Gardening in Gifu

one potato, two potato...

2010-06-25T14:54:00.002+09:00

...three potato, four. Five potato, six potato, please please no more!!!

I just dug up less than a tenth of the potatoes. About 12 times this still in the field. I love potatoes, but really?!?!

M hates potatoes and L is allergic, so I guess my husband and I will be eating a lot of potatoes. And he is already talking about planting more for the fall! I think I am going to start talking about who is going to be cooking all these potatoes.

Life is a bowl of raspberries when you have magic beans!

2010-06-08T21:19:00.004+09:00

Our raspberries are so happy now on the south side of the embankment, they are producing whole bowls full of raspberries each day. Rather small bowls, but still a bit improvement from last year when we were each getting a quarter of a raspberry. We are also harvesting our first beans. The girls were not too eager to try the purple beans, but were excited to learn that they turn green when boiled. Magic beans!
My flower beds have become infested with these black and red caterpillars. I am not sure if they are poisonous, or what they eat, but suspect they are up to no good, so I have been gathering them up with disposable chopsticks each morning and dropping them in the river.
Feeling blue.... I planted cornflowers and campanula seeds in all different colors, but only the blue and purple actually grew, so my south flowerbed is a little monotone.
Some of the more colorful flowers are starting to revive in the north flower bed now that that the daffodil leaves have been removed.
First lily...

Onions

2010-06-06T21:14:00.002+09:00

My husband planted 100 onions and harvested about 80, which is quite good! Our vegetable stand in the entrance way is now full of onions. I hope they dry properly and don't rot during rainy season.

I wonder how many onions we eat in a year...
He put the onion stalks under the pumpkin vines. Unfortunately, the evil orange bugs don't seem to mind the smell of onions. It was worth a try...

wildlife

2010-06-05T19:50:00.002+09:00

My husband took these photos.

Though we have always had mostly cute little green frogs in the past, this year seems to be a bumper year for these big brownish frogs. Or are they toads? We see them all over the garden, everywhere. Except, of course, on the mornings when my daughters are supposed to bring a small creature to school, then they and all other small creatures are nowhere to be found. I can't say I blame them!

We were watching this chrysalis hoping to see the butterfly emerge, but we missed it.

June 4 harvest

2010-06-04T19:48:00.001+09:00

First raspberries and lebanese zucchini. End of the snap peas. Peak of the strawberries. And zucchini are ramping it up.

June 3

2010-06-03T19:43:00.001+09:00

We have this really ugly metal fence on concrete blocks around our property that was there when we bought the house. Though it is good for keeping children in the yard, it is not very attractive. I am trying to find ways to either cover it up, or use it to my advantage, or both. My latest experiment (after the failed sweet peas in containers) is to plant flowers in the holes in the concrete blocks next to the carpark. One of the flowers I am testing out (matsuba botan or moss rose, thank you Vicky) bloomed today...

I also tried shibazakura (on the left) but was too late for it to flower this year, we will see if it survives until next spring. If either work out, I will expand along the fence next year.
The lawn is really ready for rainy season to arrive...brown brown brown.

First Cucumber!

2010-06-01T19:36:00.003+09:00

We harvested our first cucumber on June 1! Older daughter, M, made the cut.

A little bit bent due to the lack of rain, but rainy season is coming.
The ants are all over my zucchini flowers, but they still seem to be producing lots of zucchini.
My husband put up the netting for the mini pumpkins (Jack Be Little) in front of the classroom.
And kabocha female flowers are starting to bloom. They are also being eaten to bits by evil orange bugs.
And, we all know how I like cosmos...

May 30

2010-05-30T16:35:00.000+09:00

I know I am supposed to let the daffodil leaves go completely brown before cutting them, but I just couldn't stand the mess any more, and cleaned out the south flower bed. Hopefully this will give the nasturtiums and petunias more sun so that they will actually grow. The lilies in the back will start blooming in another week or two.

Tomatoes and Zucchini

2010-05-27T21:23:00.002+09:00

We have baby tomatoes! Here is a "father-in-law" grape tomato...

