The Backyard

My horticulturist heart has wanted to write a blog about plants since I first stepped out of the airport and smelled the heavenly plumeria-perfumed air. This desire was only strengthened when we first cruised down the Nam San River to Tha Thom, and I spent six hours watching the jungle covered mountains glide past.Laos has a huge wealth of flora and most of them are completely new to this inexperienced Northwestern Minnesotan. I have found that the new and cool plants aren’t all in the jungle though; some are right in our back yard, even growing in the garden!

Here is a collection of some of the things growing in our yard. Some are strange new plants and some are just the same ‘ol good standby’s that grow anywhere!

With June comes rain… so we are preparing for the garden to get drenched, and are trying some things in pots! On the left of the picture are some ornamentals we brought from Vientiane and are trying to root. On the right is a pot of sweet basil (not a common Lao herb, but we found it in Vientiane) and spring onions.

Sunning on the Porch

We also have lots of flowers! Every time I walk from the house to our outdoor kitchen, I pass a little bed of zinnias, cleome and marigolds we made. It makes me smile, and I hope you, too!

A Zinnia in our Little Flower Garden

Roselle (or locally known as Som Po De, translated ‘the perfect sour’) is one plant we are really excited for! Jeffrey is already dreaming of making juices and jams with the fruit. Roselle is also eaten locally as a green. Thrown into fish soup it adds a delicious sour flavor, or should I say, ‘the perfect sour!’

Roselle

Jeffrey of the Jungle

 Here is Jeffrey hiding in our little jungle. On the left are the papaya trees. They have shot up 6-7 feet in three months! May 31st marked the first flower opening, and we are looking forward to some yummy fruit. Ripe papayas are sometimes eaten, but usually Lao people like to pick the fruit green and make it into their favorite snack, Dam Mak Hoong (‘Papaya Salad’). Green papaya is finely sliced and then lightly pounded together with fermented fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice, chili peppers, and maybe some tomatoes or local forest fruits. It’s scooped up and eaten with any green leafy vegetable available. It’s a good Lao snack, but we anticipate eating our papaya when it is sweet and ripe!

Papaya Canopy

On the right, we have cherry tomatoes growing on the trellis. We haven’t gotten much fruit from it, but enjoy the small handful of sweet-bursts-of-goodness we get every now and then. Since they were all volunteers anything we get is a bonus!

In the foreground of the picture are eggplants. We have two varieties in our garden, one white and another mottled green, though I’ve seen about five or more varieties for sale just here in the small Tha Thom market. Most eggplants are eaten young and quite hard. One delicious way to eat these otherwise bland fruit is the traditional Lao dish ‘Bone’ (Not sure how to translate the word, but it’s not at all related to the English word). Eggplants are boiled and pounded together with spices and ground meat. It’s wonderful to eat with sticky rice, and easy enough that I’ve been able to make it on my own.

White-Eggplant

Speckled Green Eggplant

We buy our potatoes from the large ‘city’ market in Paxan (two hours south of Tha Thom). We would love to grow our own, but most villagers I’ve asked shake their head and say you can’t grow them here. This little potato must not have heard them, because Jeffrey found him struggling in our compost pile and transplanted him into the garden. He is still struggling and we aren’t sure if he’ll produce much, but then again maybe he will!

Little Potato

One of our defensive players in the garden is the Mighty Marigold. They are growing like crazy (now pushing 5 feet tall!), and help keep away many of the pests that would like to munch on our plants. They are peppered throughout the garden, and because we had so much seed, also the whole yard!

"Stay out Bad Bugs!"

I always love seeing new, strange plants in the market, and a few we’ve tried to start in our own garden.

This plant is locally known as Pak Wan, ‘sweet vegetable,’ because it does have a sweet flavor. It’s a local favorite in soup.

Pak Wan - One sweet vegetable!

Pak Goh (sorry, no translation, and I’m not sure of an English name yet) is actually a weed and villagers will collect it in the rice paddy and on the edge of the forest. Our landlord laughed when he saw it in our garden. It has a really bitter taste, which most Lao people love, though Jeffrey isn’t too wild about it.

Vegetable Weed

This next plant isn’t edible, but is used as a pesticide and fertilizer. Khera Khao Ho (tianospora stem or quinine liana) is a great vine, and the villagers ferment it with sugar and green waste from their gardens to make a pesticide/fertilizer liquid they spray on the garden. I was excited to get a cutting to root, though sadly it takes three to five years to be large enough to harvest.

Local Medicine Vine

Pigeon pea actually has an edible fruit, but right now we have it in the garden as a cover crop. It is wonderful at adding nitrogen to the soil, something that is continually being washed away with our torrential rains.

Pigeon Pea

Some of the newest additions to our garden are:
Water chestnut is one of Jeffrey’s experiments. We bought a large bag while visiting Phonsavan. They should be grown in a wetter environment, but we don’t have anywhere better, so we will see if they do anything in the garden.

Water Chestnut

 It’s pineapple season in Tha Thom right now, so we saved a top to grow one of our own.

Baby Pineapple

Moringa. It seems that this plant is actually a new introduction to the area as none of the villagers we have asked know what it is. We received two pieces of trunk from CRWRC in Phonsavan and they both have rooted and are growing well! We were introduced to Moringa when we attended HEART Institute in Florida. It’s famed for its ‘miracle’ properties and is a great plant to promote in areas that suffer from malnutrition.

The Amazing Moringa

Behind our garden on the bank of the river is a beautiful trellis and terraces (terraces thanks to Jeffrey, trellis thanks to our Landlord’s younger brother). Some squash seeds we threw on the terraces and then forgot about, sprouted and are growing wildly! They offer a lovely shade in the hot sun and there are papaya, eggplants and pigeon peas happily growing in the cool shade underneath.

Terraces in the Shade

We were disheartened to return home after a week in Vientiane to ‘mowed’ sugar cane. Due to a recent law passed which requires all farmers to keep their livestock penned, we felt it was safe to move our sugar cane out of the garden to make room for other plants. Sadly, one cow who didn’t hear of the law, got out of her pen and had a nice snack before our landlord’s family chased it away. Despite the hard trimming, the sugar cane is coming back strong, and actually sending up even more shoots! So maybe we should also thank that silly old cow…

Sugar Cane with a Haircut

We also just received seed from ECHO Asia and have plans to add a variety of new plant to the garden including, okra, winged bean, pole bean, amaranth, mustard, luffa, corn and a variety of leguminous cover crops. If we have success we may even suggest that the MCC project use some varieties in the work in Tha Thom.