User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Lady from India has a garden.

I took wife to the Clinic, I was struggling to set down when an India lady ask, why are you in so much pain? I said, I planted 400 onions yesterday it made my muscles hurt. She ask, where do you buy onions? I told her Farmers Co-op & Martins Garden store. What kind do you plant? Red, Candy, Vidalia. When do you plant onions & harvest onions? She was taking notes. She said that she planted onions last year but they don't do very well. What else do you grow? I said, garlic. OH I like garlic she had lots of questions and was taking notes. She had pictures of her garden on her phone, she had pics of about 50 nice red tomatoes, beans, okra, tomatoes from last year. She has okra that only grows 2 ft tall. She grows tomatoes on a 1 foot high trellis like grapes the plants grow along what looks like a 3 ft wide x 10 ft long picket fence thing parallel to the soil. She loves beans she has pictures & questions. She wanted to know best way to grow beans, she is still taking notes. What is best way to grow peppers? I told her how I grow peppers. She wanted to know about fertilizer. I told her Farmers Coop has best fertilizers & best prices. She grows big green color pear shape gourds she bakes them in the kitchen oven to eat.

I did not know gourds are good to eat. I might try her tomato trellis idea it looks easy.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Yes, in the tropics, gourds are a staple and they are very productive. You only eat young gourds, not mature gourds. I did not know loofa gourd that people make bath sponges out of were the same as cee gwa, Chinese okra, for the longest time.

Gourds are like tropical squash they are used for stir fries and soups and you can make kampyo with older gourds. They don't have a lot of flavor but they have a lot of fiber and they will take on the flavor of whatever broth you put them in.

Green papaya is treated like an upo squash in the same recipes. Bitter melon, cee gwa, Chinese winter melons, and chayote are like zucchini is in temperate zones. When they are in season, you cannot give them away fast enough and they can double in size in just a few days. Pests and heat makes it hard to grow zuchhini here without a lot of work.

pepperhead212
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2851
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

That's great that you found that lady that you could help, and get help with your garden, Gary! I used to talk to Indian (and other) people gardening, when I was delivering mail - they loved sharing their info, and getting things from me, as well!

I started growing bottle gourds, since I simply cannot grow any summer squash, due to SVBs. I tried a couple of other types - tinda, and a longer, hairy melon, as they called it, but those were attacked by disease, while bitter gourds and bottle gourds are fairly immune. Winter melons are another gourd, that I might try again, because on a new site I found some smaller varieties - the smallest I got before was 12 lbs minimum, and I had a couple over 20 lbs! These are the types of things they sell in cut up pieces, in the Asian markets.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The only thing with the gourds are that they have heavy duty vines. If you don't have the real estate to let them sprawl, they need a strong fence.

I can grow zucchinis, but it is a lot of work. I don't have a problem with SVB, but I have fruit flies and zucchini is a magnet. I can't have zucchini around the cucumber because then the cucumber will have more attacks. Fruit flies will sting the fruit multiple times and they start rotting. I grow parthenocarpic varieties because they don't need to be pollinated (they do better if they are pollinated, though). I have to grow them in the fall and winter because once the temperature goes past 85 degrees. The zucchini will stop producing female flowers. There is also the problem with zucchini not having the male and female flowers open at the same time. I only grow one zucchini because it takes up so much space and if it produces, it is all I need. Zucchini does not do well in humidity because of PM. The parthenocarpic varieties I grow have good PM and DM resistance, at least while they are young and healthy.



Return to “What Doesn't Fit Elsewhere”