The Thai Business

The Beginning of a Greenhouse in Thailand

We had talked about many different business before we ended up here.  She has experience being an animal breeder as well as baking.  But, she wanted to do something a little different.  We looked into making kombucha, but she wasn't happy with the results.  She made some for herself, and liked it, but she thought it was a bit of a tough market to get into for her area.  After much more deliberation and researching her area more, she decided on starting up a greenhouse.  

Her family will be able to help sell the vegetables and greens in the market, and she has a few small restaurants who would buy from her.  Her uncle said she could put up a greenhouse on the land that is owned by the family, which is actually on the same spot as her childhood home.  The lot was a bit over grown, so there was much work to do.  I am quite impressed with how quick it all happened.

Clearing the Land

Looking at the picture above, it looked like an undaunting task.  ONE guy cleared this out in less than a week.  It cost 4,000 baht to have him do it.  That was about $120.00 at the time.  I don't even want to know how much that would cost in the USA for this.  Not to mention permits, and the BS you have to go through.  She just called a few guys, agreed on a price, and hired him.  He started a few days later.  All in all, from bid to finish was approximately 10 days.  To the left is what it looked like after it was cleared.  I love Thailand.

Now we had to get to the really expensive part of this, building and starting up the greenhouse.

Starting the Greenhouse

We talked a lot about what was needed, what type of materials, do we want a prefab, or custom, all of that.  Interestingly enough, the pre-fab and custom prices were very close.  So we decided on putting up a custom greenhouse.  We added everything up, and she acme up with just under 30,000 baht.  I ended up giving her almost 35,000 baht, since I got a better exchange rate when I sent $1,000.  Yes, the entire greenhouse cost less than 40,000 baht ($1200).  Did I mention I love Thailand?

It took her about 1 or 2 weeks to find a competent builder and design she liked.  She talked to some friends who already had greenhouses in the area, and she decided on what she wanted.  Then the construction began about a week later.  2 weeks later, she was planting in it.  It only took that long as they had a little more work to do to clear the land.  All in all it took about 1 month from starting to clear the land to planting the first vegetables.  In my mind, that is insanely fast.  Here are a few pictures of the progress.

More to come

I have a lot more to talk about with the greenhouse.  I will have to break this up into more articles.  Keep an eye on the blog for more updates!