If you Google 'tropical vegetable varieties' you can get all kinds of info - there are many sites devoted to the issue. The link below is just one example.

You'll also find some related info over on the Asian Vegetable Gardening forum here.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Tropical Vegetable Gardening

Here are two seed companies in southeast Asia. Greenseeds http://www.green-seeds.com/ Vietnam and Chia Tai http://www.chiataigroup.com/Product/Seed/tabid/98/articleType/CategoryView/categoryId/24/Vegetable.aspx. Summer squash ( they grow bottle gourds) corn, potatoes, most European brassicas( grow Asian varieties (Pak choi, amaranth,TSOI SIM Asian mustard) are not generally growns. Eggplant , okra, melons, winter squash are popular.

I say we all run away to Costa Rica and garden year 'round.

I could go for that, about now. Who is for a mountainous tropical vegetarian compound? One a them whachamacallems, a commune? Anybody speak fluent spanish and have a full set of Mother Earth mags from the '70's?

I have a complete set of "The Garden library" dated 1910. They are full of the kind of gardening articles that we had before the chem industry got the upper hand. Unfortunately, they were written for a temperate climate, not tropical.

DarJones

@ fusion power - are those articles on .pdf or HTML or hard copy on paper ?

@ farmer dill - what countries do Green Seed and Chai Tai serve? Does the list include China, Thailand and the Philippines? I have friends in those countries who wants open pollinated seeds....

Thanks...
Jesse Jr
(SoftGuitar)

No need to expatriate. If you can afford it, a small plot in Hawaii's big island is all you need. Or Molokai. A friend gardens in Maui, dry side, and he can grow pretty much every temperate vegetable (and he does. I think he eats mostly out of the garden). There I saw 1.5ft wide tatsoi.

Even in most of CA you can happily garden year round, in a way that follows the season and that I find most natural. I can see myself in my underwear 24/7/365 at 3000ft elevation in Costarica, though. Max 78, min 71, all year. I'd have to raise some pigs, goats and chickens on vegetable leftovers because I am long past my vegetarian days.

In a tropical climate, you can't grow lettuce of any kind, broccoli, cabbage, collards, mustard, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, beets, onions, carrots; these are winter crops and I have them in my garden right now and they won't grow in the heat. Malabar is edible and will grow in heat, and is a spinach substitute.
Also can't grow other root vegetables.

Tomatoes and peppers and eggplants will set fruit until it's consistently above 90�F. Beans will stop producing if it's regularly above about 95�F. Most herbs will do fine in the heat, except for cilantro.

Some catalogs have things that will do fine in heat, such as amaranth, which has leaves that can be used when young for salads, and can be cooked at other times. Another is Melokiyah, which is grown in Egypt. Purslane is another warm growing vegetable. Most people think of it as a weed, but it's an old vegetable - it was grown in the colonial US and Europe as well.

Squash will do fine. There's a Vietnamese type of squash called bau that has a long vine and makes a good tasting large squash, summer squash type. Lima beans and butter beans do well in heat.

I was in Colombia a few years ago, at about 8500 ft elevation. I saw a large number of weeds as well as cultivated plants that are common in north america. I think it very likely that the great majority of high-latitude crops will produce there. Additionally, the frost-free climate allows many tropical fruits to produce. Rain is consistent and adequate, seemingly. The luxuriance and thickness of the sod in the pastures and the green-ness was stunning. Volcanic soil.

Paradise, aside from the fact that the ultra-rich own and control everything.

I tried to look for veggies for tropical climates, unfortunately all I found was rare and exotic seeds/trees native to tropical areas. I wasn't able to find traditional and common vegetable varieties that have been bred for tropical areas.

Please don't suggest just experiment. The seeds aren't for me, and I'm not growing them . I don't want to pick seeds that aren't going to grow well in tropical climates because I picked the wrong variety.

I have composed a list of what I think will grow well in tropical areas:

Melons (watermelon, cantaloupe, exotic melons......crenshaw, casaba, etc.)

