I am well into the tropics in the southern Philippines so my challenge is to grow things I like from temperate climates.

Anyway the Asian veggies I am growing are:
Pechay (bok choy I think) , yard long beans, luffa, bottle gourd, snow peas, sweet potato, taro, ampalaya (bitter gourd), aragula, singkama (maybe yam bean), sayote (chayote), chinese cabbage, Japanese alogbati, Philippine alogbati, egg plant, cucumber, kangkong, wing bean (garbanzo). Some of these are not strictly Asian but I am growing the Asian varieties.

I don't know if you would include papaya and tomatoes as veggies.

For the last 20 years, I have had bok choy, twisted stem mustard and choi sum in the garden. Stir-fries are popular in my house!

I will probably add guy lon and maruba santoh to these greens.

Snow peas have been a favorite since I 1st tasted them at a Chinese restaurant way back when I was in college.

I really should be able to add chives & shallots to this list. But, those are just regular chives and my shallots all have European names. However, they are both common to the gardens in Southeast Asia. Cherry tomatoes . . . ? Okay, I'll stop.

Steve

Mine would have to be the angled luffa gourd. They taste great, and each plant produces hundreds of fruit given enough trellis space. I'm starting mine already 2 months earlier than last year because I want them to produce even more as they make fruits non-stop.

Here's my 2 luffa plants from last year.

Here is a link that might be useful: luffa plants

Those are impressive plants, Steve. You grow them on an elevated horizontal trellis, much the way I grew chayote when I lived in California. My own efforts to grow luffa have been disappointing... I don't think it likes my Wisconsin climate.

My wife is from the Philippines, so I grow a lot of vegetables from there:
ampalaya (bitter melon)
sitaw (yardlong beans)
kang kong (water spinach)
kamote (sweet potato, grown for edible shoots)
saluyot (Egyptian spinach)
malungay (Moringa) This is a tree grown for its edible leaves; I grow it as an annual, since the frost kills it.

I also have seeds for Yellow Mungo & a thorny Filipino eggplant, but only grow those once every 4-5 years.

Other Asian/Pacific Island vegetables:
adzuki beans
edamame soybeans
snow peas
kabocha squash
Asian cucumbers
bunching onions

Hey, zeedman! I can't stop . . . too forgetful!

Senposai greens

purple Japanese eggplant (the long green Thai eggplant seed failed this year)

edamame soybeans
kabocha squash
bunching onions!

Steve

Gai laan
Chinese celery
luffa
moringa
curry tree
bitter melon
Indian eggplants
SE Asian chile varieties
Vietnamese mint
Culantro
Bok choi
Choy Sum
Purple Bok Choy
Mizuna
Gongura
Giant Red Mustard

I have a boatload of shiso going (6+ weeks plus so many newer seedlings at various stages), both the Korean and Vietnamese kind, as well as edible mums -- known as "ssook gat" in Korean. Quite cilantro-ish.

All are on my balcony in all day full or dappled sun for the shiso varieties and a little more dappled for the mums. Full sun requires hanging over the railing, and that space is in high demand this year because of things I've planted requiring full, full sun. (Bouganvillea, tomatoes and peppers, for instance.)

I wish I had the room to try all of the great stuff you guys are growing!!!

Grace

One vegetable that most people may not think of is goji greens. They are very easy to grow, propagate easily with cuttings, and have lots of antioxidents.

They are good for soups, salads, or stir fry.

Niira (garlic chives)
Negi (japanese bunching onions, green onions)
Red Kuri Kabocha
Moringa Oleifera (survived a transplant trauma & a couple of frosts!
Myoga (not sure it is coming back or not)
Turmeric (another hopefully-just-dormant plant)
Ginger (also dormant)
Japanese Sweet Potato (purple skin, white flesh)

About to start:
Ashitaba
Mitsuba (first sowing had no luck germinating)
Winged Bean
Malabar Spinach (red)
Shiso (green)

Shiso seedlings died while I was out of town

Snake gourd, malabar spinach, bitter gourd, angled luffa, araikeerai, dhantu keerai, tulsi (really a herb), watercress, and a few others i cant rememeber off the tip of my tounge.

