|
| After reading about how hard growing vegetables in Malaysia can be, I would like to say there are successes out there. Sharing some of the tips I've used to grow tomatoes, lettuce, watermelons, rocket, pumpkins, corn, eggplant, chilli, basil,oregano and beans, will hopefully encourage more Expats to grow home vegetables. Varieties; make sure you source seeds that will take the weather. I have lived here for a year and have seen the two seasons. Wet and a lot more wet. Soil; find an organic potting mix that drains extremely well. Don't listen to the outlets selling you the 3 bag mixes they stock. Just wrong. Pots; grow everything in pots to keep the soil elevated and well drained. Position; look around your home to find out where the sun is and when. Believe me when the packet says full sun, it means half sun in Malaysia. Herbs still need their sun, but only morning shine. Still keep their water up though. Watering; buy a cheap moisture meter, or use your finger and only water when the plants are drying. To much water will kill off all your wonderful herbs. Cover; your tomatoes and chilies will need periodic cover for two reasons.1, to keep the afternoon 46deg heat off them. (trust me) 2, to keep the 2500ml of rain off them. Feeding; nothing special, just do what you normally do for your vegetables. |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| What varieties of tomatoes did you have success with? Did you find they stopped fruiting in the heat? What did you use to cover them? I'm in a hot and humid area -- but not as hot and humid as Malaysia -- and any tips are very useful! |
|
- Posted by Malaygarden none (My Page) on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 2:54
| All my tomatoes are grown in pots. I do not trust the soil around here. The successful ones so far are; Mexican midget, Marzano, Yellow pear, Rutgers red. These all produced reasonable amount of ripe fruit. Now trying Sioux, Legend and Burbank slicing-they are flowering now and look healthy. There are 14 other varieties that are designed for heat, but as you say, it flowers and dies off. To cover them, I built a basic frame and placed clear corrugated roof sheeting over them. Then under the sheeting, I lined it with shade cloth. It gets to 46deg in the direct sunlight. Water twice a day and they are happy. Hope that helps. |
|
| I live in Malaysia. Penang to be precise. I have had exuberant and heavy fruiting with tomatoes in my hydroponic system. The plants weren't hybrids, just grown from seeds obtained form supermarket tomatoes. So, I believe the weather in Malaysia is not the limiting factor at all. I have since moved over to organic gardening after developing a phobia for the possibly high nitrite/nitrate content of hydroponic produce. I have just prepared my tomato bed, digging/loosening the soil about a foot deep and adding topsoil, home-made compost,dolomite,MgSO4,Rock Phosphate,fish meal,soya meal,legume green manure crop. (can anyone suggest anything more?). pH 6.8. It has been sitting there for about 6 weeks now while the tomato plants are growing in their grow-bags. I have been fertilizing them with fish emulsion (Oh! the pong). Incidentally I have sent a sample of the fish emulsion for culture to exclude E.coli and other pathogens, as it smells exactly like sewerage. Hope to transplant this weekend. Planning to plant them deep and at an angle of about 30 degrees as I understand that it will help the entire submerged stem to send out roots giving the plant more vigour. I have seen my hydroponic tomatoes grow tons of roots and the fruit production appeared to be proportional to the root system. Just an experiment. I will only post a picture if I get heavy fruiting not otherwise! |
|
| Any pictures of your seedlings? pH of 6.8 is almost perfect for all garden vegetables, including tomatoes. Take it easy with fertilizing. Read more about it. You want to get tomatoes not a lot of lush green top. good luck ! |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Growing Tomatoes Forum
Information about Posting
- You must be logged in to post a message. Once you are logged in, a posting window will appear at the bottom of the messages. If you are not a member, please register for an account.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review your post, make changes and upload photos.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- Before posting copyrighted material, please read about Copyright and Fair Use.
- We have a strict no-advertising policy!
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
Learn more about in-text links on this page here