A Sweet Orange II (mini)...
And some random tomatoes plants from the west plot. Tomatoes in the front, beans mid-right, potatoes rear right, and carrots rear left...
Here's my one Brandywine tomato plant this year. Didn't get any last year, hoping for better luck this time. I find it so interesting how it has potato leaves.
And this is a Money Maker that got guillotined. I left the single remaining leaf from the bottom, and sure enough, it is making a new little shoot. I am hoping this will grow up and become a tomato plant...
And our zucchini is doing really well. Of course it always does at first, and then gets done in by a weird lumpy white stem mold. This time I have three staggered plantings, so hopefully we will have zucchini until July at least. You can see the big ones on the right and babies on the left.
This one is the most productive so far...
A view from below...
And our first proper zucchini harvest!

More Wildlife

2010-05-27T21:06:00.004+09:00

Since my last wildlife post was wildly popular, I thought I would do another.

Bad news first. Evil-orange-squash-eating bugs. Does anyone know what they are called? More importantly, does anyone have a good (preferably non-poisonous) method of killing them? Here is a side view of one munching on a Jack Be Little pumpkin leaf...

The past few years were terrible for orange bugs. This year, the guy with the plot next to us planted kabocha, and they were all eaten practically to the roots, despite the fact that he sprayed them. Strangely, we had far fewer this year. I wonder if they PREFER pesticide-laced leaves? But, after they have destroyed his third planting, he has given up on squash, and they have come to us again.

My method of orange bug control is not very effective, but very entertaining for my neighbors. I chase them around with one of those bug zapper rackets, shock them, and then grind them with the toe of my shoe. If anyone has a better way, I would love to hear it.

Here is another orange bug, resting on an undokobyo (powdery mildew?) infected pink.
On to better bugs...

I was jealous of my husband's bee photo, so I took one of my own. This is some sort of tiny Australian flower I bought at the garden store, it comes in yellow and purple.
And, since the turtle was a big hit. I thought I would show you another. This one must have somehow come up from the river, crossed the neighbor's garden, crossed the street, realized there was no where to go from there, and turned back. I found it along the side of the house, just as I was going to take the dog for a walk. Here it is headed for our yard...
I took the dog out the other way (from the embankment) and by the time we got back, the turtle was gone. I searched the yard for it, and found it huddled behind the doghouse. I guess it looked like a safe place. Ooops. The dog got another walk (lucky) and came back to find the turtle wedged between the compost bin and the fence, trying to get out to the embankment, so I picked her up and carried her over by the river. Here is a shot of her by the side of the house from the other direction.
As for other wildlife encounters.... I went to hang the towels over the rail, and was surprised to see...
And from the other side...

May 26

2010-05-26T16:27:00.003+09:00

Our artichokes plants are growing. You can kind of see a ladybug on the leaf in the middle...

These are the Jack Be Little mini pumpkins in front of the classroom.
And the big pumpkins, starting to become actual vines.
First cosmos!
My husband insists ALL clover is inherently evil, but I quite like these pink ones and usually leave them be.
Our yamaboshi (Japanese dogwood) is so healthy and in full flower, but never grows any taller. We meant it to help shade the living room, but at this point are wondering if it will ever top 3ft. I guess it is happy and has no competition, so no need to grow tall.
My husband got some waterlilies at Farmer's Market. Looking forward to seeing how they do. He and the girls caught medaka (little fish) from the river to help control the mosquitos.

Catching Up

2010-05-26T12:32:00.006+09:00

Here are some random photos from last week (5/20 and 5/22).

This is the west plot. A few of the potatoes in the lower left, green beans, lots of tomatoes, some eggplant, peppers, and sweet potatoes back where my husband is standing.