I had Bok Choy. The are gone now. I have few Asian veggies:
--- Shisso
--- Thai Basil
-- Chinese Celery
--- Lemongrass
I am not into gourds and melons this year.

Bittermelon!

Small female flower developing. I have a few male flowers. Hopefully I get some fruit soon.

Finally got an Okinawan Sweet Potato (purple skin, purple flesh) from the Japanese supermarket to sprout!

:-D

With all my sweet potatoes, i just keep making new slips from the vines and planting here and there. Zone 9, so I figure any I start now will still have plenty of time to develop tubers before December.

My japanese negi (bunching onions), which are much bigger than the typical green onions have started dividing themselves. They were originally grown from the bottom 1 inch of store-bought negi last winter.

Garlic chives (niira) have been plagued by slugs or varmints or something, so I pulled them out of garden bed and transplanted to container. Doing better now.

Shiso is going nuts.

Currently sprouting a new crop of winged beans.

Ashitaba seems slow to germinate.

yukkuri_kame,
How did you germinate the Ashitaba? Did you use the cold stratification method? I've done that, but they haven't sprouted or show any signs yet of sprouting.

Ashitaba has not germinated. :(

Can't read the instructions, all in Japanese.

Ashitaba has not germinated. :(

Instructions are in Japanese, and don't say much about germination. I figured since they were subtropical plants, they'd germinate quickly as it has been hot lately, but not successful yet.

Had no luck germinating mitsuba either.

Yukkuri_kame,
I saw some instructions on the web, that says you should put the seeds in a cold stratification for about 30 day in the fridge. I believe in their native homeland they, germinate after a cold winter period in the ground. It also said to put the seeds on a layer of peat moss or some other medium then cover over again with another thin layer of peat moss, but make sure to wet the medium and keep it moist not wet for 30 days in the fridge. To mimic the winter cold. Then it should germinate with in a few weeks in the warm heat. Sorry it wasn't clearly explain, just some piece and bits l got off the web,. hope it helps.

My bitter melons still haven't managed to produce a single fruit yet, but they are flowering profusely.

The luffas are starting to produce. My longest vines exceed 20ft in length already so they are at a very strong pace, and the longest gourd is about 15 inches long now.

I have 7 of these plants so I should be getting hundreds of them starting to form in 2 more weeks.

Here's the biggest one so far.

Nice trellis & Luffa!

Latest additions:

asian winged beans, from seed ready to transplant to new bed

malabar spinach direct sown was hit hard by gophers, snails and who knows what else. Got a couple of cuttings going from malabar spinach bought at farmer's market, not gonna transplant until they are well along. Might try reseeding in containers for later transplant.

Kabocha seedlings from storebought squash ready to plant to new bed.

I continue to propagate slips of 3 varieties of sweet potato and plant them all over.

Such wonderful variety! I had to look up photos of many of the veggies as I had never heard of them.

I am growing red amaranth, Japanese eggplant, Indian okra, ghost pepper, cilantro, baby amaranth, fenugreek(methi), Armenian cucumber, Asian determinate tomato variety, an Indian pumpkin. Have a couple of bitter melon plants but no flowers yet. Amaranth and fenugreek have been fantastic- been harvesting for several weeks now.

Plant lover - where did you get seeds for araikeerai? Curious where you garden?

Steve - nice luffa. I especially like the trellis and may do one similar next year for yard long beans and snake gourd. I remember my dad building something similar with bamboo.

This post was edited by GWlolo on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 1:50

I got my seeds directly from india, i live in New York.

I'm growing edamame, daikon and baby bok choy.

Jim

Edamame and Daikon are on my list to grow. I've got some old daikon seed lying around I will try for a fall crop, the edamame will have to wait for next spring-summer.

Picked up some ipomoea aquatica (kang kong/ong choy/water spinach) at the farmer's market today, stuck a few shoots in a potting mix, hopefully have another source of easy perennial greens growing soon. Supposedly super easy to root - seeing as they are closely related to sweet potato, it should be a breeze to root them.

