moment having difficulty sourcing rice husks of all things from the mills in the village as well as rice bran. The bran I can understand as the mill owner is now raising pigs and uses it for feed but no idea where the rice hulls are disappearing to !! Another mystery that will no doubt become clear in time !!

Talking of mysteries, I solved the the riddle of the non-existent water pipe on my plot     It turns out that the new mains system running past the plot which I hoped to connect to is 5 baht per unit (cubic metre ?) whereas the existing village supply which is a fair distance from the plot (700 meters) is only 1 baht per unit so there was a bit of a dilemma without me there to make a decision and in the end the easy approach was taken and nothing at all was done. I talked to the village headman about running the cheaper supply to my land (okay the wife did    ) really with a view as to where to lay the pipework so it was much to my suprise that the next day him and his second in command trenched and lay the pipe to my plot for free !! That just left me to trench and lay 200m of pipe to supply varios points around the plot, whilst the trench was there I also lay pipework for the more expensive supply (apparently potable hence the price) to supply the future house.

Having water meant I could crack on and get the compost heaps going, the upside of having such rampant weed growth on the plot is the sheer amount of biomass that has accumulated (gotta look at the positives or I might just cry). I'm making some fast 6 week compost innoculated with EM and molasses which is turned every 3 days (to control temperature and moisture levels) as well as some slower burning more traditional piles. I've also managed to plant about 20 mixed fruit trees, using naturally produced rice straw compost from where last seasons rice straw had rotted down, in the planting holes.

My parents visited last week and the old man helped me to put up the eucalyptus framework for a shade house so at the moment I'm stitching together the fabric to cover it. It covers an area of 64 square meters so plenty of room for raising seedlings, a tree nursery and some growing beds for the more delicate veggies. Young Ton also helped with the frame, measuring and sawing poles etc and my parents were really taken by him commenting what a happy little lad he was and admiring the way he never seems to get bored with the job in hand.

This week I'm going to try my hand at knocking up some Bokashi to ferment our kitchen waste and when I track down the elusive rice husks biochar is the order of the day. I'll be interested to know how you get on with the rice straw FF, my only concern would be the lightweight nature of the carbonised straw and preventing it from blowing about during the process but the material is so readily available (we'll be moving 6 truckloads from the paddy onto the plot shortly to use as mulch and for yet more compost ) that I would consider giving it a go, but hey I'll let you do the experimenting  

There has been a bit of cooler weather in the last week so it seems like it's time to start sowing up (haven't forgotten you Lickey, please PM me your address) , but what with all the infrastructure I've been working on (still got the ponds to sort out and stock) it's gonna be a struggle to prepare beds in time to grow as much as I would like this year but I'm sure I'll get something in the ground.

Take care all
Jandtaa

[loong]

Hello all,

I'm so pleased to see the end of the so called "rainy season" and the weather cooling a bit.
This year the rainy season just never really arrived as it typically does. Here we had scorching hot cloudless days which was absolutely no good for starting seedlings and occasional torrential rainstorms with high winds that destroyed most that I could manage to get going on my little plot.
Still, I plodded on and kept up with the soil improvement, so not a waste of time
The locals think that I'm strange as I now walk to the plot the long way round and scoop up a bucket of yesterday's cow poop where the cows have been grazing near the river. Adding this to the compost pile has really improved it. I don't know why but cow poop from the pens just doesn't seem the same as fresh. There seems to be more fibrous material in it. Do cows have different poop during the day than at night?
It's really nice to see my veggies doing so well with the new season. It still remains to be seen if I will get some edible tomatoes this season or not. Why does the family have to keep nicking them before they are ripe?!
Bought another little plot a few months back and will be starting on that when this one is fully planted. I'm giving some thought to making a nursery of some sort to start seedlings and allow them to strengthen up before they have to face the elements, but I've no idea about the best way to go about this. You'd use a greenhouse in the Uk, but what here?
The missus wants to keep a few cows now and pen them on the new plot. If she does, then I may well grow soil enriching plants that can be used as cattle feed.

How's your little protege Jandtaa (Ton, was it?) is he still as keen as at first?

[jandtaa]

Hi Loong

Good to hear you're still beavering away on your plot   !!

Yeah have to agree from what I've observed since I've been back that the rainy season didn't yield too much rain. regarding raising seedlings and the tropical equivalent of a greenhouse I reckon a shade house is the way to go, euca or bamboo framework with shade netting ( not really sure whether the 80 percent I've used is too strong but I want to use it for growing in the hot season. I do have a light meter for the old camera so I guess I can measure the lumens with this ) I'd be interested to know what Soidog 2 uses for his toms etc.. I also reckon that you need to consider airflow through the structure looking to prevailing winds rather than a fan. I'll try and post some pics of what I've cobbled together for about 2000 baht in the next couple of days!