The artichokes have doubled in size since I took this photo 5 days ago. So have the weeds ):
Peas, peas, peas! I love snap peas! My favorite vegetable. I think we will get maybe another week if we are lucky.
The onions are coming along. We have to figure out where we can hang them to dry.
The three sisters. Two sisters at the moment. The pumpkins are growing, but the corn is not. This could be a problem.
The zucchini is thriving! I am going to pick our first pollinated zucchini for our spaghetti tonight. I will post photos later.
Finally planted the next round of okra on the weekend. Same place as last year, but I think it will be okay. My husband added lots of compost and manure.
The strawberries are doing pretty well despite being in a muddy, shady, weedy, nutrient poor, and generally ignored corner. Some taste better than others. I think we will have to dig them up this winter and do them properly next year.
I was very happy about these pink flowers (Oenothera) I often buy seed packets hoping that they are the same as the flowers I saw by the side of the road or in someone else's garden and 90% of the time I am completely wrong. This time I got it right! I think (I hope)they go wild and re-seed on their own.

Pansies are still plugging along beneath the pink flower leaves.
Our neighbors let their mizuna go to flower. I didn't realize that mizuna made such pretty flowers! We will have to let ours flower next year.
My campanula are really flowering now. I planted a mix of white, pink, and purple, but only seem to have raised purple. Oh well, at least it is my favorite color!

Wildlife

2010-05-23T19:40:00.003+09:00

It is turtle egg laying season again. Our dog practically broke my neck in her eagerness to check out this turtle on our embankment the other day. We made sure that dogs and children watched from a considerable distance. M commented, "Mommy, turtles lay eggs so slowly!" Yeah, well, it took some time for her to be born, too, as I recall...

We have lots of ladybugs this year. Unfortunately, I think it maybe because we have so many aphids.
And lots of other weird and wonderful bugs have been making an appearance recently, too. Also less wonderful is the start of mosquito and evil-orange-squash-destroying-bug season.
My husband took this photo of a bee. Luckily, we seem to have lots of these.
My husband also took this photo yesterday from our yard. Birds Birds Birds.
And, finally, it seems to be a bumper year for frogs. The girls find them all over the place. Big sister frog...
And little sister frog...
We even had a baby frog on the inside of our toilet window last night.

strawberries

2010-05-21T16:24:00.002+09:00

Despite being completely neglected, in a shady corner in rather hardpacked sand with virtually no nutrients our strawberries managed to produce a fair number of strawberries this year. There were even a few left over for us after the birds and bugs took their share.

Why do girls mature faster?

2010-05-20T16:58:00.004+09:00

My three year old daughter has a big crush on the boy who sits across from her at preschool. "Mommy, T-kun is such a nice guy." She chooses hair accessories every morning with him in mind ("Mommy, do you you think T-kun will think this is cute?") Today was parent observation day and I saw her gaze at him coquettishly and turn to the girl next to her and giggle. Meanwhile, T-kun still cries at the gate every morning when his mom drops him off, and seems completely oblivious to L's affections.

My zucchini flowers are likewise maturing at different rates. A week ago, the females started flowering. Not a male bud in sight.

Without any male flowers ready to take responsibility for fathering a zucchini, I had to pick them while still tiny, or watch them rot.

Two days ago, the males started flowering, but had no pollen. Finally, today, two male flowers with pollen all grown up and ready to be daddies. Hopefully, in a few more days we will have several growing zucchini. Here is a Black Beauty...

And a Lebanese light green.

cool and breezy

2010-05-13T20:18:00.006+09:00

The first summer I spent in Gifu it was over 30C (85F) from May 1 until mid October. And most of it was well over 30C. That was also the last summer I spent the entire summer in Gifu. "Never again," thought this Connecticutie. This year, however, I could possibly consider it. It is cool, downright chilly at times and we are already in mid-May. (Don't worry, Mom, of course we are going to the US)

Today was not only cool (in the teens!) but windy. Seriously windy. Majorly-regretting-having-planted-the-poor-defenseless-tomatoes-out-in-the-fields windy.

Here is our red maple in its new location at the bottom of the embankment (near the pumpkin patch).

