I live near Encino.

I live in northern california but would like to grow more asian vegetables.

I came across evergreen seeds. I am planning to order some next year so I can plant a asian vegetable garden with snake gourd, small eggplant and ash gourd.

I live in Southern California (Altadena in the San Gabriel valley and North east LA) and I love Asian vegetables. We grew:

Baby bok choi - did great, very yummy, crunchy, delicious, saved seeds (not enough to trade this year yet)

Gai lan. I love the stuff, but it did not do very well. We ate the leaves, the buds were skinny and not tender. The Harlequin beetles got them and even ate the ones that I was letting go to seed to save...any advice on that? I mean anyone has had luck growing gai lan in zones 9 and 10?

I grew Methi greens (fenugreek) and it went OK. I was expecting larger leaves and my sprouting rate was not good, so I saved seeds and will re-plant, but more of them. I made alo methi and that was so yummy I must have more. Saved enough seeds to trade.

I am growing some Shiso, both green and purple. Very nice and they add a great touch to carrot salads. I will be saving seed when I can't stop it from bolting.

Let us not forget the asian eggplants! We grew from seed a mixed pack, some long skinny purple and long skinny white. Delicious delicate white flesh and they grill wonderfully. Not sure what they are called? also, not sure i will be able to save seeds, since something attacked all of my eggplants and I am pruning back and trying to save the plants. Some large green beetles on them, and I made the mistake of planting them to close to tomatillos.

I am just south of L.A., I am growing a few Asian vegetables.

So far I have Japanese eggplants, Bitter melon (not sure of which one), three varieties of Chinese yard long beans, three types of soy beans, Kamote, Malunggay, and Kaboche.

The collection will grow as I make more room to grow.

Hi everbody
I hope you had a good summer vegetable growing experince.
My summer vegetables are diminishing in production.
This year a lot of bottle guard, okra,cucumbers,egg plants -had 6 different types, bitter melon, tomatos,bell peppers,hot peppers( green), our favorite- sweet bannana peppers and sponge guard.
time to get ready for fall/winter vegetables.Just ordered some green peas -snap type.
Hope our group gets more members so we can all shareour So. CA vegetable growing experines.

Hi everybody, I'm Jim from San Diego. I've been growing mostly Chinese veggies for a number of years. The seed sources used to be pretty slim and I had trouble growing many of the cooler season veggies year round. But now thanks to Evergreen seeds and Agro Hai-tai, I've been having very good luck extending the season thru July and August.

Let me share some of the varieties that have worked well. Gai lan: Evergreen seeds 104 Blue Star. Sowed seeds in June, plants very vigorous with thick succulent flowering stems. During some of the hotter days the stems got a little tough, but I just kept cutting the flowering stems and they just kept getting better.
Bok choy: Evergreen seeds 268 Canton short. Great all summer long. First time I've been able to grow Bok choy in the summer heat.
Baby Bok choy (chin-chang cabbage) Evergreen 325 Summer boy and 348 Mei-Qing choi. The latter I've grown for a number of years and has been reliable into summer. The summer boy is a new one for me and it too has been good into summer, very slow to bolt.

I just seeded a patch with Canton short and Summer boy 4 days ago and they have already sprouted. Now if I can just keep the Argentine ants from herding aphids on them.

Did any of you try to get some vegs in the fall/winter? I am just purchasing the starter greenhouse (from target $199)and I am wondering whether I can plant a eggplant or something similiar in a pot during these coming months inside the green house.

I live in N.CA at San Jose.

Gardeni
First - Greenhouse you are talking about are cold frames.I use it to germinate my seeds and grow plants of vegetables and flowers for a strong and good root system.Then I transplant them in sunny locations.
Now RE: Eggplants - they are summer vegetable.They like warm soil temperature in 70+ degrees F.Just because it is a greenhouse with contoled temperature doen not mean one can grow summer vegetables in cold weather conditions.(NATURE wins)
Last summer I experinemted eggplants in greenhouse in 5 gallon containers.Plants did not grow so well. I had to move them out in open air. Did not produce as much as my outdoor transplaned plants did.
I even tried Peppers, tomatos and cucumber in grenhouse but had to move them outdoors.
Eggplants, peppers and tomatos are self pollinating , cucumbers I had to hand pollinate.Still production was not upto par.
I hope this will help you a little.

