New generation farmers quit their salaried jobs and turned to growing wild sweet vegetables, which can be harvested and sold every day throughout the year, earning 500-1,000 baht per day.
At Uncle Teng’s garden, Ban Sam Ta Tong, Tambon Phran, Amphoe Khun Han, Sisaket Province, there is a garden of wild sweet vegetables that can be harvested and sold all year round. Mr. Montree Chanthawong is the caretaker. The garden’s name is after my father. My father and mother used to farm corn and cassava. It was a monoculture, harvested only once, and required a lot of investment. While working at my own car parts manufacturing company, I looked for a plant that could be planted only once but yielded for many times. The market wanted it. I ended up with wild sweet vegetables, which are a low-investment plant that are easy to care for and produce yields all year round. We can harvest and sell them every day. At first, I invested 4,000 baht to buy seeds and plant them on a 3-rai area. It is easy to care for. I just add m
anure and take care of the branches. There are not many diseases or insects. When I first started growing sweet vegetables, I had not yet resigned from the company. I worked and came back to take care of the sweet vegetable garden at the same time.
When the wild sweet vegetable that he planted began to grow and yield fruit, he resigned from the company to do agriculture full-time in his hometown. He tried to study and find more knowledge until he got the techniques for planting, pinching the tops and bending the branches. Wild sweet vegetable is considered a miraculous plant. The more he pinches the tops, the more they grow for him to harvest. It has become the family’s main income. There are vendors who come to pick the vegetables at the garden every day. They sell them for 120-150 baht/kilogram. He earns about 500-1,000 baht per day during the dry season. Some days he sells for 1,000-1,500 baht.
Wild sweet vegetables can be used in many dishes, such as wild sweet vegetable curry with red ant eggs and drie
d fish, or stir-fried with oyster sauce and fried with eggs and wild sweet vegetables. If anyone is interested in visiting the garden or buying fresh sweet vegetables from the garden, you can travel to Uncle Teng’s garden, Ban Sam Ta Tong, Sam Ta Tong sub-district, Khun Han district, Sisaket province, or visit the Uncle Teng Mixed Agriculture garden page and Facebook page Montree Chanthawong.
Source: Thai News Agency