• Everything other than hot peppers. Questions, discussion, and grow logs. Cannabis grow pics are only allowed when posted from a legal juridstiction.

The edible Thai garden

synclinorium

synclinorium

... or my latest misadventure in the garden and the kitchen.

The idea came to me when I was going through one of my impulse plant buying phases and acquired a Markut lime tree. I remembered, I love Thai food, but I know next to nothing about the ingredients involved. I already have an assortment of chillies that, while not necessarily authentic, could be suitable, so I kept researching.

Well, now I have several varieties of basil (trying to locate some lemon basil to round it out, having trouble locating Thai holy basil), garlic (though it was spring planted and I'll likely need to supplement it with farmer's market garlic- not a huge loss), ginger (I'm cautiously optimistic, the sprouts are beginning to shoot up), and lemongrass, but that's about it.

It's probably a bit late in the season, but I went ahead and ordered some galangal and turmeric rhizomes as an experiment. I'm having a lot of trouble locating krachai/finger root, so I might need to swing by the international foods store and see if they at least have any in stock.

Anyone with experience cooking Thai foods know if I'm missing anything vitally important (especially things that I can't just buy at any grocery store, or at least foods that are markedly better fresh)? I'm hoping this doesn't become my latest victim of jumping-into-projects-headfirst-without-having-the-slightest-clue-what-I'm-doing. The growing part I should be okay with; cooking, well, that remains to be seen. :lol:

I'll post photos once I have everything. The Makrut lime is small, so I don't know if I'll be able to harvest much from it this year.
 
Usually you use a Kaffir lime and all that is mostly used from it is the leaves. You need lemon grass and you should be able to get some Thai basil aka Queen of Siam off the net. And of course get some thai chilies. You need some cilantro, eggplant, green onions, and ginger.
 
Garlic chives are nice as are shallots in thai dishes. I always make the house reak with all that fish sauce when I make some of the thai food. Some people hate the smell of that stuff!
 
hot stuff said:
Usually you use a Kaffir lime and all that is mostly used from it is the leaves. You need lemon grass and you should be able to get some Thai basil aka Queen of Siam off the net. And of course get some thai chilies. You need some cilantro, eggplant, green onions, and ginger.
Click to expand...

I have a couple Thai chili plants growing (not sure on the exact variety). My Thai Basil is looking kind of sickly so I was going to order more anyway. Started it from seed indoors too early and it matured too fast, never quite recovered from the shock of planting out.

My cilantro is also looking sad from all of the heat we've had lately, but I have plenty of green onions. Eggplant is the only thing I didn't really consider. Guess I'll go looking for some.

nailingtoheaven said:
Garlic chives are nice as are shallots in thai dishes. I always make the house reak with all that fish sauce when I make some of the thai food. Some people hate the smell of that stuff!
Click to expand...

Conveniently I just bought some garlic chive plants. As far as making the house reek, the longer the smell lingers in the house, the better the dish, I say.
 
Awesome... though I have a feeling I'll need to make substitutions for a lot of recipes, I just don't have the space for too many more plants.

Question... are eggplants something you can overwinter like people do with peppers? It seems awfully late to be starting eggplants from seed, and from what I remember thai eggplants have a different flavor than most available in the the states, so I'd rather not do a direct substitution if I can avoid it...
 
synclinorium said:
Awesome... though I have a feeling I'll need to make substitutions for a lot of recipes, I just don't have the space for too many more plants.

Question... are eggplants something you can overwinter like people do with peppers? It seems awfully late to be starting eggplants from seed, and from what I remember thai eggplants have a different flavor than most available in the the states, so I'd rather not do a direct substitution if I can avoid it...
Click to expand...

Hi Devin,

I don't over winter the thai vegies, so I wouldn't know although some do survive the winter (like the lemongrass)....
If you need some seeds of various Thai plants send me your address and I'll get some out to you
 
synclinorium said:
Awesome... though I have a feeling I'll need to make substitutions for a lot of recipes, I just don't have the space for too many more plants.

