70-Year-Old Woman’s Vegetable Garden Hacks & Tour from Thailand

Hello everyone. Sawasdee ka. Welcome back to Krenori Gardens, but in Thailand. And in this video, I'm going to show you Auntie's garden in our little small space, suburban home in Bangkok, Thailand. I am going to show you how Auntie grows vegetables and some ornamental plants around our house. And also some gardening hacks that are unbelievable. I can't believe she can come up with this. Okay? Okay. The first gardening hack that I am so impressed by Auntie is the chili pepper topiary. I don't even know if Auntie knows about topiary. Auntie just try to support the chili peppers by tying them to a stake. I really like the look of chili peppers this way. A lot more than using the cage or like the ring that we usually do in US. Doing this, she also get to plant other vegetables like the lettuce underneath the chili pepper plant. And the second thing that I have been learning from Auntie is that we don't have to buy fancy materials for gardening. We can just use natural materials that are available to us. Auntie built this bean trellis by herself across the street from our house. There is an abandoned land and there's a lot of wheat trees are growing there. So Auntie just went there and then cut the stem, the branches, the limbs of the tree. And then she just put them together and built this free trellis by herself. Because the branches are not super strong, she just reinforced them by putting a lot of branches in one spot. And it works. Plus the multiple branches will help the beans come easier too. Auntie also built her trellises in the way that is very easy to be removed. I feel like this is very helpful if you have a spot in your garden and you are not sure if you should have a trellis or like an arbor in that spot. You might find materials from your backyard and build a, you know, temporary trellis in a freeway like this and try it out and learn how it goes before you build a permanent structure there. Auntie was born in a modest family farm on the countryside of Thailand. There's no fancy gardening tools. There's no garden center. There's no, of course, Amazon or online shopping. They have to use whatever that are available to them for farming and for gardening. So all my aunts and my uncles and my grandparents, they are very creative when it comes to gardening and farming. And the next gardening hack that I learned from auntie just blow my mind and also make me feel a little stupid because lettuce was my first vegetable that I grew. And the first time when I grew them, I started the seed inside the house. Then I transplanted them out. I made sure that I spaced them properly and evenly. I spent so much time monitoring them and then I keep waiting and waiting for my lettuce to grow. But auntie is the opposite. She just throw all the seed in her vegetable garden bed and there are a million baby lettuce germinated. And when the baby lettuce is about one inch tall, auntie just thin them out and also harvest the baby lettuce at the same time. And auntie keep harvesting slash thinning the baby lettuce every morning. And that automatically keeping this baby lettuce more space and then they will get more room to grow and grow bigger. Doing this, auntie can harvest her lettuce a lot sooner than me and she doesn't have to spend so much time caring for the lettuce like me. Here is the example how creative auntie is. This is garden hose holder and she makes it from just a wood stick. I and Jason would spend like $30 to buy a garden hose holder but auntie just used a wood stick. Almost all of her garden stakes are just bamboo sticks or wood sticks that she can find around the house. Auntie moved from the countryside to Bangkok city when she was a teenager. She came here for better opportunity to earn more money to support the family. She had to live in a very, very small space. She had no growing space at all but she didn't want to abandon her gardening and farming knowledge and skills. And that's when she learned about planting in a pot or planter. With her farming knowledge, she knows how much space each plant needs. Some herbs and vegetables that doesn't need a lot of space, she just grows in a small pot to save the space. And she grows vegetables that need more space in a bigger pot like these cabbages. Auntie is now 70 years old. I and my sister are very worried that she would handle big planters and she would hurt herself. We took a lot of effort telling her not to buy any more big planters. And finally, Auntie found a solution. This basket. She doesn't have to lift them. She can just move them around. Another benefit of growing vegetables in a pot is that you can move them around. You can move the vegetable to get more sunlight or for less sunlight and also for landscaping purposes. You can put these planters somewhere else in the back of your garden when the vegetable is young and there's nothing going on in the pot. And then you move them to the front of the garden to present them when they are beautiful like this. And when you finish harvesting them, you just take the pot away and then dump in a compost pile or just hide the empty pot. These flowers are ornamental. Auntie placed the pots of flowers here to cheer up the vegetable garden. When the flowers finish blooming, she will take this pot away and replace it with the other flower pots. The next gardening hack from Auntie is more like an inspiration to me. It's that Auntie never stops learning about gardening. Although she's 70 years old, 4 years ago when my mom and my sister built this house, the garden was not like this. Everything is everywhere. But after Auntie visited my garden 2 years ago and spent 3 months with me, she learned about growing in a raised bed, how convenient it is to have a pathway between the bed to harvest vegetables. She came back and she applied the new knowledge to her garden in Bangkok. Because Auntie doesn't have fancy stuff to make raised bed like in New Jersey, she came back here and just using the block to make the raised bed and the pathway is so much cheaper and accessible in Bangkok. When we built this house, we decided with a vegetable garden because