Your grow success - vegetables for hot climate and tropics

Hi all,

beside lots of experimenting I reckon this forum is tailor made to throw a question in the round about:

Which plants did grow surprisingly well in your tropical garden even it is supposed to be a cold climate plant?

The seed market is full of different breeds of the same plant and all have different properties.
Now lets stick our heads together and create a list that helps everyone in their tropical garden.

- Lettuces = almost all are bolting in the heat of the tropics, some Thai breeds did well but we still look for the ones above 30 degrees celsius
- Giant Pumpkin = still we are stuck to the Hokkaido one as all others never fruited
- Cabbages types = some did grow with small harvest but most stopped growing
- Swiss chard = the red one was exploding in size and taste, even at 35 degrees
- Tomatoes = small Cherry types did better than beef tomatoes, we are still trying
- sweet Peppers = Mediterranean have given some fruits but not good enough to waste space in a market garden
- all seeds in the Thailand shops were off cause successful but that will not get us standing off the crowd.

Who has found the ultimate veggie that is not to find in every market stall?
Also local delicacies of a tropical country which are not known in the rest of the world are worth to mention.

Here our collection of worldwide collected seeds during my jobs but the success rate was poor...

Hello. Maybe you could try online to find organic seed companies from areas hot like Thailand. Is Australia comparable? Do they ship to Thailand?
I’ve got a Moroccan lettuce which holds out pretty well.
For kale, did you try Russian Red Kale? Pretty hardy i found. Doesn’t mean it will do it where you are though. Worth a shot.
Maybe you can mix western kale with a Thai kale and save the seeds. Plant them out and save the seeds of the ones with western features but that can stand the heat. Make your own landrace.
Good luck!

Cheers Hugo,

its our thinking too, make some trials and cross pollinate "taste good" with "stands the heat" and in this way finally get to a new breed.
That's how most successful breeds started.

Like our curly kale, it can take heat but needs some shade even it made from 2 winter kales.
Excitement keeps us going.

But here in this post I hope that somebody might have had a success to make the impossible possible.
Worth a try...  

Hello See Hes, If you’re going down that exciting path make sure to check out Joseph Lofthouse his ideas on landrace gardening.
He lives in a dessert on a plateau. He had to make his own breeds and has done that. He explains how he has done it. Not overcomplicated, very recommendable book.
You’re looking for someone who already has landraces in Thailand or similar climate. I wish you luck.
The thing is that it is quite rare to find someone who thinks along those lines. And even rarer to find someone who practices what thry preach.
Landraces is a community thing. Seed swaps, gardening neighbors who have a very well adapted veggie growing and are willing to share seeds are all important elements of building landraces.
After reading his book i realized i already do some landracing, but i am going to up my game.
We’re all part of this movement of localizing .
I’m obsessed.
Best wishes!
https://permies.com/wiki/162247/Landrace-Gardening-Joseph-Lofthouse

Good insight about landrace gardening which almost every permie does.

I reckon some do it on purpose and some just by finding accidently one of their favorite vegetable full of seeds in a corner or hidden place of the garden.
How many just pick the seed, treat them with love as their babies and seed them in some more open place curious about the outcome.

My holy grail is still the humble potato.
Cheap to buy around the world, for many not worth to waste space to grow them in the own yard.  

But how many have pinched the True Potato Seeds (the poisonous green fruits on the plant above the soil) and try to grow an own Landrace?
Since about 10 years I do it not bothering the underground because there will not be potatoes of a decent size in our tropical climate.

BUT whenever there is only a single true fruit growing on the plant, I treat it until it is ripe and seed it again and again and I am still believing that I will have one day
my (and the only worldwide) tropical potato because the seeds inherited all properties that are needed to become a tropical potato.

By the way if the potato one that mainly will be developed further by tubers (seed potatoes) so every little 1-10 plant farmer in tropical climate picking these poisonous seed pots and not giving up to try these true potato seeds every year, could be the one who has the breakthrough and if this happens he/she might earn him/herself a golden Nose selling these seed potato tubers to growers.

People can tell what they want about my wishful thinking, but the potato hunt I will give up when the last one is growing 6 feet above me one day,
does this make a real permie?  :-D

back to topic, this potato story is just one of a million and therefore I posted the question here.
You have already developed a tropical Veggie that originated out of cold climate?

Baker Creek has something called CHIJIMISAI, supposedly cold and heat tolerant. They say it is a cross between tatsoi and komatsuna. I purchased seeds last year when they first offered it, but I have not grown any yet...

Cheers J.

First of all thanks for bringing up Baker Creek seeds.
A few years ago I took them off my list because they did not ship internationally. But it seems they DO and they have a huge stock of heirlooms.
I'll definitely post an order as soon we are set up to just broadcast tons of seeds and select the strongest and most resistant breeds for our farmers market plans.  

looks interesting as Tatsoi itself grows well here, but to cook it as spinach is a bit of a snotty feeling in the mouth.
This CHIJIMISAI could be something like an improvement, getting closer to the people who miss their spinach.

I love to eat Tatsoi and to make it a bit more dry:
Fry 1/2 fine chopped onion glassy, add tatsoi, salt and nutmeg and when done chop 1 or 2 hard boiled eggs in it and serve with boiled potatoes.
You squeeze the potatoes with the fork and mix all together on the plate (German)
or just use a mixer and do it directly in the saucepan (Netherlands "Stamppot") then add the chopped egg
A little shot of whipping cream rounds it nicely off.

Same recipe counts for Swiss chart which grows well in tropical climate..
Here the 6th generation Landrace Swiss Chard by 38 degrees in partial shade.
(To that time in our Aquaponics system but did grow under trees in good soil even twice as big.)
Taste quite similar to spinach but not overwhelmingly bitter and the leaf ribs could be cooked like Asparagus with hollandaise sauce..

This is my first summer in South Florida, but we have been successfully growing Thai Long Beans, Everglades Tomatoes (very tiny!), okinawa spinach, cranberry hibiscus, and okra. We were going to grow sweet potatoes, seminole pumpkins, and wing beans, but had to leave the state at the wrong time and the seedlings died. I would love to find more vegetables to grow in the hot, humid summers with our sandy soil and abundant pests!

We have had success growing beefsteak tomatoes, chilis (of course), auborgine, pumpkin, cucumber, sweetcorn, cabbages, lettuce and cauliflower.

The two most successful plots have good shade and lots of mulch.