My Dad’s MSG Gardening Experiments and Tips

There’s a funny term in Vietnamese -- nghịch ngợm, that makes me giggle. Though Google defines it as naughty, to me it denotes activities that are out of the box, experimental, full of tinkering and discovery. It may also signal mischievousness, tomfoolery and goofing around. It’s a positive term in my mind because my dad, who’s 90 years old this year, likes to use the term to frame his curiosity and creativity. 

After all, he’s the man who loves to MacGyver things with toothpicks. When we lived in Vietnam, he tried producing a fish sauce concentrate to be used by soldiers in the field so they’d always have a taste of home. My dad and I used to spend lots of time exploring, eating, and even cooking, as I wrote recently for Father’s Day. In essence, Bố Già (“Old Daddy” in Vietnamese) loves to nghịch ngợm (pronounced “n-gick n-guhm”).

Managing prostate cancer means Dad is taking a crazy cocktail of medications that are full of side effects. At 90, Bố’s mind remains clear and focused, though he is not as energetic as he once was. That said, his nghịch ngợm spirit remains.

Back in 2019, my parents heard through the Viet internet hotline that monosodium glutamate (MSG, bột ngọt and mì chính in Vietnamese) was great for gardening. My Mẹ (mom) uses the crystalline seasoning judiciously in her cooking, and had some around. (Do I use MSG? I used to shun it but I nowadays do use it, like for pho.) 

They started experimenting and reported good results when I visited during the holidays. With the pandemic, we’ve not seen one another in person since Christmas, but we regularly communicate via email. This past week, my dad emailed a great MSG gardening story, and agreed to share the information on this blog.

Pest Control Beginnings

It started with vermin. Here is Bố’s email to our whole family, which I lightly edited for clarity:

Hi everyone,

Sometimes last year while Mẹ was watching TV at night, the outdoor warning light came up, and saw two or three big rats just running through the back patio. Bố searched the internet and it said that hot chili may be used to scare the rats. We went down to the 99 Cents Only Store and bought a bag imported from China. These were not cut yet and so we had to use the scissors to snip them down into small pieces. Then we spread the chili pieces on the tracks of the rats. We did not see the rats coming back.

We saw the seeds in the chili pieces so Bố put them into soil and they germinated into pretty good chili plants. Now we have two particularly special plants in two containers with good fertilizers including a lot of ajinomoto as it was recommended online for springing the growth of orchids. These two plants grew beautifully bearing a lot of fruits. 

Linh [one of my sisters] took home one plant and when some were ripened, she tasted it and reported that it had no taste.It was not hot at all!

But then last time when Linh was here to visit, we took some hot chile from the bag that we originally bought and a green fruit from a plant grew on the ground without ajinomoto, and they were all hot!

Isn't that interesting to know?

You can follow the story from the pics.

Bố Già Nghịch Ngợm

MSG as food for humans and plants

Over the years, there’s been a lot of controversy about human consumption of MSG but many people have warmed up to using it, including chefs like David Chang and respected food scientist Harold McGee. More recently, Eating Well, a mainstream healthy lifestyle magazine, published about MSG in March 2020 via a print article and online piece. It’s your choice to use MSG but know that it’s a seasoning worth trying, not vilifying. 

What about gardening with it? Lots is available online, especially coming from Asia. Within the Viet sphere, there are YouTube videos and articles, mostly from the Motherland, on cultivating bodacious orchid blooms with MSG. 

My dad’s experiment with the chile plants show that MSG sparks growth but not flavorful fruit. He emailed in a follow up, “So the MSG made the plants produce more leaves and more fruit, but it neutralized the taste of the fruit. The fruit is not hot at all!”

Given that, if you want to tinker with MSG, use it for houseplants and/or plants that you don’t intend to eat. 

How to Fertilize Houseplants with MSG

Want to try using MSG in caring for plants? If you're curious here's what my parents do: 

Mẹ mixes 1 teaspoon of MSG in a spray bottle, and once every 2 weeks, sprays the mixture into the orchids plants. Bố put 1 teaspoon of MSG once into 4 plants outside the dining window and they produce a lot of new green leaves. They are all decorative, not fruiting plants.

Signing off, my dad wrote: “That is the MSG story of Ông Già Nghịch Ngợm [a mischievous old man].”

My dad taught me to love gardening and plants. In this phase of his life, cultivating plants gives him a sense of hope and life, he told me. Seems like cultivating an enduring nghịch ngợm spirit is a key to living well.  

More on my dad:

• He’s a Found Object Artist
• Secret Meals with My Father plus his Gingery Fish Porridge Recipe
• Dad’s Other Holy Trinity: Tiger Balm, Eucalyptus, and Toothpicks