Regarding the manure I am guessing that the pen manure has a percentage of rice husks, sawdust etc.. as it also doubles as bedding ( I know the stuff I bought has )
so this will effect the C:N ratio of your compost, it's also possible that that the pen manure is aged, around here the cattle are kept under cover through the rainy season and the bedding is shovelled into a holding area every so often where it goes through its "hot" phase of composting before being dried, bagged and sold on. I managed to get mine still moist and still hot after a bit of persuasion and the offer to shovel it myself ( in the end the uncle and his wife shovelled whilst I loaded the truck ).

Yeah young Ton still comes out to the plot and helps out and in the recent school holidays brought a whole gang of mates with him !! Guess they were just bored with setting off fire crackers, flying kites etc.. but they were a godsend in digging the planting holes for the fruit trees. I just got them working in shifts swinging the Thai hoe and scooping out the loose soil and as boys will be boys they all wanted to prove they were stronger than the next !! I encouraged this competitiveness ( I know exploiting forced child labour    ) and all were rewarded with a daily bowl of noodles and plenty of soft drinks. I also had a daily bonus for the kid who had shifted the most soil of 20 baht (funnily enough it was a different kid each day despite their protestations   ). Ton usually spends 5 minutes with me on his way to school to inspect progress and usually chides me for not working fast enough (he's so keen to start sowing up) and comes out to help at weekends with the watering ,compost making and any other chores.

As an aside I've just been round to the ricemill to see for myself what the situation is regarding rice husk ( not that I don't trust the missus implicitly but I've learnt that due to my lack of Thai languge skills that sometimes it pays to have a lookee see for ones self, turns out they're selling to the local ice factory (possibly to facilitate the sliding of the large blocks of ice ??) and that it is also seasonal. In the cool season there is not such demand from the factory and with the rice harvest over and plenty of grain in the granaries people are sending more rice for milling. There was also a language barrier with me asking the wife for "glab kao", whilst what we know as bio-char is referred to as "glab dam" husks from the the mill seem to be referred to as "mee kao" could be a Northern dialect thing but wouldn't swear by it     !! Anyway picked up 5 large bags in their borrowed "rot khaen" with the promise of as much as I can take when available    . So I reckon I'll stock up while the goings good (bio-char here I come), looks like I may have to build a storage barn for all the raw materials maybe this is why the wife stalls on occasion as the new house is her priority    .

cheers for now J

[loong]

Hi Jandtaa and everybody,
I'm actually dismayed when I see the cow pens in this area. There are no rice husks, straw etc or any sort of bedding. They have to spend the night standing or laying in their own dung and urine. I don't understand as they are quite valuable animals and I'm sure that this must promote disease!!?
There seems to be a better market for dung now as I notice that more trucks are coming regularly to collect it. It must be good for the cows as their pens are cleared out more frequently. In the past I have seen them standing in urine soaked dung almost to their knees!
I've had a bit of luck - a neighbour has seen me out scooping up the cow poop and said "please come and scoop up ours". I didn't even know that they had cattle. Unusually they keep just a few cows in a large fenced area. It's right on the edge of the village and behind houses so I didn't know it was there. There's not enough poop to make it economical to collect from the large area, bag and sell. To me, this is grade "A" poop. It looks great, it smells great and rub it in your hands and it crumbles nicely. I'm a happy person
I know that this question probably belongs in another thread, but is there a maximum of cow dung that should be added to a compost heap?

Life is good
I'm not getting s fatigued by the heat and able to work longer in the garden. Most of my seedlings are doing well and strong. I'm still planting beans to fix nitrogen and although I don't get a harvest, I see the benefit that the beans keep the blackfly(?) and ants busy, so other plants can flourish. When the mung  bean plants get too infested with blackfly, I cut them down and bury them- improves the soil and a very good decoy
The ants just destroy my eggplants, but grow black mung beans and the ants tend to concentrate on them and so the eggplants and I hope tomatoes get very little attention.

I hope that everybody is enjoying their gardens as much as I am at the moment.

[jandtaa]

Hi Loong

yeah there is a recommended amount of manure to be added to your compost heap, if there is no bedding it makes it simpler. What you are looking for is a carbon to nitrogen ratio ( carbon being straw, rice husks etc and nitrogen being supplied by manure, green plants, freshly cut weeds etc..) of about 30:1 but I've found it to be a bit more of an art than an exact science.

