August 19
Bei Phean and Chhoeum Yean are clients of FBA Sim Som Oun
Bei Phean: Hello! I am Bei Phean and this is my wife Chhoem Yean. We have one daughter, Yorn, who has two children and one son, Heng who has moved after his marriage. We live in Ta Ngak Village, Preash Sdach District, Prey Veng Province, Cambodia. We both are in the garden zone, and our daughter is at home about 50 m from here. Our grandchildren also visit us and we all go for a meal together.
Can you see the black string lead to a metal box? I use it to scare the birds when they come to the garden. A month ago, I started to grow eggplants and it is my first time so I need advice from an FBA, Mr. Sim Som Oun. His advisor Mr. Van comes along to help.
Chhoeum Yean: Ooh! Eh! Harvesting bitter gourd is not easy. To pick them up I need a stool and so far I have already harvested around 20-30 kg. Long green bean gave us about 400,000 riels ($100).
I actually cannot help my husband grow vegetables. I’m not very healthy. Not very often do I have to sell these vegetables to the market because clients and collectors come and give us a price, except when we have too many vegetables left in the garden.
Chhoeum Yean: Here is the new garden for cucumber and bitter gourd. Previously we had sugar cane grown here. Because I have a high ridge that is not easy to harvest, my husband has changed and lowered it down so I believe next harvest will be easier.
Bei Phean: This kind of long gourd (Khlok) is part of our income. We make 2000 riel ($0.5) for one gourd. Together with some other kinds of vegetables: lemon, red ginger (to make our daily tea), galangal, lemon grass, and 20 Persian lilac trees (the leaves we eat taste really bitter).
Chhoeum Yean: Taro is also one of vegetables we grow, but we don’t have time to get the grass out as you see. There’s a lot of grass. It is good pickled and is common to eat them with grilled fish. Oh! Delicious! We can also make soup using the stem with its tuber.
Chhoeum Yean: Guava is one of the fruits we have in here. We already made about 100,000 riel ($25) in one season, usually in between 6 -7 months. We have some others like 15 coconut trees, mangos, and papaya that we can eat ourselves.
We plan to have chickens. You can see the surrounding net where he keeps few hens for breeding. In not so long, they will lay some eggs and then we will keep them all. He’s very committed, my husband is.
Chhoeum Yean: I have 1 hectare of rice field. In here very close to our vegetable garden just behind me, my daughter and I are trying planting our rice in rows the first time. After harvest, I want to grow juicy melon.
May 14
Bei Phean: I have lots of sweet potatoes growing in here which I removed from behind the house. They take a bit longer to grow than long beans, cucumbers and some other vegetables around the house.
Bei Phean: I am just looking at my eggplants because they are the main source of income I can make money from.
In March and April I picked up between 20 – 30 bottle gourds per day and this morning I picked 25 bottle gourds and now there aren’t many left.