Hello,
Where do you buy all these seeds from? It seems you are growing tons of veggies.

Hi Chaman
I gorw enough and plus, to enjoy them everyday all summer along and give it away to friends.
The seeds I have collected over period of years.
Once I find good quality and non hybrid seeds I then make my own for future use.
e.g. I found seeds of long egg plant that is green.It is so tender and tasty -unbeleiveable.I made the seeds.I screened the flower before it opens.So there is no chance of cross pollination.Then I hand pollinated.The fruit (egg plant) that I got was pure breed of green egg plant.I saved the fruit on the plant for seeds.
Similarly i did with Banana Peppers.
Some vegetables have seprate male and female flowers like bitter maelon, cucumbers, sponge guard and laukie etc. they require little more work.
Since I am cost concious so I buy some seeds from superseeds.com/ Pine tree Seeds Co,They have small packages for home gardeners.
Other good source is
SunandWatertogether.com
They have Burpee - a good quality seeds all at 99 cents to $1.09 - no shipping charge if you buy 10 .
Hope this will help.

Hi people. I live in the Valley, San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. Anyways, I planted some bittermelon around October and it didn't do so well because of some bugs eating the leaves at night. It's my first year gardening vegetables but I have been taking care of trees for a while now. Anyways, I am going insane with what kinds of seeds I should grow and when. I want to start indoors a few weeks before our last frost date and later transplant them to soil when the frost is over.
I know this is an asian vegetable forum but I am also planting other vegetables such as tomatoes, okra, kalabasa(winter squash) habanero peppers, onions, carrots and lettuce.
Just wondering if anybody knew about heirloom asian vegetables?

From a post on Sept 9 by gardeni: I too order from Y.H. Evergreen, but I cannot get the site to work. It says temporarily down, anyone know any more about this great source of Asian vegs?

Here is a link that might be useful: yh evergreen

I live in Ventura Co., North of S F Valley. Would love to know if there might be like minded gardeners in the area who would like to exchange seeds and plants.

I live in Bellflower, and just starting vegetables. I have mostly fruit trees now. I planted bitter melon last year ( from evergreen seed) in my front yard. Drew a lot of attention, too bitter for my taste, but in-laws were happy with them. Local advice and experience is the most helpful, so I thought I'd post just to keep this thread on the first page.

Granada Hills. Growing some Gai Lan in self watering box this year.

Hi.Im Roy, I live in Santa Ana,Ca. Im looking for a localtion in Santa Ana or Orange County, where to buy Methi Seeds. Aroyalvarado2010@yahoo.com Thank you.

Roy
You can buy methra which are seeds of methi in Indian grocery stores.Indians use these seeds in cooking certain lentils and making pickles etc.
Actually there are 2 types of methi.
Metha is what we get commercially grown.Leaves ate on bitter side.
Methi is not commercially grown and sold in stores.Farmers grow this and dry the leaves. Then it is sold as flavoring leaves for cooked vegetables.It is called Kasturi Methi.
I got these seeds from India.This methi leaves are sweet and very delicious.
Chad

I just moved to Tujunga/Sunland, close to you San Fernando folks.

Currently, we have about 2 Japanese sweet potato vines, the tubers should be about ready to harvest.

Just planted some mizuna, daikon and napa cabbage, along with other salad greens.

In florida, I grew red shiso (perilla), malabar spinach (basella alba) and asian winged bean. The malabar spinach and shiso should do OK in this climate, but not sure about the asian winged bean, as I am up in the foothills and we get frosts up here.

Would be happy to trade malabar spinach or winged bean seeds for other asian vegetables. If I get the shiso established, then I can trade those seeds too.

Hi
I am maya I live in Lancaster .I am interested in growing a Tindli plant and would like to buy some CHUKA bhajji(khatta bhajji) seeds.Can you tell me where to get them?

If anyone has tindora (Ivy Gourd) root cuttings, I
would love to grow them in Northern Calif.
Thanks

I am starting a vegetable garden soon. I plan on having bitter gourd, okra, chinese green beans, kale, arugula and squash. I am excited to tend my own vegetable garden and hope this group can share tips and advise on how to successfully grow vegetables. I am in Thousand Oaks.

Hello Everyone,I live in LA.I am planning to grow Asian vegetables.Please share tips .I will planting next week.Let me know if anyone is has asian seeds.Thank you.

Hi. is this thread still alive? chad?