You should really try the boric acid ant killer that dr treelove has been promoting on the general farming forum ( good on you fella ). I've been using it for a couple of years now and it really is the mutts nuts !! It is carried back by the workers and destroys the nest, recently I've been using it under my newly planted fruit trees where I was seeing some damage from aphids on a couple of specimens. Kills off the ant colony in 3-4 days and then the ladybirds etc move in and the aphids are no longer a problem     !!

Glad you're enjoying life !! I just wish I could get all the hard graft out of the way and concentrate on growing but hey no pain no gain as they say   .

Cheers for now J

[loong]

Thanks Jandtaa,
I will look for the thread re Boric acid, I'm pretty sure that you mentioned Borax before, and I was just met with "No Have" or blank looks when I tried to find it . I would like to get rid of the ants, especially the ones that steal my seed! I couldn't believe it the first time I saw them do that. Sow the seed one day and the next, the ants have taken them.
Still a lot of hard work ahead of me, especially if I am going to get the new plot into shape.
Somehow, the work seems less exhausting when you start to see results. Hopefully the frustrations of the "rainy season" are behind me now and I can enjoy the next few months before the April heat returns.

It's so cold first thing in the mornings now. A few cups of coffee to get me going and I'm eager to be off to the garden and do a bit of work at first light. Apart from anything else, it warms me up.
It does make me laugh - on the way I pass some locals all huddled round a fire, trying to get warm. Later in the full heat of the day I see some of the same people working in their plots, complaining about the heat! I just think "Why don't they do the work first thing when it is cold? - they could be relaxing now instead" And they think that I'm crazy!!
It will soon be light and so I will be off for a few hours work/enjoyment

Bye all

[rice555]

Hello loong, if you go to the masa thread, the info I gave where to get 'lime' in BKK,
they have both, borax B.P. 1973, 450grm box is not cheap, Bt.320. The also have boric acid in 2 grades. The 500grms of H3BO3  61.83% is around Bt.1,300, from OZ, they also have a 450-500(?) box of a lesser grade but I don't know the price.
They had both the borax and the boric acid on the shelf here in Korat at the chem store I buy things at. if they don't have it I/S, they will order.
I got the ants in control here, it's just the cobra sunning it's self on the lawn, now he's in the ancho's I have to water 3 times a day.
rice555

[jandtaa]

Hi Loong

Here's the relevant thread from Drtreelove link

I got my Boric Acid from an old fashioned type pharmacy in Chiang Rai 20 baht per 100 gramme. If you still can't find any Pm me and I'll pop some in the post for you.

cheers for now J

[pigeonjake]

hi guys, yes i remember out of town with jack hargreavs, im 49 and we got it in lincolnshire, god i could go on about some poaching storys,lol,my old grandad was one of the best in our area, going back to jack hargreavs, can you remember he used to end the show with some sort of implenent and say do you know what this is for, my dad used to know quite a few of them but would never tell me, i allways had to wait for next week, i used to love the program, mind you i had an alotment at 12 of my own, god was i proud of that, it was grass when i got it, and did i get some bliters working on it, but i made a few bob selling stuff of it when i got it going,i can remember people saying to my dad, if only all kids were like your ron ken things would be better, and i dont think ive turned out a bad un, my old grandad used to sat though, hard work never hurt anyone, but it kills horses, and buggers tractors,lol, take care all and haapy christmass and new year to all, and may all your wishes come true, mine are, with one beautiful daughter and another on the way due march,   ron

[jandtaa]

Hi Folks

Well it's been a while but here's an update. Progress has been fairly slow on the plot recently but my New Years resolution is to try and get more organised and concentrate on just a couple of areas rather than trying to do everything at once. The original pile of compost finished a couple of weeks ago and I have been applying it to the young fruit trees. I have quite a collection of further piles in various states of decomposition and have another 30 sacks of manure and a mountain of rice straw so I will build another couple of windrows using the same quick method. Hopefully I can bag up a large amount of finished compost and store it for use next year to give myself a head start.

The young fruit trees appear to be settling in nicely, I'm now down to deep watering once a week so this frees up some time, and they are just starting a flush of new growth. Now I have plenty of compost I'm digging new planting holes for the 20 odd containerised specimens I have awaiting planting. I've also been making "Bokashi" with my kitchen scraps so will experiment with adding a bucketful to some of the planting holes.

I now have the following species :

Mango, Longan, Rambutan, Marian Plum, Kaffir Lime, Lime, Tangerine, Jack fruit, Pomegranate, Tamarind, Pomelo, Asian Pear as well as Coconut, Banana, Cha Om and Sadao.