And here are the poor defenseless tomatoes. Not only was it windy, we planted them diagonally, as I have read you are meant to do to help the roots expand. This means they were not centered in the hole. Well, this is a newly made field (thanks to my husband!) and still full of weeds. The weeds have grown since we planted the tomatoes 5 days ago, and have lifted up the black plastic. You can sort of see in this photo...
That, combined with the wind and....
I spiked it down after the fact. I know it is too late, but we'll probably put a new one in here.

The potatoes don't mind the wind. We are starting to "worry" that with so much going on above, there may not be much happening below. But given the number of potatoes that were planted, this may prove to be a good thing!
The zucchinis were whipped about a bit, but seem to be hanging in. Two baby zucchinis will probably flower tomorrow, but there are no male flowers yet. Why are the boys always so slow to develop?
And here is our future three sisters plantings so far. Corn and pumpkins. We have the timing a bit wrong. Should have planted the corn sooner. Did, in fact, plant the corn sooner, but it all got eaten before it sprouted. We will add climbing beans, too.
The cornflowers in the yard have started to flower. And Bagus likes to pretend he is in a prison with a nice view.
But we do let him roam free, see...
The chives are flowering away. These look really pretty on salads. We eat immense salads daily. By "we", of course, I mean the girls and I eat 10% and my husband eats the remainder.
One of these blue flowers must have self seeded from last year and is blooming amongst the balloon flower foliage.
The dark pink osteospermum looked like they might not survive the winter, but they did and are blooming their little hearts out now.

flowers: May 9, 2010

2010-05-13T17:20:00.008+09:00

This is my last set of photos from May 9, tomato planting day. Not the best photos, because I was in a bit of a rush, but you get some idea what flowers are blooming.

The irises are blooming one color at a time. Purple are just past their peak and yellow are beginning. I keep buying different types of purple irises because there is one kind I really like, but I don't know what it is called and keep hoping to get lucky. So far, no luck, and I have 3 different shades of purple irises.

This flower bed is just starting to get going. The bachelor buttons at the rear right are just starting to bloom. The silver duster at the back is practically a shrub despite brutal pruning. The Campanula are almost ready to bloom, and the balloon flowers will be close behind. In the front are pansies, a rather sad New Guinea Impatient, an osteopermum, a few anenome (most didn't come up again this year), and a few petunias in case all else fails. Also I planted a few turkish balloon flowers again because I do love them, even though they don't love me.

My husband made a new slightly terraced area at the bottom of the embankment for the blueberries. I planted extra pansies and other misc flowers here.

Also a new yellow osteospermum. It is really pretty, but I realized I will have to move it, because this whole area will be taken over by pumpkin vines by late summer.

My father-in-law gave us a few of this pretty pink flowers, which we planted behind the pumpkins at the base of my husband's baby tree patch.The yamaboshi (Japanese dogwood) started flowering. It seems very healthy, but hasn't grown at all in the 2 years since we planted it. We wonder if perhaps its sun exposure is too good, so it doesn't feel any need to grow taller.
The yellow magnolia by my classroom door is blooming.
And I have started planting flowers along the border of the empty lot next door to our driveway.
And I'm also putting flowers in the holes in the ugly cement fence by the driveway. I love this white flower, it continues to bloom every May. I think this is its third year.
My more expensive petunias from last year proved to be worth the extra money as they have come back in force again this year.

May 11

2010-05-11T21:25:00.003+09:00

May 11 was cold and rainy. But our newest garden enemy didn't mind the bad weather. When my husband made the new fields, he mixed earth from by the river. Gorgeous black soil. Which we now know was full of seeds of these weeds that are like little needles. So sharp, I actually pricked my finger on one. I think the black plastic my prove to be useless this year.