Winter Squash (kabocha, acorn, spaghetti, butternut) I know that stuff won't set blossoms and fruit won't mature with certain things, but doesn't winter squash like and prefer warm climates and a long growing season?

long beans/yard long beans, lima beans

Regarding the asian greens, earlier in the thread somebody made a remark about them. However was it that they're used as a substitute in tropical areas for traditional winter greens (lettuce, spinach, cabbage, etc.) or that asian greens wouldn't grow well in tropical areas? Could really use clarification with this please.

I'm confused about the collards and kale not being able to grow well in a tropical area. The heat doesn't bother them as much as stuff like lettuce, spinach etc. and I know they're grown both as a spring/winter crop and in the fall, but also in the summer in the south.

Regarding eggplant, would the Thai variety be more suitable to grow in tropical areas? I was also thinking of doing Italian varieties?

I know with tomatoes,peppers, etc. if the temps become 90+ they won't set blossoms and fruit.

The bottle gourd, is it used for eating or just for decoration? The varieties of crops I'm looking for are for
eating, not ornamental purposes.

Also is it possible to grow stuff like zucchini/summer squash in tropical areas, or would they not fare well?

However I'm asking if Thai varieties would set fruit well and blossoms even in hot climates, because Thai varieties are grown in a sweltering area. By 'thai' I mean the variety that yields small circular clusters of eggplant rather than the large globes.

Regarding the Asian greens, if they can be grown in tropical areas, would it be possible to do something like oriental cabbage?

Regarding broccoli, what about varieties bred specifically for hot climate/tropical areas? I found something about Indian varieties. If this isn't an option, can I grow chinese broccoli, like kai lan (flowering/sprouting broccoli)

What country were you hoping to send seeds to and what area? It is such a difficult question to answer without knowing geographic information.

Brassica does not grow well in summer in the deep south, that's a fact. Cabbage, collard, kale, broc and sprouts are all high-latitude cool weather adapted. They do well in the cooler seasons in the southern states, not summer. Some cauliflower and broc strains are adapted to the mediterranean type climates, but that is a long way from the near sea-level tropics.

This odd request pops up perennially on these boards. It's an odd and rather presumptuous idea, that people in the tropics don't know anything about growing adapted vegetables to their climate. Doesn't it seem likely that at least some gardeners in any tropical region are experts in the matter?

I had no problem growing collards or kale in the high heat of summer. The problem is they tend to taste very bitter so, a few days stored in the crisper seems to bring this bitterness down. Our summers typically consist of about 6 weeks or more of drought and temperatures exceeding 95�F and often into the 100s.

I would think the biggest problem with using seeds adapted for the temperate zones, would be the daylength sensitivity. The more I watch plants over the years, the more I know that effects growth more than we think.

z 5/6 is not the deep south. I am talking about z8/9/10, where the hot weather is many months. In north fla/south ga for example, brassicas are generally not seeded until late sept/early nov and then again in late feb/early march. Hot climates that are still within a winter/summer paradigm (and which are also often within a wet/dry season paradigm as well) are best managed for the shoulder seasons - two growing seasons as far as the high-latitude adapted crops are concerned.

In the deep tropics brassica with its intolerance to high heat would be limited to favorable high-altitude climates.

Having lived for 8 months in Brazil I can say, to support PN, that collards and kale where nowhere to be found. You could find arugula and cress for salads, all the time, some lettuce and chicory during winter, and 4 or 5 types of greens, of which only Malabar spinach was recognizable. Besides the heat, in a place like the Gulf Coast or Brazil's coast, kale especially will get black rot in summer and die.

Entao voce fala portugues, mais ou menos, Glib?

Doesn't it seem likely that at least some gardeners in any tropical region are experts in the matter?

Exactly. Point well made. They are also the best sources of information on the issues.

Dave

Mais o menos. I could speak english at work, and that held me back. My wife is pretty good, and my daughter went to school and became fluent. I miss pedaling to work (not that I could get a car easily. The bureaucracy there is atrocious), and breakfasts with two bananas, two papayas, two guavas and a cup of coffee.

I'm in the same boat. I'm planning my garden for a location at sea level in Ecuador. I'm in the seed buying stage, so I can't comment about results. I'm attempting about 10 types of peppers, amaranth, thai long beans, asian eggplant, a couple tomatoes that will probably struggle, thai basil, cilantro. Everything else I'll buy in Ecuador from local farmers... lemon, orange, papaya, lemon grass, mint.