Hi,

Due the water conservation rules in TX, I have limited what I am growing this year. So here is my list
1) Tindora
2) Parwal
3) Kantola
4) Moringa
5) Curry tree
6) Amaranth
7) Maxixe (Brazilian cucumber)

Regards,
xman

This year (2013):

Long Beans
Thai Basil
Lemongrass
Thai Peppers

I just sowed bok choy, winged beans, peas for shoots, thai basil and will be sowing daikon.

Good luck with the winged beans this time of year. Hope you have non-daylight sensitive variety - otherwise you might not get a harvest until this time next year. Of course, you can always eat leaves & shoots.

Added Thai Basil and Lemongrass from cuttings from the farmer's market.

My kabocha are now putting out blossoms, but mostly males, haven't seen any females yet...hope I'm not too late to get a decent harvest.

Someone keeps nibbling on my asian sweet potato leaves. Rats, Gophers, Rabbits are prime suspects. Hopefully tubers are still mostly intact.

Storebought ginger roots have plenty of shoots now, growing well. Haven't been successful with turmeric since I left florida, but I'm sure I just need a really fresh rhizome to get it started, guess I'll wait for spring.

You might get a few squash on the smaller size, that aren't fully ripen, but they'll still taste good, just not as intense/rich of a flavor as the summer fully ripe ones. Kabocha usually are the first ripen squash for my parents(in early summer, by late April-May), then the winter squash ripen in late summer and fall. At this time, there's no Kabocha squash still growing for us. But, if sowing late, then, they will be like the other winter squash, ripening later in the summer and fall.

If you need, more lemon grass cuttings or rooted cuttings fresh from the bush/mat, I can get you some for shipping cost. Same with Thai, holy, and lemon basil. I can also get you seeds of the kind of squash we grow too. I don't know the variety, but it have ridges and some are light brown/yellow and others are green with white lines and splotches. I'll show pictures when, I go to the farm. Let me know, if you would like some of the stuff, I mention.

I'm growing dioscorea batatas which can be found in Asian grocery stores, but the one catch with them is that they grow super deep making them tough to dig out in one piece.

Here's a 3 season old one that got down to 3ft deep, but they are better tasting the normal potatoes. This one weighs about 8lbs, and I couldn't get the last section which was just out of my reach so it could be even a bit bigger than that.

SteveLau,

Great, did you use special fertilizer for the dioscorea batatas? How did you control insects inside the soil?Thanks

This post was edited by JCTsai on Tue, Dec 3, 13 at 7:59

SteveLau, I've considered growing Dioscorea batatas; it is apparently hardy enough to survive here. I'm a little apprehensive about the size of the vines, though. How much area did they cover after 3 years?

I am growing a great Asian vegetable that gives lots of tasty vegetables in Malaysia they are called Kachang Botol or in Australia we call it 4 angle beans , great for stir fry or even in salads image attached

Another Japanese vegetable I am growing in Brisbane Australia is Komatsuna which is a great vegetable .

Robert,

Those two are both very tasty. In English, I believed, they're called winged bean(first pic) and the second pic is known as tat soi or something along that line.

The Japanese call winged bean shikakumame Ã¥ÂÂè§Âè±Â, which means "four-angled bean"

One thing to pay attention for with this bean is daylight sensitive or daylight INsensitive. The daylight INsensitive will start producing much sooner, while the daylight sensitive will wait for shorter days. In South Florida, I planted in late winter and they didn't flower till September. 9 months is a long time to wait for beans! But when they did produce it was gangbusters.

I am going to try some kind of "-- CHOY" again. I hop they wont bolt. :last year even with our cool PNW weather they bolted.
An I always grow shiso and Thai basil. This year for the first time I will grow Holey Basil.

I have for perennials luffa, katuk, , Malabar spinach, and lotus. It was an American ornamental lotus that had lost its ID but the tubers are only about finger length and 2 fingers wide. Recently saw a lotus root in Chinese grocery in Greenville SC that was the size of softballs! Would LOVE to have that! Also, water chestnuts, water celery, winged bean, yardlong bean, the bok choy is heat blasted, just planted chires baby corn -may or may not do well- we are infested with feral kittens who like to supervise my work and they broke last years stalks by attempting to climb them- sweet flag and wapato (American, not oriental)