I wanted the space for my aunt to have the space for gardening because gardening helps reduce stress and also reduce risk of dementia. It's kind of win-win for our family because we can get fresh organic vegetables from this garden. Thank you so much. I love you. I love you. especially Europe and America? And that's because we have the best climate for growing orchids. If you are wondering how come your orchids that you bought from the store and then you go inside your house not doing well, it's just because you don't have the best climate for orchids like we have here in Thailand. The lowest temperature in Thailand is only around 65 to 70 degrees in December and the other months, the temperature rises above 80 degrees almost all the time and very, very humid here. And orchids love that. Auntie also grows orchids here in our house and orchids are not always going to bloom just like the other flowers. Auntie also cheats a little bit by putting the silk orchid here to make it look pretty. And I think that's very clever because right now they're making such a good silk orchid and you can't even tell if it's real. This is real orchid here and this is silk one. I cannot tell which one is real and Auntie did such a good job. I also want to share with you how Auntie make her compost because I think that would be helpful for you to make your own compost in summertime in such a simple way. Auntie just put all her garden scrap, her kitchen scrap in a big pile and then, you know, she just let them compost. She just flip it a few times and this shows you that you don't need a big compost, fancy compost bin to make compost. Auntie also just simply dump the kitchen scrap that are easy to be degraded right in her vegetable garden. And that's because in Thailand, you know, it's hot and humid almost all the time, right? And humidity and heat break down this compost very easily. She put all kinds of vegetable peels, fruit peels, rice. These are all easy to be degraded. And I feel like this can be helpful for you guys in summertime. You can just do this. And I know a lot of us are afraid of attracting animals to your garden. But I feel like, you know, because in summer it's going to be hot. So this is going to degrade super, super fast. And I also learned from Auntie how she incorporates trees and shrubs that can produce food for her in her garden. I feel this is one of the underrated gardening thing that we don't do in America. And I feel like just because, you know, we have very little knowledge about edible trees and shrubs in the country. Auntie was born from the countryside of Thailand. So she has so much knowledge about the trees and shrubs that can be eaten. For example, behind me is lamb. And Auntie also includes this in her garden. And here is, I don't know the English term of this plant, but we harvest the shoots and we make omelette out of it. Just like when you add spinach into your omelette. But this is perennial or maybe small shrubs that Auntie can harvest this almost all year round without having to restart over and over again like spinach. And I think that's pretty clever. And I feel like there must be some shrubs or plants in New Jersey that I can do the same way that I can eat the shoots of it and add to the omelette just like spinach. This is galanga. It's the same family as ginger, but Thai people use this a lot for cooking because they are very, very, very easy to grow. And that's because they are native to Southeast Asia. And this gives me inspiration to explore herbs or maybe plants that I can use for cooking that are native in my area in New Jersey. And if I do that, my life is going to be much easier. And also I am going to save a lot of money by using native plants for food. This is galanga that Auntie uses for this soup. And also the lemongrass and citrus leaves from her garden. This is pak samek. It's a small tree, but Thai people, especially people who came from the countryside like Auntie and my mom, also eat this tree with their food. Doesn't look like it's edible, but my aunt and my mom would find tender shoots like this. Also like this. Then eat this with their food. Yummy! Thank you. Fresh chili pepper from the garden my dad just gave to me. Spicy. Very spicy. My dad said it's sweet, but no, it's not. I'm going to drink water. I'm going to make soup. These two orchids finished blooming. So Auntie hides them here underneath this tree in the back of our house. And when they bloom again, she will move them to that spot to present them when they are blooming. Our neighbors also love to grow and they have mangoes here. Can I pick them up? I can't, right? I shouldn't pick them up, right? Auntie, be careful. What if they see this on YouTube? Be careful. Sure. Trust me. So mangoes usually have this sap, which is very dangerous because it can burn. Another secret for Auntie to be able to maintain her garden while she is 70 years old is to make her garden as low-maintenance as possible. And one of the things to make her garden low-maintenance is to have no lawn. I think this is part of our culture. We never need a lawn. We never want a lawn. And we never have a lawn. I remember when I was young, I just played in the garden. When I visited my grandparents in the countryside, I just played in the woods. I never had to play in the lawn. Yeah, I think it's part of the culture. And I think this can be an idea for you if you don't want to maintain your garden a lot anymore. Maybe just get rid of the lawn and replace it with something else like a patio. When my mom and my sister planned for building this house, they decided to make this a concrete. And has a little print here to make it like stone. And then they plant plants in a planter, which is very easy to maintain. This is some kind of Asian machete. It's kind of sentimental to me, and I am bringing one back with me to America. And that's because when I was young, I've been seeing my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents use this for gardening. And I think it's very versatile, and it can be helpful for every situation. The garden behind me was a housewarming present that I gave to my family after they finished building this