Where it all starts

My seedling table.

Just a quick shot of my seedling table, where all that's growing in the garden, starts its life. The table is located at the edge of my orchidshadehouse with a few papayas around, giving the seedlings filtered sunlight mixed with some short periods of direct sun. I have found that to be the best way to start them. If I give them too much shade, they will die from sunburn, when they are moved to their final growing place. Giving them to much direct sun, and they will die quick.

At the moment there are 3 different types of chili, sweet peppers, okra, 2 types of papaya, beans, eggplants, some orange and lemon trees and a single Kare tree.

Zucchini suicide

The Zucchini got 6-7 cm. long and is now starting to rot.

The sweet little Zucchini got 6-7 cm. long, before it started to rot yesterday. From the info I can find, this should be because the female flower, has not got enough pollen grains from mail flowers to be fully pollinated. This makes the plant loose the fruit, that will not contain seeds, before it uses too much power growing it.

While easy to grow, zucchini, like all squash, requires plentiful bees for pollination. In areas of pollinator decline or high pesticide use, such as mosquito-spray districts, gardeners often experience fruit abortion, where the fruit begins to grow, then dries or rots. This is due to an insufficient number of pollen grains delivered to the female flower. It can be corrected by hand pollination or by increasing the bee population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zucchini#Cultivation 

It's not at big problem, that I have to do the pollination myself - I can do that. The sad part is, that this probably means that the ecosystem out here in the paddyfields is in a bad state or maybe even completely destroyed by the farmers use of alarming amounts of pesticides.

Zucchini success

The first yellow Zucchini is about 5 cm. long.

Raised bed with Thai eggplants and Zucchinis.

Since my wife a few years back tasted my dads homegrown zucchinis stuffed with pork and herbs on a holiday in Denmark, she has wished for me to grow her some here in Thailand.

I have tried several times without any success. Most of the seeds germinate fine, and grow to quite large plants. But before there's any sign of flowering, they slowly wither away.

If it is because they have been too moist in the rainy season or too dry and hot during the summer, I'm not sure.

But now finally with the last four seeds I had left, it looks like I have cracked the code. The four seedlings - one yellow and three green - was planted in a raised bed allready filled up with Thai eggplants, and they are thriving there.

The soil in the raised bed is a mix of compost, old pig manure and our local red clay soil covered with mulch/compost. The bed is watered every evening.

Now it won't be long before there is stuffed and grilled Zucchini on the dinnertable.

Status on the new compost

The new compost after nearly a month.

It has been close to a month since I build my new compost, and even though a bit optimistic to open it up allready, I decided to take a look inside.

At the bottom it's completely dry.

It was hot inside, smelled like compost and was moist until I reached halfway down, where the center was completely dry. So at least here in the dry season, I need to water it some more.

The most decomposed material was removed and used as mulch in some new beds I have made for Thai eggplants. The rest was put back, covedered with fresh weeds and given a good watering and then coverered with a layer of bananaleaves and a thin layer of soil on top.

Grilled Chicken

Yesterday it was time to try the charcoal I made last week.

I picked up three chickens at the local market and cleaned them. Made a marinade from crushed black peppercorns, sugar, salt, lime and palm oil and coverered the chickens with it. A few handfulls of garlic, chilis and red onions was mixed with the rest of the marinade and stuffed inside the chickens.

Then I fired up my barrel grill with the newly made charcoal, and when it was ready the three birds was put indside and the lid closed.

A good friend showed up, and the next 90 minutes was spend talking and enjoying a few cold beers - which might be the reason I forgot to take a picture of the finished result. But I guarantee you, that these were the best grilled chickens I have made so far. Crisp on the outside, juicy and tender inside and very tasty and delicious.