On Growing Things

Rice

We are in Vietnam during rice transplant season. In the North, farmers are able to harvest rice three times in a single season. We are actually here during the overlap between the harvest of one season and the preparation for the next. In some areas we’ve seen rice spread out on bamboo mats drying in the sun, and the brown stubble baking in the now dry fields. Once the rice has been harvested, the cows are sent out to graze on whatever is left and the geese and chickens are sent out to eat the bugs that would be harmful to the next rice harvest. After a few weeks the fields are burned off, the ash creating fertilizer for the new planting. The fields are then plowed under using water buffalo. The field is flooded again and is ready for transplanting.

We’ve seen the bright green of the “nursery” plants in small crowded beds and we’ve seen the men and women out there gently collecting them into bundles for transplanting into the growing beds. The countryside is a patchwork of small garden sized fields bordered by low berms of grass. You can see the workers in the field, with their pants rolled to the knee and their cone shaped hats shielding them from the sun as they bend low and swiftly plug each individual rice plant into its place. The rows are perfectly straight and, as the day grows longer, the people in the fields become silhouettes as the sun glints off the water – it is an achingly beautiful panorama.

Bananas

Did you know that a banana tree will only bear one bunch of bananas… ever? Who knew? The banana palm grows about 10 feet high (I’m guessing) and sends out one giant purple flower bud on a stalk that grows longer and longer until the bud is dangling from a 3 foot long stem. Gradually the flower opens its petals in layers. Under each layer is a row of little bitty bananas. Eventually all the petals are opened to reveal row upon row of fruit all hanging from the one central stem. At that point the entire bunch is bagged so the ethylene gas is trapped and all the fruit ripens at the same time. If left to ripen on their own, they will ripen from the top down (or bottom up; I can’t recall). By the time the last ones are ripe, the first ones have rotted. I suppose the gradual ripening process is helpful if you’re eating them yourself or selling them daily on the side of the road, but bagging is the only viable way to grow them commercially. Once the bananas have been harvested, the entire plant is cut down. At the base will be several little suckers which are dug up along with a good chunk of the root system and replanted for the next crop.

The bananas we have been eating are very small – about the length of my finger. The skin is spotty and bruised looking, but the fruit is nicely firm and has a wonderful flavor. In general, all the fruit here has been good. There are abundant pineapples (some are really small, no bigger than a grapefruit), watermelon, mangos, papaya, pomelo (which is like a gigantic grapefruit, only sweeter), mandarins and naval oranges and of course the bananas. Nearly every breakfast we’ve had has included a plate of fresh mixed fruit. Yum! About the only fruit we’ve tried that has not impressed us has been dragon fruit. It’s a wonderfully weird looking fruit – bright pink on the outside with scaly looking skin (picture a kohlrabi), you cut it open to reveal a whitish grey interior studded with little black seeds, like a kiwi fruit. It has the texture of kiwi fruit, but is pretty flavorless. It’s a beautiful fruit for presentation, but with so much other terrific fruit on hand, it just doesn’t seem worth the stomach space for something that’s not knock-your-socks-off fabulous.