Here is our main pumpkin patch in it's full expanse. Jack 'o Lantern in the front. An empty space for future pumpkins. Kabocha and Howden in the next group with the corn. And at the very rear, out of view, Cinderella. Cucumbers along the fence.
And the Jack Be Little mini pumpkins are planted in front of the classroom. I plan to grow them up to the roof of the classroom.
Two artichokes, planted near the tomatoes.
The strawberry patch, which is a bit of a disaster, really, we will have to redo it in the winter. It is not raised, so they get all muddy and eaten by insects from below. It is nice to have the neighbor's azaleas growing through our fence. Watermelon in the foreground. The okra is going to go here this year.
One of my three shades of purple iris.
These pretty little purple flowers by the driveway are about to bloom.
I tried sweet peas for the first time. The blossoms are pretty, but the bottom half of the plants are totally brown. I think I need to do them in bigger planters, they get dried out too quickly.
My husband took this photo of a bee. We are lucky to have quite a few bees. If only we didn't have so many evil bugs!

bugs and other bits

2010-05-11T20:07:00.003+09:00

Here are the promised, and eagerly awaited (?) aphid photos. They aren't very good photos, because I was in a rush to get to tomato planting, but you can get the general idea. The green aphids have infested our soramame (large beans, English, anyone?)

Whereas the black ones prefer to destroy one of our Rose of Sharon trees, oddly leaving the other three identical (well, except they have leaves that haven't been eaten by aphids) neighboring trees untouched...
Here are the girls feeding the fish which they caught from the river with my husband. The little fish (medaka in English?) are going strong, and the water plant that has pretty purple flowers in the summer is starting to get leaves.
This is my next project, the herb garden is in a dreadful state, the rosemary and lavender need pruning, the chives are flowering away, the basil patch-to-be is overrun with baby weeds and I haven't planted any basil yet, and the whole thing is dandelions and moss...
The girls spent most of the time while we were planted tomatoes in the west plot chatting with the lady who has the garden to the east. She lives downtown, but she and her husband have rented the plot next to us for many years.
And, the girls must have been charming because they scored a huge bag of sugar snap peas! I have been coveting their peas for the past week as ours are not quite ready yet. Hooray! Here are a few...

In other Vegetable News...

2010-05-10T16:07:00.003+09:00

Wait, you mean there are other vegetables? From reading this blog, you would probably think there was nothing but tomatoes...

But, no, we do have other vegetables. Lettuce is going strong at the moment, but a few are showing signs of bolting. This is one set of lettuce. Also a few late broccoli (which I think are ready to flower even though they are barely an inch in diameter) and some soramame (big beans?) which are being attacked by aphids (I have a close up photo of the aphid problems I will post soon, isn't it nice to have something to look forward to?) Our compost bin is on the left and the small mini tomato patch from yesterday's post behind.

These are other other lettuces and behind them, baby okra. And my husband is thinning! No really! Stop presses! It is a rare event indeed. I was watch a Desperate Housewives episode where Lynette and Tom go to a marriage counselor and she is upset that he is always good cop, forcing her to be bad cop. Well, that's what I sometimes feel like in the garden. When infanticide is called for, I'm the one who has to do the deed. Anyway, here he is, I made him thin his okra and cucumbers himself. These were okra seedlings from the garden store. Salad okra, green and red. I also have some seedlings I started, but haven't planted out yet.
Zucchini is going strong. I planted Black Beauty and Lebanese varieties, and so far the BB seems to be growing faster than the L.

These are the pumpkin seedlings my students planted. Jack o'Lantern on the left and Howden on the right.

Kabocha on the left, then Jack be Little, and Cinderella pumpkins. A few artichokes at the top and bottom. I planted two artichokes near the big tomatoes yesterday, and big pumpkins at the bottom of the embankment this morning. Jack Be Little mini-pumpkins are going to be on a trellis in front of my classroom.

And here are mystery pumpkins which were growing out of the mini-tomato plot. They are the most healthy of all our pumpkins, but we have no idea what kind they are. Last year we had Howden, Cinderella, standard kabocha, and a oval shaped gourd that didn't look or taste very good, but was strong enough to beat back weeds on the embankment. If these are any of the first three, we want to keep them, but if they are the steam roller gourd, we don't. Hmmmm....