I've also started sheet mulching the "forest garden" area using cardboard, rice straw and compost so hopefully this will keep the weeds down and save time next year so I can concentrate more on the growing side of things. 

Cheers for now J 

[soidog2]

Rather than writing a long winded story I find it easier to post a couple of pictures.
Today I started to prepare the tomato beds in the back yard.
The seedlings all look the same , actually there are about ten kinds of interesting heirlooms & cherry tomatoes I am looking forward to.
Enjoy

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[soidog2]

I guess, nobody is asking, how are the habaneros are doing this year; I will have to volunteer.
They are doing fine!

Enjoy

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[Foreverford]

soidog2, on 2010-01-16 18:44:19, said:

Rather than writing a long winded story I find it easier to post a couple of pictures.
Today I started to prepare the tomato beds in the back yard.
The seedlings all look the same , actually there are about ten kinds of interesting heirlooms & cherry tomatoes I am looking forward to.
Enjoy

Hi Soidog I believe from my fading memory you gave away a few seedlings last year and you were near Buriram. I would like to buy a few tomatoes (or trade some produce) possibly later on for seeds but will PM you if I get the time to try ( oh so many projects).

Well I used this reply to post an update on what's happening and have manage to keep the Ford doing amazing things with a few custom tools I've built and believe it or not I was able, in one day,  to bring and dump and spread and compact 126 trucks of dirt to repair and upgrade the roads to and around the farm that was all in 8 hours and all with just one person and tractor. Yeah pretty impossible to believe but unfortunately I'm still feeling the pain of non-stop tractor work, almost flipped it twice but road out one into and out of the new lake I built then had to be pulled out of going 50 feet into the klong later in the day when I started to fatigue. I got it airborne once but that was just due to being pissed off from getting bad placement of my loads. I've been working towards getting the 14 rai plot nearly level and buildfing a complete road system around it (managing to do four things at once, building roads and creating levees with the dirt from digging a pond and klong ) along with a klong that will drain it into the pond that a I have built. Pond will have both the frogs and catfish and the road will also be at a height that will allow the growing of fruit trees out of the flood plain. Just disced into the ground the first crop of Pah Tueng (sun hemp) for green manure but it wasn't 50% of the plot due to lack of seeds but managed to buy 2 tons and got the entire plot planted  last week and then unbelieveably it rained for a few days. The place looks like an emerald in the middle of all the other stubblefields that will eventually be burnt off. So now all the rice stubble has been cut and semi incorporated and a new crop of cover is in and will be turned in well before planting season and will probably go for a third planting before finally getting in the rice for this year. Building and making a functioning bio-char system (modifying jandtaa's info and drawings from the Philipines for rice husks) for the rice straw is the next high priority item and then i will attempt to mix all I can make with the 15 tons of chicken manure I was able to acquire and get it spread on this and the other farms that we are convertting to organic. Been pretty busy so not much time to write but things are moving forward and hoping to get 10 tons this year on much less land than we had this last year when we got 9 tons (it is unbelieveably delicious and fragrant). regardless how much we get, the land is and will continue to be much much more fertile than the dying mess we started with.  Choke  Dee

[soidog2]

Planting tomatoes; illustrated!

This link will show you the seedlings at about two weeks. :
http://www.thaivisa....t-a103479-.html

#1, The same seedlings today, before I planted them.

# 2, Prepared the sunscreen ( better fruit set and protection from the midday sun )

# 3, Prepared the spacing, a little tighter than recommended. I do it like that because some will not make it.

# 4 Planted & watered.

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[loong]

Hello all,

it's been a bit quiet on this thread lately - I guess that everyone has been too busy

I had built a compost heap near the river as all the necessary ingredients were freely available nearby- cow dung, fallen leaves, greenery, water plants and water etc. The idea was to move the finished product to plot 2 when it was completed, less volume and lighter.
Unfortunately, there has been work going on as the river is dammed and used as a reservoir. So they been widening, dredging and building a road alongside.
This meant that I had to move my heap to the plot by handcart before it disappeared under tons of soil. A lot of work, but the bonus is that moving it has done a great job of mixing and aerating it

The really sad thing is that some villagers had "commandeered" and made plots alongside the river and now all their work has been buried

What is it with this obsession that Thais have for building up their land for no good reason?
Big truckloads of soil have been available fore 250 Baht, and people have been going crazy building up the levels of their land. Some of them now have the floor level inside the house lower than the land level !!??