house. They kind of told me that, you know, they love the garden, the front yard of houses in New Jersey. So I picked the plants that look like landscape plants in New Jersey. We have this plant which looks like Burberry. By the way, Burberry is invasive in New Jersey, and you know, I would not encourage anybody to go. And also this tropical ornamental grass. It just looks like the ornamental grass that we grow in New Jersey. And this plant is called Christina, which looks like Nandina in New Jersey. This plant loves shade, and they look like hostile. So we place it underneath the tree, just like in New Jersey. I also gave this garden contrast with dark color foliage, light color foliage, and green, to make it look like the landscape that people in New Jersey like to do. Jason gave me this sign for Christmas present. So I brought this sign with me to represent that this is American garden, but in Bangkok, Thailand. When I planned and created this garden about three or four years ago, I planned to have stories and layers of plants. So there will be big trees, small trees, big shrubs, small shrubs, and then ground cover. But four years later, because I was not here, it turned out that Auntie tried to take care of them like she takes care of her vegetables, like her peppers. She put steak on them, and then support them with the steak, and then tie them with the steak, and the shape look like this, instead of this, you know. So this is funny because I am the opposite. I treat everything like ornamental plants, including my vegetables. Two years ago, when Auntie visited me in New Jersey, she taught me how to take care of vegetables properly, and don't take them just like ornamental plants and flowers. And now when I came back here in Bangkok, I shared with Auntie how to take care of ornamental plants properly. Don't make it too high. I come to visit my family about every two years, and every time when I come here, I love to spend time in the garden with Auntie, just like the way she spends time with me in my garden in New Jersey. When I come here, I help her with her vegetable garden, and also help her with some landscape stuff, and also help her maintain this American garden. Like this year, I have to share with her how to prune the shrubs, and, you know, kind of train them to look like capybara. We also have this kind of tropical conifer. I don't know what it's called, but it can handle heat in Bangkok, and it makes the garden look like New Jersey. Auntie is a plant lover, and I feel like she's like everybody of us. She's hesitant to cut back plants, so I come here and I encourage her to cut back some of the plants to achieve the American garden look, and I think she's doing pretty good. If we don't remove the roots, it will come out. And here's our house. You see hydrangeas there because my mom loves hydrangeas, and her friend painted this for her. And on the right is a little living room. There's a little American flag in this corner. And here's the dining room. So we have this like a little American kitchen inside, and you see Auntie right there is a Thai kitchen. She is cooking. I also help them decorate this section a little bit after they finish building the house. And that's the Thai kitchen. And next to the Thai kitchen, we have a little outdoor living space here. And that's my dad's exercise room. That's the commencement when I graduated, and that's the Princess of Thailand. My room and my sister's room is upstairs. We also have room for my mom to pray. And right there is my bedroom. People in Thailand and in Asian countries tend to have bigger houses than people in Western countries. And that's because we like to stay together. The grandparents, the parents, the children, and the grandchildren, even my family. Although I am not here, I'm not living here in Bangkok, but my mom and my sister still give me a bedroom here. And how do you know it's my bedroom? I got this photo printing from my friend when I graduated like a long time ago. But my mom put this very big photo here in this bedroom to tell people that this is my bedroom. Although I come here only like once or every two years. My mom is a hairdresser slash barber slash makeup artist. And that is her shop in front of the house behind it. Easy, easy on our tiptoes Under agents of the other Beyond gravel, beyond all Hand in hand, castles out of sand Reaching for the ground Swallows a line We lose track of time Head up high, now we climb Dreamy, easy we go Easy, easy on our tiptoes Undercover agents of the other Beyond gravel, beyond all I just realized that the way I garden is highly influenced by my grandparents. From seeing my grandfather growing fruit trees, from seeing my grandmother growing vegetables, from playing in the garden since I was young. My grandparents have no gardening theories. They have no fancy structure. They don't have beautiful paths, beautiful raised beds, or any gardening decor. But their garden is beautiful. And somehow magical. And meaningful especially to me. The secret how my grandparents create a beautiful garden is to fill the garden with healthy plants and love. My grandparents simply just keep growing, keep learning, keep taking care of their plants, keep loving them. They learn how to put the right plants in the right place, in the right condition. They learn what each plant likes or doesn't like. And they keep doing that, keep repeating the process until now that they are 90 years old. I feel like it's hard for me seeing them get older and older. And it's harder for them to continue gardening, to do something that they love to do. But at the same time I am inspired to continue this passion, to continue growing, and to re-share their knowledge, their simple way to garden with this world. And I hope that you are also inspired by this video to go out to your garden, growing beautiful vegetables, beautiful flowers, and also create a meaningful relationship with nature, with your garden, and with your family. And together we will create a beautiful and better world for everyone. Alright guys, thank you so much for watching this video. And I'll see you again in the next one. Bye-bye. Happy, happy, happy, happy.