Here are baby corn at the bottom of the embankment. We are going to try three sisters this year with corn, vine beans, and pumpkin.We had lovely spinach, but Mr. Must-sow-all-the-seeds-in-the-packs planted them all at the same time and despite my most valiant efforts (spinach for every meal, including breakfast) most of it ended up going to seed.
Cucumbers... Mr-I-won't-kill-a-baby-seedling has an undisclosed number of these hoarded up in curious places around the garden. Oh well, when they are at their peak, we won't be here. If he wants to give himself the cucumber crud again, it is is his choice.
Carrots. He planted them in rows at least this time, but see what I mean about the thinning? I think I will have to give in and be designated murderer again.
Beans...

Onions, peas and potatoes. Just a few potatoes, because M hates potatoes and L is allergic. Well, I said, "Just a few potatoes, okay, honey?" See how he listens to me... I love potatoes, but cooking anything with potatoes means cooking an alternative for the girls. I don't love cooking. But I see a lot of potato cooking in my future. Maybe we should consider a third child. Pregnancy gives me major potato cravings.

The girls check out the potatoes. Do you think Daddy is going try to make us eat all of these??? You're lucky, you're allergic!

Tomatoes!

2010-05-09T14:29:00.006+09:00

Well, I have been neglecting my blog for a long time and decided to change that today, so I took over a hundred photos. Needless to say, it will be a long time, if ever, before I post them all. We are leaving a for a local festival soon, so I must resort to triage, and, of course, tomatoes take priority! We planted 49 tomato plants (started from seed) this morning, and 3 more in pots. We managed to give away about 20 before and have 12 left over as "spares."

Here are the mini tomatoes:

Varieties include: Sweet Orange II, Golden Currant, Jelly Bean Yellow, Jelly Bean Red, Reisentraube, Black Plum, Sugarlump, and most of all, "Dad's" which are seeds saved from absolutely delicious grape tomatoes my father-in-law grew last year but can't remember what variety. My husband saved seeds, and we raised about 25 seedlings, 8 of which we gave to his dad to raise again this year, since he had so much success last year. He was picking them into December.

A side view:
And the planting begins...
We did 8 minis ("Dad's", Jelly Bean Yellow, and Sweet Orange II) in our yard, for easy picking by little fingers.
This is a view of the 8 yard minis from the west plot (where the rest of the tomatoes are).
And here are the big ones:
Varieties include: Money Maker, Mortgage Lifter (one has to think about the economic climate when choosing tomato varieties, you know), Cherokee Purple, Big Rainbow, Brandywine (just one), maybe a Black Krim (but it might be a CP), Evergreen, some sort of sauce tomato that I am forgetting the name of, but labelled in CG. I think it was something Genovese.

A side view:
Money Maker on the left is my favorite for taste. Only got two tomatoes last year before the plant died, so I am hoping for more this year.

And here is the tomato patch, ready to go in the newly prepared west plot (the lady who owns it agreed to let us use it, in exchange for my husband keeping her weeds cut).
And here are the seedlings in their pots, contemplating their new home-to-be:
On the right, you can see some seedlings my husband bought at the store. Why, you may ask, would you buy seedlings when you have 70 of your own??? Well, truth be told, I asked him the same thing. But my big tomato seedlings are all heritage seeds and not necessarily suited to the Japanese climate. He bought some standard Mamotaro and such. But he didn't label them and doesn't remember what he got. Sigh.

I, on the other hand, am a planner. I took about 45 minutes deciding which tomatoes to plant where and even talked the girls into having popsicles rather than a cucumber for a snack because I was two sticks short for labeling (it wasn't hard to convince them, and I was pretty impressed that they suggested cucumbers as a snack). Here are all the tomatoes in position, waiting to be planted.
And here is my husband, planting the last tomato! Hurrah! I did plant them, too, but nobody took photos of me doing it, so it looks like he did it all. Anyway, that last short row he is working on is mini-tomatoes and the rest are all big.

Golden Week

2010-05-05T19:25:00.006+09:00

We did lots of gardening during Golden Week, which is a string of 4 national holidays here in Japan. Actually, my husband did lots of gardening. I didn't even take many photos, as I am trying to record all my classroom readers "This car is blue...ding!"

Here are our remaining tomato seedlings. We gave 12 to my father-in-law and had (sob) to say goodbye to a few of the weak, and are down to 72. We have about 40 spots, so we will see how they do over the next few weeks.

