Cambodia and Leafy Greens

We all know there are not a lot of good leafy greens available in Cambodia.  There is limp lettuce from the market and not much else.  At my home here in Battambang I often have at least one entire raised bed for leafy greens and have met with various levels of success.  When considering what to grow always be sure to check out what the climate is like in areas those greens are normally grown.  I’ve had great success with Mustard Greens and Collards, with some effort I’ve successfully grown Arugula and Cos Lettuce, with difficulty I’ve managed to grow Spinach, and there many where I’ve had no luck at all.  Some plants like Swiss Chard, certain types of Kale, and endive simply can’t handle the heat in this part of the world at all and may never develop past the seedling phase.

First off, you should make sure you have a decent sized garden bed or box for growing in.  Leafy greens tend to grow best in evenly spaced rows so you should try and plan for more growing space.  They can be grown in a large 30cm wide pots, but because the space is so limited you won’t get more than a couple salads out of that.  In addition to that, leafy greens generally don’t need to put down deep roots, about 4 inches (10 cm) is all you actually need, if you can I’d suggest about 6 inches (15 cm) for good measure.  If you don’t have a raised bed for planting in you can grow in Styrofoam crates or metal planters.  If you head over to Tuol Ta Ek road there are a lot of shops where you can find long metal planters made from flattened biscuit tins that will work well.

When you prepare the soil make sure to use plenty of compost or other organic material.  Leafy greens need soil that drains well.  Leafy greens also generally prefer shade without too much sunlight.  If you can grow them in a lightly shaded area or hang green shade fabric overhead it will help the plants tremendously.  Especially if you are using planters you will need to make sure there is sufficient shade as the soil in a planter will heat up a lot faster than the soil in a bed on the ground.

When planting make rows about 10 to 15 cm apart and just lightly sprinkle your seeds into the rows.  Many gardeners will thin the seedlings out if they appear too densely packed together, but in my experience the seedlings you lift out don’t generally do well when being replanted and unless you are growing a plant that will get very large the healthier plants will just win out over the others and will grow into a good density all on their own.

One of the big reasons why a lot of leafy greens are not commonly grown in Cambodia is because of caterpillars.  Caterpillars love to munch on young plants and may kill them before the leaves are sufficient for you to eat them.  Unfortunately I’ve not had much success with organic ways to control caterpillars out here.  Neem oil is commonly recommended although I have no clue where to find it, and I’ve tried various combinations of soap, water, vegetable oil, chili oil, garlic, and rubbing alcohol with extremely limited success.  I did once happen upon a homemade pesticide recipe that required adding beer, but I couldn’t bring myself to put beer into a spray bottle instead of myself.

The bugs in Cambodia are just too dang tough for many different forms of organic pesticide and unfortunately we don’t have ladybugs around here.  If you are growing in planters and keeping them close to the house what you can do is inspect the plants once a day and pull caterpillars off by hand.  Drop them into a bucket of soapy water and then you can either toss it or pour it into your compost and let nature reclaim the nutrients from the caterpillars.

I have a raised bed I grow in and so its harder to inspect the whole thing for caterpillars and so I’ve resorted to using a chemical pesticide if I must, but I heavily dilute it and only spray once when I see evidence of caterpillars and then make sure to water often and let them grow for several more weeks before I ever harvest them for eating.  I frequently grow Mustard Greens and Arugula as caterpillars don’t seem to be interested in those however.