Question... are eggplants something you can overwinter like people do with peppers? It seems awfully late to be starting eggplants from seed, and from what I remember thai eggplants have a different flavor than most available in the the states, so I'd rather not do a direct substitution if I can avoid it...
Click to expand...

I'm in mid-Mo and I have no problem with planting eggplant this time a year. While I had some germinating a few weeks ago, I'm planning on putting some more in the ground.
 
JungleRain said:
Hi Devin,

I don't over winter the thai vegies, so I wouldn't know although some do survive the winter (like the lemongrass)....
If you need some seeds of various Thai plants send me your address and I'll get some out to you
Click to expand...

Thanks for the offer, but I think I've accounted for everything I have space for (and some things that I don't). I'm trying not to go too overboard... my housemate is already giving me a hard time for the pepper buckets dotting the backyard.

hot stuff said:
I'm in mid-Mo and I have no problem with planting eggplant this time a year. While I had some germinating a few weeks ago, I'm planning on putting some more in the ground.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I guess I'm still stuck in my upstate-NY mindset. Never had much luck with eggplants up in the hills, it always got too cold too fast in the fall.
 
I bought a few eggplants as a sort of safety in case my seeds get here late. Never grown them before (in fact, not sure I ever used them in cooking before), so this should be interesting. If I can get my seeds to grow I'll try overwintering a couple plants just to see what happens. Very limited discussion about this online, so I'm curious. Sounds like, unlike peppers, overwintering the original plant doesn't produce an earlier or larger crop, though some recommend taking cuttings from the previous year's crop and overwintering them, as it helps the late season types produce faster.

I've started some lemon basil seeds and ordered Thai holy basil seeds to round off my basil assortment. Also in the mail are the garlic chives, galangal (potted starter plants), and turmeric root... though odds are I'll use most of the turmeric immediately and grow whatever is sprouting. Didn't realize how long (or warm) of a growing season it required, so I'm not going to get any to use this year, assuming I can even get it to survive through winter... some places say it needs temperatures higher than 65, which is about the max I keep my house at during winter.

Also ordered some of the krachai/finger root but that could have similar issues. Thought about bamboo, but I don't really want to deal with it taking over.
 
I'm glad I read your thread here, as I have some Thai basil growing. They were about to bolt and produce flowers so realized I better research them a bit. Nipped them in the bud, so to speak. (Also some oregano.) I am not a herb grower until now, so nice to learn some more stuff. Hopefully, the "topping" will make them bush out and retain flavor.

My one and only eggplant I tried to over-winter croaked. But it was first time and I had about 50% casualty rate overall so its FWIW.

In your search for eggplants, keep an eye out for "Millionaire." Fast growing and prolific, so they say.
Good luck on your Thai theme growing.... :cool:
 
Yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to have to start more of the Thai basil, as it has bolted for sure. I cut it back initially but it doesn't seem to have helped. I'd have to cut it back down to a little nub to remove all of the flowering branches.

Well, this thread could do with a couple photos. Here's my Markut (Kaffir) Lime, it's about two years old. I received it about three weeks ago. Today I noticed some new growth, but then I realized it was below the graft. Stupid suckers. Ah well, at least it's a good sign that the plant has adjusted to its new conditions.

Behind it is my tiny Key Lime, it won't be able to produce for at least a year... I'm half tempted to buy a more mature tree and give away the smaller one as a gift if I can get it to survive a few months.

IMGP0432.jpg


And my ginger is finally sprouting. The pot probably isn't big enough for it, but it'll do.

IMGP0433.jpg


At least my Thai peppers are coming along.

IMGP0426.jpg
 
I've ordered a couple things from them, says it takes about two weeks for shipments to arrive. Wish I discovered them earlier in the year; it's way late for the rhizome crops- probably going to plant them in pots and hope for the best. I know sometimes you can run into trouble with customs when importing exotic seeds from other countries, but it's only rarely an issue from what I've heard.