We had our first bbq of the year. It is perfect, no mosquitos yet and light until almost 7pm!

And today was Children's Day. When was a kid, I found out there is a children's day in Japan, I asked my mom why there wasn't one in the US, she said "everyday is children's day".

It was a perfect day. Sunny and warm. We celebrated by having a picnic in the garden with friends and breaking out the pool.

Play

2010-04-29T16:37:00.003+09:00

This post really has very little to do with gardening, except that you may notice that the time has come to whack some weeds on the embankment in these photos.

I was just reading a very disturbing article about the importance of play and how it is disappearing at a rapid rate from schools and homes in the US (and probably other countries, too), and what this means for our children (nothing good). Apparently, lots of kids don't even know HOW to play any more, even given the opportunity. Needless to say, as a mother, a teacher, and a worrier, I found all this rather distressful.

However, I am rather confident that our girls have ample opportunity to play, both at school and at home. Recently, they have learned to entertain themselves for an entire day outside while we garden with minimal fighting. Today M's friend spent the day with us, and they had lots and lots of play. I think this is how they will spend the rest of Golden Week, except for the day we go to the pottery festival. Oh, and my husband is planning to cut the weeds back tomorrow, so hiding spots for hide-and-seek might require a bit more inventiveness. Right now, they just walk a few paces and sit down.

They did manage to catch a few butterflies, but let them go.
Hide and seek, L and friend are hiding front left, M is seeking.
The hiders...
Almost found...

Transplanting tomatoes

2010-04-25T15:54:00.005+09:00

Well, once again I haven't blogged for ages and have a desktop full of photos from late March and the first half of April yet to be blogged. I will have to go back to that when I have time (ha ha).

Anyway, today was a perfect day for gardening, so I finally tackled transplanting tomato seedlings. As you may recall (since I haven't blogged anything in the weeks since...) we planted over 100 tomato seeds. Well, the vast majority came up. So, today I had to murder quite a few and managed to pare it down to 71, still far more tomatoes than will ever fit in our garden full grown.

Moving them to bigger pots is a bit of a gamble because we have had unseasonably cold nights recently, even with a frost watch sometimes. In bigger pots, they won't fit in our green house. Because, it's really more of a green shelf.

Anyway, here they are (half of them) in their original seedling pots...

And we made a special mixture of soil, manure (cow), and egg shells to plant them in. I know I am getting obsessed with the tomatoes again because when we went to Hanamaru (dollar udon, it's like the McDonald's of noodles) the other day all I could think was, just think how many egg shells they THROW AWAY every day. I even thought of asking them if I could leave a bucket in the corner to collect them, but decided that might be pushing the crazy foreigner with crazy foreign ideas envelope a little too far. Anyway, here is my senior assistant egg shell smasher...
Empty pots waiting to be filled... My husband frees all the green and blue plastic baskets from his work warehouse btw. The perks of being the only person who is willing to clean out the warehouse.
And all of my repotted tomatoes! It only took me 4 hours...
Meanwhile, my husband was hard at work doing his human rotatiller (sp?) thing, getting the okra beds ready. The girls were busy weeding all day, but helped him with the black plastic.

And finally, I mixed manure and compost into the back of the flower bed in front of my classroom. This year my oldest class (6-7 year olds) planted Jack Be Little mini-pumpkins. I want to grow them (the pumpkins, not the kids) up to the roof of the classroom. It will be easy for my students to watch them grow and it will be nice shade in the summer.

sprouting and flowering

2010-03-21T16:54:00.002+09:00

Golden Currant cherry tomato the first out of the gates on March 19 followed by...
over half the Cherokee Purples and a bunch of others on the 20th.
Zucchini soil starting to rumble
Lebanese light green zucchini on March 19.
Black Beauty zucchini on March 20.
These are some cute little flowers from bulbs I planted last fall.
Anenome I bought this spring, because most of mine from a year ago didn't come up again this year.
I have had these in purple for the past two years and this past fall planted some pink bulbs.
The daffodils are just about at their peak.