As the soil quality of plot 2 is pretty poor and very stony, I ordered 1 truckload to mix with my compost. The locals all wanted to know why I only wanted 1 and the bloke in charge "why You don't take 10?" I explained that I really wanted DIn Dum - black soil, not the clay, silt and some sandy soil that they were selling.
I wasn't at the plot when they delivered and my Father-in-law helpfully changed the order to 6 truckloads. When I returned, they had already delivered 4 loads. I was absolutely livid.
Also I had recently cleaned up the concrete base of the original house that used to be on the land as I was going to build a hut etc. The truck had run across and broken all the concrete.
FIL couldn't understand the problem and got it into his head that I was annoyed at the cost, he couldn't get his head around the fact that I just didn't want this type of soil! If it had been Din Dum, then I would have ordered 6 loads!
He then arranged for a group of people to come and spread the "soil". I said no as while it was in piles it retained moisture and that i would spread and mix it with compost myself. I know that no matter how carefully I explain what I want, they will do want they think that I should want.

I have tried to express my concerns to some of the people who have bult up their land, advising them that they should plant grass, weeds or anything to get some roots into the soil. After all, most of this soil was carried into the river by the rain and I'm sure that it will try to get back there in the rainy season. Most of it is the very fine stuff that sets like concrete when it is dry but if you turn a hose on it with a light sprinkle, once wet, the soil runs off. I actually managed to cut my hand picking up a dry chunk of it. How many of you have managed to cut yourself with soil?

So I've been very busy trying to get this sorted, planting sweet potatoes and beans as I go. It's good that I had a large quantity of compost.
We had a fair amount of rainfall last week and I could hardly stay on my feet, sinking and slipping in the slurry. The roads were covered in a layer of the stuff that had run off of people's land. Looked a right mess!

I've planted sweet potato cuttings because they make roots and grow rapidly so can dig the stems and leaves in, as well as the bean plants to improve the soil. Mind you - I will probably have my work cut out getting rid of the sweet potato plants when I no longer need them

The one good thing about all this is that this soil is obviously absolutely jam packed full of nutrients. There is  small area that I mixed compost and charcoal into and planted leafy green veg. They have grown sturdily and very quickly

Still a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm sure that it will all be worth it in the end.

Edited by loong, 2010-02-26 03:09:02.

[soidog2]

soidog2, on 2010-01-30 20:54:27, said:

Planting tomatoes; illustrated!

This link will show you the seedlings at about two weeks. :
http://www.thaivisa....t-a103479-.html

#1, The same seedlings today, before I planted them.

# 2, Prepared the sunscreen ( better fruit set and protection from the midday sun )

# 3, Prepared the spacing, a little tighter than recommended. I do it like that because some will not make it.

# 4 Planted & watered.

Growing update, a month later, almost all the plants already flowered!
I pulled a couple that showed early signs of disease .

Attached Files

•  DSCN0469resize.jpg   841.8K   4 downloads

[NADTATIDA1]

Hi to you all partisapating in this thred,would just like to say thanks for the input and i hope it keeps on going...one of my favourite reads on here.

thanks again,i have learnt so much here cheers!

[soidog2]

So far it’s been a truly rough year for the garden.

“El Niño” is bringing 100+ F% temperatures every day; no rain predicted for quite a while !
Here’s a quick unedited Iphone ( not too sharp ) collection of today’s garden offerings !

Enjoy!

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[loong]

Nice photos Soidog,  

I've been busy lately, been difficult to get any work done in the garden, other than keep pace.

I had a fair amount of compost under the canopy of the bamboo clump and it is now just a mat of Bamboo roots. Silly me  

The heat started early this year and I'm praying that we get some rain soon. I'm going to adapt Jantdaas idea of using coke bottles to get the water down to the root area as I have to water sparingly now. Not having an independant water supply, I have to use the public water and this is very erratic now.

Anybody know a rain dance? If so please get on with it and shake your stuff

[soidog2]

soidog2, on 2010-02-26 11:25:02, said:

soidog2, on 2010-01-30 20:54:27, said:

Planting tomatoes; illustrated!

This link will show you the seedlings at about two weeks. :
http://www.thaivisa....t-a103479-.html

#1, The same seedlings today, before I planted them.

# 2, Prepared the sunscreen ( better fruit set and protection from the midday sun )

# 3, Prepared the spacing, a little tighter than recommended. I do it like that because some will not make it.

# 4 Planted & watered.

Growing update, a month later, almost all the plants already flowered!
I pulled a couple that showed early signs of disease .

Final update. About 3.5 month from planting to picking

Typical heirloom tomato shape, now easily recognizable.

Considering the extreme weather we had this year, it’s a miracle !

Enjoy !

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