Incidentally, I just bought a cookbook- Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott, which seems like a good starting point. I'm not strictly vegetarian, but I have plenty of friends who are, and my housemate is allergic to fish, so it's nice to have some recipes that are adapted to vegetarian tastes. Plus, meat is comparatively expensive when you can get everything else for free from the garden. :lol:

Another side note- not necessarily directly related to Thai food, my tea plant (camellia sinensis) just arrived in the mail. It looks to be about a 1-year plant, so I have at least 3 more years before I can start harvesting, but I don't mind another project plant.
 
It looks like I might run into problems with the galanga... reading around online, it seems it can quickly outgrow and break its pot. Interesting video of it:


These are more an experiment, as it seems like a few of these plants require tropical to subtropical conditions year round, and I'm not sure I can provide them with that in the wintertime. Worth a shot, anyway.
 
Very nice. I love Thai food and the ingredients I think you need most are lime leaves, lemongrass, Thai basil (horapa), holy basil (grapow), and galangal. The other stuff is pretty easy to find in stores or I rarely use it. I'm trying again to grow galangal this season. I forgot to sow grapow, but I use horapa much more often. For grachai I use the preserved stuff from Thailand. It's not really my favorite anyway. I also love the Thai Long Green eggplant, but I'm not crazy about the little round ones. I hope the garden turns out really well for you.
 
Just sowed some of the holy basil seeds, so that should round off the essentials. Today I noticed a bunch of new growth on my lime, which is a good sign.

IMGP0445.jpg


Incidentally, when using lime leaves in cooking, am I to assume the younger leaves will be of better quality? Or does it make much of a difference?

I received the first of my Galangal in the mail the other day. At least, I think it's Galangal (ebay). Decided to plant them in 5-gallon buckets that I can bring inside in the winter.

IMGP0447.jpg
 
For those curious, I just noticed that chileplants.com not only has eggplants in stock, they have several Thai eggplant varieties, which are pretty much impossible to find around here otherwise.

Plus, this gives me an excuse to order a few more pepper plants. :lol:
 
Here in Thailand the Seedless giant lime bush out does the key lime for its picked bare before the med sized out if picked on and last is the key lime, I been shocked how many Thai ask why I'm wasting the room with the other limes when we can just take more cuttings of the seedless lime tree and plant in the other lime pots. As for the Markut (Kaffir) Lime, My Gf will not let me buy a seedling or bush, not even for under a buck, I'm talking 33 cents for a seedling. For home grown leaves and Hard limes to use. LOL My Gf says I need to say the point of what I writing...

Grow the BIG SEEDLESS LIME (tree or bush deppening how you cut it) Less work plus you can use the leaves as well. Hell they'll pick off the Orange tree and use them I can't tell when I'm eating till I see the Orange tree naked and cold out side.

LOL we know plant sellers out here in the country side that will not and don't have key limes anymore. Yes the key limes out produes the seedless but it takes alot more limes to make the same juice as one from a seedless, plus lots of the key limes drop before they are ready so lots of waste, Have not yet had the troubles yet from the seedless yet. I'm taking BIG LIMES that are ever fruiting, unlike the key that fruit once a year. Though the Seedless don't really ever fruit, we get about 3 batch of fruit a year as long as draining and watering is good. right now we are on 2rd fruit cluch this year on the first tree there is about 10 seedless limes. 1st for the key limes but are about 100 key limes on the key lime tree, about 50 or more will fall off before they are ready.

As one of my friends says (I'm not saying,,,, I'm just saying)
 
Interesting advice. Yeah, I hear you on Key Limes being a pain to use.

For now, I'm pretty much at capacity for citrus. I'll be moving again in about two years, so I have to think about how many plants I can feasibly take with me... though if you include the pepper plants I might just end up renting a truck. :lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top