It is seriously hot in the closing weeks of the monsoonal dry season, and the whole of South East Asia is dealing with SMOKE as the local farmers and indigenous mountain people BURN in preparation for the coming rains.
The idea of wandering the garden with view to sharing joy, progress and challenge strikes me as really useful, both to keep myself on track and to share something of the magic of an Asian garden and so here I am, compiling my first #gardenjournal2019.
How hot is it? About 38-40C (think the 100F zone) every day. No rain for months already, but we have town water, so the herbs and little things are being watered twice daily. Everything else is geared for this seasonal dry time and either drops its leaves or goes very, very quiet. Walking the garden one is likely to meet snakes out looking for a drink and the insects are out in force. I laughingly say that cos it seems that way, until those first rains come and then we have PLAGUES of insects, which put the March numbers mentally back into the doable category.
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The Acerola (Jamaican) Cherry is in flower - come May I will be starting to make some tinctures for family and friends from the steady crop of cherries which arrive each and every day, right through till the cool season. The garden is always FULL of birds, gorging themselves silly.
The mulberries got a jump on them and we have ripening fruit on all three of the trees - I'm going to need to be diligent and collect fruit everyday, before it drops and the resident ant colonies devour it.
Both the pomegranate trees are setting fruit well too - the tree at the back of the house is easily 5 metres tall. I'm needing to invest in a tall step ladder so I can prune both the mulberries and the pomegranates - so much of the best fruit is way out of reach. But a blessing to the myriad of bird visitors.
More fruit? Haha - looks like it's going to be a bumper year for the mango. Our main tree is literally dripping with new, immature fruits. I'm going to NEED that ladder soon as we have to COVER some of the best fruit before the flies and the birds attack. We share the spoils, carefully wrapping more than enough for ourselves and our friends, and then let the birds take the rest. When the wrapping time comes, I will make a special post to show you how it's done Thai style.
The second mango tree had struggled to fruit well last season, it being far too close to the jackfruit tree. And sure enough, Mother Nature took her course. Just 3 weeks ago the mango tree appeared healthy. And then in the space of about 10 days, it was ravaged by termites. It needs to be removed and a whole lot of neem oil poured onto the roots to prevent the termites deciding they like it here. No need to dig out the root ball western style - the yummiest most succulent part of the tree will have been devoured first, hence its rapid death. I need to get on and get the remnant of it removed, before the monsoon storms blow her down and damage the garden around her. In the foreground of the deceased mango picture, you can see a young moringa tree to the right - they're popping up everywhere (thank you, birds!) I need to get on and dig them up and pop them in all my odd, left-over pots, so I can take them over to our indigenous Karen organic community friends along the Thai border, who are beginning commercial a moringa social enterprise in collaboration with my herbal business, Pure Thai Naturals. There are also Bilimbi trees self-sown EVERYwhere that are needing to be pulled up to feed the compost.
My big natural-garden challenge at the end of the dry season? Red Ant Nests.
They look like this and the red ants seem to really like both the Kaffir Lime and the Noni trees. The nest pictured is easily 12 inches long and FULL of a gerzillion biting red ants laying eggs. Yikes, you DO NOT want to accidentally brush against this in your garden walk. It has prevented me from pruning the kaffir lime, and you simply can't STAND within 3 feet of the tree for more than 5 minutes before the red ants start walking up your ankles. My natural solution is a typically Thai one. In the coming days, I will walk the garden again, see if I can count how many nests we have and then photograph them. Then it's a walk to the local Thai freshmarket in the early morning to see which of the old lady traditional vendors would like to come and harvest the eggs. Thai people consider Red Ant eggs a culinary delicacy, and they can yiled as much as 1,500 baht per kilo - about a weeks wages for a farm labourer. So the chance to come and pillage a series of nests without having to go look SHOULD offer the best solution. Promise a nice visual post when that happens. After the nests are gone, I will treat under the tree with a neem-leaf-tobacco-garlic solution to hopefully deter so many red ants. A work in progress - more about this project in my April Journal, I'm sure.
Today I'm going to take cuttings from the very straggly amazing healing plant, Vernonia amygladina.
If you missed my post about this amazing anti-malarial plant, Here It Is Again. I was fascinated to read @digitaldan's post this morning about using raw honey to aid natural propagation. Find It Here I'm trying that with the Vernonia and recording results for a future post. I'm going to test cuttings in honey water against cuttings dipped into pure honey and put straight into soil. I am DEFNITELY doing this NOWHERE NEAR the ant disaster zone under the kaffir lime tree!! LOL.
This old tires are about to be re-purposed into a raised construction for growing potatoes and sweet potatoes. Root veggies here suffer badly during the rains from mold and too much water, so a well-drained set up is being trialed by me this wet season, with a view to teaching this method to our Karen organic farming friends along the Thai border who struggle with food security.
Given the smoky air and the heat, much of the garden time needs to be super early in the morning, or in the early evening. If you missed my post yesterday about my morning magnesium water #earthdeeds, have a read: Magnesium Depletion in Soil at Crisis Levels.
My last "must do" for this week is to increase the number of air purifying plants INSIDE the house. That means heading off to the nursery to get a whole bunch more Spathophyllum. No idea why but mine are not self-spreading much here the way they did in Australia. Any ideas why or how to help?
My Mother In Law's Tongue isn;t not having that issue! LOL. But I never was quite the dutiful daughter-in-law so maybe expected LOL. I have 3 bog pots outside filled to overflowing.
So off to the nursery or ceramic shop to find two really nice indoor pots with saucers, so I can split this pot up and also make a dramatic improvement to air quality in my indoor living space.
Looking forward to sharing my Garden Journal again at the end of April
BlissednBlessed in my Thai natural world. Much love from Chiang Mai.
Contributing to the @earthtribe. Cos it MATTERS.
