When local people shake their heads and say the rains have come hard and early, it's really difficult for a western person to grasp what that really means. Let me show you. 😆 It rained on Friday and Saturday, pretty hard, and consequently the main road from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai "washed out", quite literally, on Friday night.
A little run off. 🤣 That's about 20km from my home here. Ain't nobody going North for the next days unless they take a looooog detour! And people ask why I drive a serious pick up truck. 🤣 How much water came down in the 24 hourish period?
".... inflows into Mae Ngad Dam were 2.4 million cubic meters while the Mae Kuang Dam had 1.7 million cubic meters". Source
The rainy season doesn't even officially START till the first day following the full moon in the eighth month of the Thai lunar calendar, which will be this coming Tuesday 7th July. We then have 3 solid months of serious rain ahead. It is in this context that my Thai garden needs to be appreciated.
The Golden Torch Heliconias were battered. This is not the first deluge we've had. Normally standing close to 3 meters tall, they bowed, bent and broke under the sheer force of the rain.
We spent a few hours today carefully cutting out all the broken ones, salvaging flowers (our living room looks lovely and elegantly floral!) thinning them out.We were able to save a beautiful little empty nest from within the heliconias and have relocated it to one of the mango trees at the back. Soooo cute! Ready for the next tenants.
Despite the heliconias and one mangy pomegranate tree which was so heavy with greenery and so shallow rooted it literally unearthed itself and had to be dug out, the garden had some lovely surprises today. Not the least of which were a snake (regular harmless golden tree snake) and a big scorpion. 🐍 🦂
The soap nut tree I grew from seed 3 years ago is having its first actual soap nuts!! 😍 In Thai, the Asian soapnut is called "sabu dam" สบู่ดำ. I have aspirations of (a) never having to buy detergents of shampoos etc ever again soon and (b) am gearing up for some professional Pure Thai Naturals new soap nut product experimentation and playtime soon.
The soil building for my new veggie bed is going great!!
But I have the challenge ahead of seriously needing to trim, thin and cut back the mulberries, acerola cherry and the noni - as much as I like the greenery forest walk look & feel, it INVITES serious snakes and mosquitoes, and my veggies and fruit trees need more sun.
The weeds from the fruit trees to the fence have shot up something fierce the last weeks with all the rain. 🤣
I am treating myself to a half day this week for a desperately-needing-work local unemployed Burmese man to come over with his machete.
The acerola cherry already has LOADS of green fruit and sill is flowering steadily. Lots of happy bees buzzing about during deluges.
Lots of "volunteers" popping up everywhere. Some kinds of lilies...
and ferns popping up everywhere, even in the cracks in the concrete. Thai people EAT the young fern fronds, stir fried with garlic and mushrooms.
The Blue Butterfly Pea is so happy I swear I can hear it singing!! I harvest blooms every day to dry for tea (I blend with lemongrass and white turmeric), for Thai sweets (makes pretty blue-purple coconut yummies) and for skin-hair health. Dok Anchan ดออัญชัน (as we call it in Thai) is now growing rampant on the fence on 2 sides of the house.
The jackfruit is producing like cazy... 😆
And I have lots of little smile-moments when these cuties pop up when the sun comes out:
Thai people call them Thai Tulips. LOL. They have no fragrance but are just so darn resilient it's inspiring.
So much else to show you - new bananas trees, the moringa trees, my new herb garden, the lemongrass that's MASSIVE... but then I'd have nothing to surprise you with in July.
When it's not raining it's hot. Damp, humid and the air is filled with the sound of frogs (deafening at night!!), crickets and birds. We garden as best we can between now and October when the monsoon ends. When the sun does come out, it's blisteringly hot and always upwards of 35C / 95F. We shower a lot.
The one thing I always take away from my Thai garden (in addition to the sticky grass seeds stuck to my clothes) is the feeling of lavish tropical abundance. Of there always being soooo much that we will never have to worry. I love that.
Much gratitude to @simplymike for the wonderful monthly garden challenge on the Hive blockchain. Walking around the garden finding things to share never ceases to bring me pleasure.
BlissednBlessed.
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Holy moly, that's a lot of rain. Definitely a lot of work to keep those roads open! And I would be getting some help with those weeds, too, especially with snakes lurking around. (Not a snake fan here 😂) Looks like you'll have enough jackfruit to last a good long while. I'll be excited to see how you use the soapnuts, as well! It's always fun to explore how gardens look all across the world!
haha... there are days I think my corpse will simply be disposed of under a small burial mound of jackfruits. 🤣 Yup - a lot of rain. The weeds go absolutely feral and harbour some serious & deadly snakes - in other countries people treat themselves to manicures and massages; in Thailand, it's a half day for muscle power with a machete. Trouble is the higher the weeds get, the LESS likely I am to garden cos of the real risks. Have been bitten before.
Gonna post more about soapnuts in the next few days. It's a love project I am trialing for the indigenous people along the Burmese border.
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ENGAGEtokens.Sorry for the delay, @artemislives. I had to keep my screen time limited this week because of a concussion, hence I'm so far behind on everything.
Wow! That's a whole lot of rain. Being Belgian, I thought I knew what rain was, but I guess I was wrong 😂
Wow! Those soap nuts are cool. I never even heard of nuts that could be turned into soap...
The Blue Butterfly Pea, is that the one that you use to make the blue tea with? I remember seeing my friend @cicisaja posting about blue tea once, but I don't remember what it was that she used for that.
Oh, those jackfruits look great. They're still on my 'I -really-want-to-taste-those'-list, but it seems impossible to find them here.
Clearly a Thai gardening holiday is needed somewhere in your future. I have a guest room to help make it very affordable. My mother - I will never forget - thought I was joking when I said the poinsettias here grow to 3 meters tall. LOL.
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ENGAGEtokens.Wow, you have a wonderful garden with so much variety.
The early rains have created some havoc, hope the road gets sorted out soon.
There is so much diversity in nature - I think our gardens should reflect that too. 😊 I'm sure you know from India that washed out roads, landslides and flooding have only just begin for the season. It is what it is.
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ENGAGEtokens.What a beautiful tour! Do you make one of these journals each month?
I just wanna munch on that beautiful fern at the top. Looks so fresh & yummy. We have been foraging a few of them around here recently.
Sorry to hear about the early flooding. Same thing here in France, it has been one of the wettest years on record already. And when it rains, it rains really hard, like it does in the tropics. Messing with all my tomatoes which don't have enough support!
Still, like you say, the plants love it ;)
Hugz x
Hugs... let's just very generously say I INTEND to post a Garden journal in the last week of every month. @simplymike's challenge is a good one, and I so much enjoy to see what other people are doing around the world.
https://peakd.com/homesteading/@simplymike/hive-community-garden-journal-challenge-june
SOOO WET and HOT this year - SERIOUS snake and scorpion problems already LOLand needing to improvise some new methods for moringa seeds cos they keep washing away. Post coming in the next week about my "deluge proof" new seed system using very large 5 liter recycled plastic bottles as mini green houses.
LOVED LOVED LOVED your film. Hugz back.
Please go and check out my 5 Top Hivers post. ;) Nice surprise lurking there for you. xxx
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Its feels good to be here, seeing this geat content. So much work done there,... looking forward to seeing more