Enjoy Gardening in the Philippines

Growing Tropical Vegetables

Growing tropical vegetables is an easy recipe for success when growing vegetables in the tropics.

I had to learn that the hard way. When I first moved from the United States to the tropical Philippines I tried to grow all the things I knew in the way I knew.

I tried to grow English spinach and cauliflowers, and  cucumbers with seeds from home.

And everything bolted to seed or was devoured by bugs or simply rotted from the roots or the center!

One reader facing a similar predicament asked: "Do you find summer insect attack lessens after the soil improves, or is it just the way things are?" Soil amendment is a must in the Philippines. Generally speaking the soil does not contain adequate nutrition for much more than Malunggay and wild Chili.

I have found the cow, carabao and goat manure to be the best, worm compost if you can find it, banana to strengthen roots and bone meal for calcium. Also watering with rice wash water is a very good daily boost for your plants.

Growing Vegetables In Hot Weather

There will always be more bugs in a tropical climate than in a cool climate, that's for sure! But in a balanced environment there will be more good bugs, too.

Better soil certainly does make your vegetables less susceptible to insects and diseases. Happy plants don't get sick and don't attract as many pests. But that's not the whole story.

Some plants, like cauliflowers or lettuce for example, they just don't like heat. Most Mediterranean plants including tomatoes, they can't stand humidity.

If it's too hot or too humid for them then plants stress. And if they stress they attract bugs, just like people attract colds and flus when they are stressed out and run down...

Insects can smell the stress. Really. Stressed plants do emit substances the insects can detect.

The bugs are a symptom, not the core of the problem, and good soil can only do so much. It means the plants will withstand the heat a bit longer, but sooner or later the heat will get to them...

So you can support your vegetables with a combination of good, deep soil, regular moisture and planting them in the right position. Forget what your English gardening book preaches about full sun. Plan ahead so that once it gets hot there will be something shading the more sensitive plants...

But the best thing to do during hot weather is to grow tropical vegetables. Grow vegetables that like heat! You won't find an eggplant troubled by bugs just because it gets hot.

That's what good gardening is about, working with nature, not against it. Trying to grow unsuitable plants makes life unnecessarily difficult. Growing tropical vegetable varieties instead makes life easy and gardening enjoyable.

Growing Tropical Vegetables

Here are some suggestions for tropical vegetables to grow and also some suggestions for hot weather varieties of your usual vegetables:

Grow indigenous tomatoes to your area. You will find that the combination of vine ripened tomatoes, no matter what the variety, and good soil will give you tasty tomatoes.

Even in the tropical equivalent to winter, the dry season, the hearting lettuce varieties are a lost cause except in the cooler mountain areas. Don't bother with them. In hot climates you should only grow the open leafed kind.

Amongst the open leafed lettuces the oak leaf varieties are the most heat resistant.

I love all the different Asian Greens or Chinese cabbages or pechay. Even Malunggay is a nice addition to a green salad. There are dozens of varieties that all belong to the cabbage family, and like standard cabbage they can be eaten both fresh or cooked.

Some are hearting and have the same problems as hearting lettuces, though they do last longer. Others you grow for the unopened flower heads (Asian broccolis) and some are open leafed. They withstand heat a lot better than our lettuce. .. There is something for everyone.

By the way, mustard greens and rocket/arugula also belong in this family and grow well in hot weather.

I grow a wonderful Asian cucumber variety called "Suyo Long". Tastes exactly like the continental cucumbers, only it's a bit hairy so you have to scrub it if you want to eat it with the skin. But it sure doesn't mind hot weather and is a prolific bearer. It beats any other cucumber I ever tried.

Angled luffa (or loofah) is a climber and a great zucchini substitute during the humid summer/wet season (when zucchinis get too many problems with bugs and mildew).

Eggplants, chillies and pepper/capsicums will grow well no matter how hot it gets. So will sweet corn.

Grow tropical shallots (taste just like cool weather shallots) instead of onions. It means you have to peel stacks of little onions every time you want to cook a meal, but at least they grow.

Some tropical vegetables grow so well once the summer rains start, they become a menace and try to take over your garden. Never turn your back on sweet potatoes during the summer/wet season. Also keep an eye on kang kong and amaranth and salad mallow and kalabasa...

All the starchy tubers that are staples in tropical countries grow well in real hot and humid summers: camote, taro, cassava...

French beans don't even like my winters, but the tropical beans like snake or rope beans and winged beans grow just fine during tropical summers. So do many of the beans that are grown as cover crops: mung beans, soy beans, cow peas... Tried to grow peanuts? They're a legume, too.

Pumpkins will grow if you can stay on top of the pumpkin beetles and mildew.

I hope this gives you some ideas and inspiration. Now that I work with my climate rather than against it, I find growing tropical vegetable gardens much easier when  growing   using the appropriate seeds and choosing the appropriate  varieties. In the tropics you can grow all the vegetables that you need, all year round.

Sure, there are things I miss and still buy (Garlic! ) But mostly I have adapted my cooking and diet to where I live in Mindanao. Growing tropical vegetables makes sense and it makes the tropical gardeners life easy.

Be creative and enjoy working with what you have..Happy gardening regardless of its shape or size.

A-Z List Of Warm Climate And Tropical Vegetables

Amaranth (use leaf amaranth like spinach)

Arugula (rocket)

Asian Greens

Beans (try snake beans and winged beans in the tropics)

Bell Peppers ( find a pepper with eatable skin and harvest the seeds from it)

Cabbage

Capsicum (that's the Australian name for peppers)

Cassava (starchy tubers)

Ceylon Spinach

Chard (silverbeet, similar to spinach)

Chinese Cabbages

Chilli Peppers

Cucumbers

Eggplant (aubergine)

Endive

Kang Kong (water spinach)

Lettuce

Luffa (angled luffa is a great zucchini substitute)

Okra

Pumpkins

Radish

Rocket (arugula)

Silverbeet (chard, similar to spinach)

Squash

Sweet Corn

Sweet Potatoes (instead of normal potatoes)

Tomatoes