Home Sweet Home in the Garden
For me, home is where the heart is. It sounds like a cliché, but really I do not feel like one place is home.
Saying this, my gardens always feel like home - and this was one of them. This was our garden for 3 years in Thu Dau Mot, Vietnam. We grew dragonfruit, papaya, sugar cane, pumpkins (see below), beans, ginger, turmeric, herbs, and other things. I really enjoyed the serenity of the place, and the fact that all my neighbours were locals, so it forced me to assimilate in terms of culture and language as well as I could.
Pumpkins Growing on the Wall.
With a bit of chicken wire that was picked up for 75 cents in the local market and a few bamboo sticks, we erected a climbing fence for pumpkins. It's not just the pumpkins we could eat, but the leaves as well. I learned while starting a permaculture plot in Cambodia that pumpkin leaves can be eaten. I put them in curry, sauté them with mixed vegetables, and add them to green smoothies. The rest when no longer needed can be composted or used as mulch. Total zero-waste and resourcefulness.
The health benefits of eating pumpkin leaves are multifold: pumpkin leaves have generous amounts of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, and Iron. Others vitamins they include are: Potassium, Calcium, Folic acid, Iron, Vitamin E, Vitamin B6, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Thiamine, Niacin, Dietary fibers, Riboflavin, Copper, Manganese, and Proteins. They are said to also provide a number of skin benefits and can help to heal wounds, maintain healthy bones, skin, and teeth. It is suggested that eating these leaves can also help fight cancer, increase fertility, prevent infection, and act as an anti-aging agent.
Who would have thought that such an innocuous leaf could provide so many health benefits? There are many leaves and plants like this, as I have discovered over the years.
Foodscaping
One of the most inspiring things about that neighbourhood was the abundance of food growing on the sides of the roads. Moringa trees were grafted to buildings in the neighbourhood ( see below picture).
Papaya trees stood everywhere, coconut trees also. Many people grew herbs in the sunshine outside their house in polystyrene boxes. The Vietnamese are big on container gardening and are big on aesthetics. Some of our more permaculture inspired installations caused a bit of disapproval amongst some of the neighbours. Because permaculture is not tidy. We made makeshift keyhole garden beds with bricks we found, and made our own compost with our food waste. As a result, the papaya and dragonfruit were TO DIE FOR!!! So big, juicy, sweet and delicious. To my mind, it's not how your garden looks, but how it tastes and how much nature you allow in. I never use chemicals in the garden and always account for that 10% that will be eaten by our garden visitors. The wildlife has to eat too!
Dragonfruit tied to a post in a pot. After 3 years we had a bumper harvest!
Ginger, Malabar Spinach and Aloe Vera.
Rosemary and Thai Basil
European Basil - we used sugar cane mulch to add nutrients to it. It worked well!
Lettuce and spinach,
A beautiful turmeric flower.
Aloe vera and pineapple.
Moringa. One of my favourites. The health benefits of moringa are awe-inspiring. The leaves have super high amounts of vitamin C ( 7 x more than oranges) and much more potassium than bananas (15 x as much, apparently). It also has calcium, protein, iron, and amino acids, which help our bodies heal and also build muscle.
It's also packed with antioxidants, which can protect cells from damage and may boost your immune system. It is growing on the streets here in Mexico too and I often just grab some and eat it. It's really very tasty and the flowers make great table decorations.
Beans, beans and more beans!
A window sill nursery 💚
Piles of sugar cane mulch. Every time the sugar cane man came round selling it, we took all his waste whenever he wanted to get rid of it. We used it as a mulch to stop the soil drying out, to reinvigorate the soil, and to prevent too much moisture getting in.
I hope you enjoyed this post - feel free to ask or give any advice. I'm still in the tropics now, but do not currently have a garden that I can grow in, so I'm living vicariously through other people's gardens and by noticing food being grown in the streets.
Could you imagine if all streets were lined with trees that bore fruit? Not only would the air be cleaner, the area would be cooler because of the shade provided by trees, and people could eat for FREE. It really is a no-brainer in my mind. It's crazy that we don't grow food everywhere.
I'm a big advocate of foodscaping. That's people all growing something in whatever space they have. What are your thoughts?
Much love,
Marley and Me x
All photos are my own
I have many fond memories of the lushness of Vietnam and the bounty of food that was everywhere. It was so hard to believe that people were going hungry!
I know, right? If anyone thinks that system works well, I'd beg to differ. Saying that, more people grow their own food in Vietnam than in the "West", mainly because of necessity. A lot of Vietnamese worry about the quality of Chinese produce (pesticides, chemicals etc) I'm not sure if the Chinese produce is worse, but it'd make sense that they would keep their best produce for their own citizens. Could also ne a bit of anti-Chinese sentiment. 😀
We know a lot of Chinese folks who come to Oz and buy up a lot of stuff before they go back. They are amazed by the quality of our locally produced food. And then we buy a lot of stuff from China...?
Wow, that was a variety of plants you had. Papaya and dragonfruit, just a dream for me to have them :)))
Where are you based? They only grow in tropical/ sub-tropical environments although you could grow them in a glasshouse for sure. When I still lived in England I loved visiting the Eden project in Cornwall, because of all the micro-environments that have created there. It was the first place I saw soursop growing (they call it guanabana here in Mexico), which has to be my favourite fruit. So amazing! 😃
I am based in Spain, but there I don't have a garden, just a balcony. So I don't think it would grow in a pot :)
Not unless you are in the costa tropical. The dragonfruit would grow there for sure 😁
I am somewhere in the middle, Costa Blanca :)
Dragon fruit are absolutely divine and grow so well! These plants were producing so well and the pictures are after 4 years growth. A shame we had to get rid of them to build the house lol ;-)
Don't worry, we will eventually plants some more when I get the garden sorted !!
Great post. Hope you're well :-)
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So many things going on in your garden, isn't it wonderful. I've never herd of Moringa, but with all of the healthy benefits it has, that may have to change.
I ate Dragon Fruit for the first time this past winter while in Florida. It is one strange looking fruit, but delicious.
Thanks for sharing, your green thumb is amazing.