I’ve planted rosemary, mint, basil, coriander and baby chilies, but haven’t been able to find seeds for thyme, oregano, marjoram, chives and lavender. Are they available at B&Q, or the flowermarkets in Neihu and Jienguo?
And anybody got hints for successfully growing rosemary? I only got two seeds to germinate and they look like they’re about to die anytime now, even though they’re less than 2 cm tall. I’m watering the plants every day and the other plants are doing ok.
They sell mature rosemary plants at B&Q (I think) and the flower markets (for sure), and those are easy to maintain.
Forget seeds. There’s a lady at Jienguo flower market who sells lots of good, healthy herbs in good sized pots. If you buy it like that it should be pretty strong and hardy.
Our strawberry plant is doing great, but dammit we’ve only gotten a few berries. As for the rest of the berries, early in the morning I’ll often see a squirrel climb over the wall onto our rooftop, he’ll see me then scamper away, but I can’t watch 24/7 and he ate a bunch of them. Also a worm drilled tunnels through one nice big one.
Our tomatos are also suffering from something. They turned yellow and their leaves are curled. They’re still growing and bearing fruit, but they don’t look good. I think they may have tiny, microscopic critters on the undersides of their leaves (this weekend I may get around to washing their leaves with soapy water), or perhaps the problem was the one time I gave them fertilizer. I used only a tiny quantity diluted in a water can, but I couldn’t read any of the label as it’s all in Chinese. My wife said it seemed like the correct type when I bought it, but she was in a pissy mood at the time and doesn’t know much about gardening anyway, so perhaps it was the wrong kind and I burned them.
Other than that, things seem to be OK. I’m still thrilled that we bought a mango tree, though it won’t bear fruit this year.
Chiayo.
Yep. Saw those. Only NT99 when I saw them there two weeks ago. But at that time I still have hope in my rosemary seeds. But I’m starting to miss my ‘Jack Daniels Mango-Chicken with rosemary’, so I think I’ll come to my senses and head down to B&Q this weekend. 
I think B&Q had mint and maybe rosemary, but I’m sure they didn’t have others like oregano, basil etc.; the flower markets have a much better selection for herbs. 
Watering rosemary every day’s a surefire way to kill it. It likes arid, poor soil the best.
Just for those who can’t find no B&Q anymore in Taiwan, it’s called “Teliwu” 特力屋.
They removed the “B&Q” a while ago when all the shares went to the Taiwanese owners, I think.
I bought Lemon Basil there and it’s growing just fine.
I bought a wee rosemary plant and a really wee mint plant. Wife keep saying that I must keep them in the shade. Tell her she’s wrong, DB! And that mint must have a shiteload of water! 
IME mint can wilt in strong sun with little water. Mine seems so far to like partial shade and regular watering. But I’ve not had it for long.
In South Africa, we always grew mint under the garden tap (which was perpetually dripping). Constant African sun all day, constant moisture. Grew like weeds.
Yep, I was gonna say that!
How can I stop my plants from dying?
A few weeks ago I bought small plants of western basil, oregano, and parsley at the Jianguo Flower Market. The oregano seems to be doing OK, but the basil and parsley are fading - yellowing, slumping, falling over.
On an outside balcony (i.e. no glass enclosure), not in the rain, facing east. The woman at Jianguo told me to water them every three days, which I’ve been doing, although I’m not sure how much to give them. She told me they were OK in the sun for now, and that outside was fine now, but to keep them more shaded when summer comes.
Any suggestions for how to not kill them?
My basil seems to like water. I give 'em a good bit, every other day, and every day in the summer heat, twice if it’s obnoxiously hot and dry out. Dunno whether I’m overdoing it. Partial shade in summer works better than full sun, yes. Oh, and buy a huge cactus. They’re hard to kill. Water once a month.
Had the same problem with my parsley as well, grew fine for a little while and then all of a sudden it started going yellow and died…
The only thing I’ve managed to get growing like crazy in Taiwan was a mint plant, although it died when we went away on holiday for a week… 
So, here’s my rooftop mango tree (my baby).
Not huge (yet), but I was thrilled recently to see this things on it.
Obviously, that’s what turns into flowers and then mangoes. I only bought the tree last year, so it’ll be awesome if I get fruit this year. Of course, I’m not there yet. Visited A-Gong over the weekend and consulted with him (through my interpreter/wife), since he’s an experienced farmer. He advised putting paper bags over those things once the mangoes are as big as a quarter (perhaps to protect from wind and rain.
But what I’m worried about most, by far, is the damned squirrel/s who ate all our strawberries last year, chewed heartily on our orchids and would surely love mango. In fact, in my googling just now I came across a tragic sight. 
Not quite sure how I’ll avoid that. Perhaps I can buy wire mesh at Hola and build little cages around the fruit (and over the strawberries).
Has anyone had good luck with strawberries? We haven’t. Our plants are looking great. They’re a good, strong, vibrant green color and have thrown out runners and multiplied so well that I’ve had to transplant their babies repeatedly. So, no problem with the plants themselves. But getting a good crop of berries ain’t easy.
They were attacked by little worms last year, and I think squirrels and birds will be problematic too. For the latter, I planted them deep enough in their containers that the top of the leaves are level with the top of the containers, because I intend to buy some wire mesh and place it over the top of the containers to keep the vermin out. For worms, I don’t want to spray poison on them; maybe diluted organic dishsoap will do, or just painstakingly looking through them periodically to pick out invaders.
But another problem has been that the berries sit on the soil, so after I water they get rotten and moldy. Seems tedious to have to periodically look through the plants, find any berries, and somehow prop them up so they’re not lying on the soil but are suspended above it, but perhaps that’s what I must do.
How about you? Have you harvested lots of strawberries before? How did you deal with vermin and mold/rot?
The birds got ours. I might add cages in the future if I get time. I seem to remember something about people using straw under the berries. 
Straw is very common, it would help prevent the berries from touching the soil and dries much quicker when wet.
That said, try pruning the plants and you really don’t want them to produce runners, cut them off as soon as you see them, unless you want more plants, as the runners suck juice from the main plants which will then produce less berries and smaller plants. The idea is to get some big strong plants and they’ll last at least a couple of years if taken care of properly, possibly longer in Taiwan due to the mild winters.
Bought a strawberry plant and a chili plant at the flower market this past weekend, will be interesting to see how it goes. The chili plant I think is Jalapeno’s but the same stall was selling habanero’s and chocolate chili’s as well (i think) as well as loads of other interesting herbs and plants. NT$100 for any of the chili plants which I have to say is really cheap and all of them had fruits on them already, most of a harvestable size. Might go back there for some of their herbs as well at a later stage, although I’m trying to grow some of my own which varied success.
Was this at the market in Jienguo or Wanlong or Xindian?