Showing 111 - 120 of 236
Sweet benefits of soursop
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 13/07/2014
» Seeing the potential of soursop as a cash crop, a couple I have known for years have planted 100 saplings on their farm in Ratchaburi. In three years, we may be able to find the fruit on the market, and visitors such as Ibrahim al Rumhi — who emailed me last week to say he was leaving the following day and could I please help him find soursop to take home — might not have to leave empty-handed.
Nature’s melodious alarm clock
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 25/05/2014
» Every day around 5am, I am awakened by a riot of sounds from an assortment of birds. As if by cue they start all at the same time, with sounds ranging from the loud “kawow kawow-kawow-kawow” of the common koel or Asian koel, known in Thai as nok kawow (Eudynamys scolopacea), to the explosive “chee-yup, chee-yup” of the common tailorbird, or nok krajib (Orthotomus sutorius) and the plaintive coo-crooo-crooo of the spotted dove, or nok kao yai (Streptopelia chinensis).
Living art in miniature
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 01/06/2014
» During a trip to Japan years ago, I visited a village in Omiya, in Saitama prefecture outside Tokyo, where more than a dozen families grew and sold bonsai. “We get visitors from all over the world all the time,” Saburo Katoh, owner of Mansei-en nursery and founder of the Omiya bonsai village, told me at the time. “But the bonsai season is in October and November, when seasoned bonsai enthusiasts come to buy plants.
Where have all the gardeners gone?
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 08/06/2014
» Is the Chatuchak midweek plant market dying a slow but natural death? Last Wednesday I went to see how the market was faring after the latest coup d’etat, and found it to be just a shadow of its old self.
Mystery fruit UNMASKED
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 15/06/2014
» How many times have you seen something but paid no attention to it, until somebody asks you about it and you cannot answer? That’s what happened to me when Euna Kamath wrote to say that she came across some fruit that looked a lot like lychees but were much smaller, with a seed that was quite like that of rambutan.
The price point of contention
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 22/06/2014
» I thought I would not mention Chatuchak plant market again for a long while after the article on June 8 about how it seems to be dying a slow but natural death. However, please bear with me just one more time as I set the record straight for a reader who is convinced that rising prices have caused the market’s decline.
Promoting a decent crop
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 29/06/2014
» Last January, I visited a friend and took pictures of her mango tree that was covered with flowers. A few weeks later we talked on the phone and she told me the flowers had fallen without turning into fruit. She jokingly said that by taking pictures I had put a jinx on her tree.
More on mangoes
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 06/07/2014
» I have eaten mangoes all my life. I have seen mango trees since I was a child, for it was one of the most common fruit trees in the Philippines, where I grew up. When I was in high school and an examination was coming up, I’d climb a tree that my grandfather had planted in our compound and review my lessons while sitting in its branches. But it’s only now that I realise how little I knew about mango trees, and why the tree in our family compound seldom bore fruit.
Fruitful search for elusive trees
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 30/03/2014
» I had two people in mind when I went to Kasetsart University at the start of the annual agricultural fair, better known as Kaset Fair, last Saturday. Ken Banks had written to say that in his 11 years of visiting Thailand and finally living in Khon Kaen, where he moved from beautiful Hawaii, he had never seen a breadfruit tree until recently, when he spotted two trees on a street across from the Khon Kaen train station. “They look a lot like the Hawaiian variety, based on the leaf color, shape and luster,” he wrote. “This is a delicious, unseeded cultivar that I would dearly love to have.”
A seasonal treat
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 06/04/2014
» I posted a picture of Manila tamarind from the recent Kaset Fair on Facebook, and was surprised at the response it received from my Filipino friends. Many were nostalgic for the fruit, and lamented that they haven’t tasted it for decades. Many of my friends and former classmates have migrated to various parts of the world, so this is understandable; the fruit is seasonal and no one has found a way to preserve it. Unless they visit the Philippines or Thailand when it is in season, they won’t be able to eat it. What is surprising is that even those who live in the Philippines said they haven’t seen it for years.