How to Grow Your Own Vegetables in Phnom Penh

17th March 2020, when the world started facing the covid-19 pandemic, everyone was clueless of what to do or what is going to happen next.  I mean, even now, we are still uncertain of what lies ahead about this pandemic.  However, the good side of that, we all had enough and quality time to spend with our family.  For us, one of the things that had kept us all occupied was planting or growing our own vegetables.  Here I will tell you how to grow your own vegetables in Phnom Penh. 

Living in Phnom Penh, where the scorching sun is always at its excellence, growing your own vegetables in Phnom Penh could be a challenge.  But yeah, we took the challenge!

First we started buying loads of soil and big pots, which I really didn’t mind ‘coz I’m not in charge of the carrying all the way up to our fourth floor balcony.  And yeah, since we first have a basement garage to walk through that means 5 flights of stairs! A typical Cambodian “Pteya Living” house.  Don’t worry, there will be lots of blog about “expat life in Cambodia“.  We also searched for seeds from different markets, and after checking three, we definitely can recommend the “Orrusey market” as the best source for seeds and all gardening materials.  You guys should check out that market, it’s an ” everything in” market, though for sure it’s not the best market in the world.  Okay, so what were the seeds we got; we got, tomato, water melon, okra, string beans, cucumber, squash, radish, bok choi, carrots, and the list goes on….but needless to say we still haven’t found herbs like rosemary and thyme!  If any of you knows where to find those, please leave a comment below.

Other than we were just looking for something to do, we as parents basically want our two little buggers to have more hands-on activities everyday.  As we all know, kids nowadays are less active as they are too busy with their gadgets.  Yes, also more blogs about this topic soon.  Now you already have an idea how the four of us will normally rush to our rooftop and get those little baby vegetables watered.  It’s just an awesome family time and surprisingly, the kids love watering the plants!  

After three months of making sure our veggies got the essentials they need, tadaaahh, indeed they started growing.  The first to bear fruits were the string beans, which looked so healthy and fresh.  I never knew that string beans can grow that fast and many everyday!  The kids measured the daily growth and were shocked with the results. Although we only kept log for 2 weeks it was an amazing science experiment for us all.   One thing we noticed as well about keeping string beans is that it attracts a lot of ants.  After the string beans, okra started to grown, and again “wow”!  Another great experience, seeing it’s transformation.  The beautiful yellow flowers that greeted us in the morning gave us excitement for the actual produce.  I am excited to tell you all that almost all of the vegetables have been growing very well, though I see their hardship due to the excessive heat they have been receiving everyday, but thank goodness, it has been raining here in the past few weeks.  See, growing your own vegetables in Phnom Penh is possible with determination and love. 

Please enjoy the photos of our beautiful vegetable garden here, and leave a comment for any questions you may have.

I can’t wait to post this blog, as we are off to a garden shop to get more soil, and pots to plant some more! I hope you try planting your own too.  And yeah, I am planning to start my DIY aquaponics too, and I am using this https://bit.ly/2YoOqUr to help me out.  Check that out!

Have a great day!

 

Cheers,

T & C