At the start of Year 12 a few of us decided that we would like to become involved in the Gold Fish Garden that was just starting up. Myself, Boss Sutheeissariyakun and Harry Mun thought we could make our participation in the garden an after-school activity; our CAS project for the year as the garden offered us opportunities to be Creative, do Action and also be of Service.
We started in the first term and have learnt a lot about setting up a vegetable garden in school! We have found that it’s rather hard work being a gardener and that there are quite a lot of vegetables that are very delicious to the numerous bugs and pests that infiltrate the garden.
Regent’s visitors at Adams Organic farm.
We’ve had some success with herbs such as dill and basil and our first crop of tomatoes was also plentiful. Our chilli plants are going well but the garlic and eggplant are not. It’s important that we try and stay organic as we believe that food which is grown without having been sprayed with pesticides, or even ‘organic’ pesticides, is better for us.
We heard through Regent’s Eco Committee of an organic farm in Nakhon Ratchasima province that was supplying vegetables to an international school in Bangkok. A visit was planned and Boss and I, along with two teachers and three Thai admin staff, left early last Saturday for the five hour journey to the farm.
The business is called Adams Organic and we were fortunate to be able to meet with one of the managers, Tim Chung, whose family owns the business. We met Tim and his wife at a restaurant about 11km from the farm where we were told the history of the farm.
Adams Organic has been established for 2 years though the farm has been around for over 10 years growing organic vegetable seeds prior to fresh vegetable production. The parent company, Adams Enterprises Ltd., has been operating in Thailand as a vegetable seeds producer since the 1980s. It was started by Tim’s grandfather, and now is looked after by Tim’s uncle.
The mission of Adams Organic is to promote the organic lifestyle to the public as well as promoting organic/sustainable farming practice to local farmers. The farm we visited is about 70 rai in total but we were told that at the moment they may only be utilizing half of the fields for production.
We set off in our minibus with Tim and his wife to the farm and were met by Khun Sopon who is the local manager of the farm. He gave us a very extensive tour of the farm, showing us the processes they use to grow the seedlings in their greenhouses as well as composting and measures and tips on how to keep insects and other pests away from the plants.
There were about 10-15 workers doing the field work and another 10 or so helping with the cleaning and packing of vegetables. At this farm they were growing butternut squash, varieties of tomatoes and lettuces. We also saw the workers packing cabbages that had been brought from one of their farms in Laos.
Adams Organic vegetables are sold in Pattaya at Foodland but also in other supermarkets in Bangkok. We had a very enjoyable and interesting day and hope we can implement some of the ideas we learnt and the advice we were given at Adams Organic, in the Gold Fish Garden. On our way home we were able to stop at Chokchai Farm for some delicious ice cream!