March 8 flowers

2010-03-12T21:11:00.007+09:00

I took way too many photos on March 8. Lots of flowers, and then we had the big seed planting in the afternoon, too!

A look around the neighborhood flowers during Jackie's morning walk. This first photo is to show that I take these while holding the dog, so it is very difficult to get a good shot. She is a very sweet dog, but was abused and abandoned before we took her in and has serious emotional issues, including fear of almost everything (except children) which causes her to try to run away. Usually, while I am trying to get a photo.

Anyway, this is a nanohana. We meant to sow these along our embankment this year, but forgot. Next year!

These are from the garden plot to our east. That's our house in the background. Actually the lot next door has 4 plots. The people who use the plot closest to our house are wonderful and them giving us a big bag of snap peas when we came to look at the house pretty much made up my mind to buy it. The man with the middle plot lets it all go to towering weeds and only shows up on really beautiful days to ruin them for everyone else by spraying horrible smelly chemicals on his fruit trees. The people with the far side plots are also very nice.
And, in one of the far side plots, pink bachelor buttons are blooming!

And then I saw blue ones blooming, too, a bit further down the embankment.

For some reason our garden and embankment is always weeks behind the rest of our neighborhood. Here is one of our bachelor buttons...

Not even close! But, our efforts to get them to grow on our embankment have been paying off. For two years I have been pilfering seeds from the neighbors embankments and sowing them along ours while walking the dog, and my husband has been weedwacking away the past two years. This spring several plants are growing. Maybe in a few more weeks.

A cherry tree along the embankment in front of the weird guy's house is starting to bud. It really is spring!

Of course, the one flower of ours that is in sync with the rest of the neighborhood is the dandelion.

Back at home...
crocuses
The new anenomes I bought this spring are about to bloom.
Mini tulip
surrounded by crocuses. I planted a bunch of mini tulips in here, but only one seems to have come up. These are at the base of the dead frog tree.
Grape hyacinths from my husband's friend (thank you, Lさん) are doing great.
More daffodils and narcissus are blooming.
Osteospermum
My pansies I planted from seed are finally starting bloom, though the plants are still tiny. I mean, you can't even see any leaves here.
These weren't my favorite flower, but I made a pot of a yellow one, an orange one and daisies for the front of my classroom and they look so cheerful, I am really starting to like them.

Big Day in Gifu!

2010-03-08T19:17:00.003+09:00

Yesterday was the day! The big event of the year! And I almost missed it...luckily, I married someone with a much better memory than myself. For some reason, I thought I planted tomatoes at the beginning of April last year, but no, my husband was right, it was March 1! Luckily, he kept nagging me to check, and I had recorded it on my blog. Yesterday was a perfect sunny, warm, not windy day for planting tomatoes.

This year, I convinced my husband to label all the tomatoes he planted. Last year, I labelled the ones I planted, but he didn't label his. He has a good memory, but last year he forgot which was which and this year we planted 112 of 18 different varieties, so there is no way anyone would remember.

M missed the tomato planting, but was home in time to do the artichokes (our new experimental vegetable for 2010, Cal Green Globe). Here she is sprinkling rice husks on top.
And next the first photo of our babies. 112 tomatoes and 8 zucchini in this photo.

Small tomato varieties include: jelly bean (red and yellow), sugar lump, black plum, chadwick's cherry, gold currant, sweet orange II, reisentraube. The last 5 are from seeds left over from last year, so we don't know if they will come up.

We also planted a grape tomato herein known as "jiichan (grandpa) tomato." This was our first attempt at tomato seed saving. Last year was a terrible year for tomatoes in Gifu. Most of ours didn't survive the summer and those that did, didn't produce very well. However, my father-in-law had one kind of grape tomato (he doesn't remember what kind he bought) that not only survived, but thrived and produced bushels of tomatoes. Okay, I admit, I don't know how much a bushel is, but he gave us two supermarket bags full a week from August until the end of November. They were very tasty, and were known in our house as "jiichan tomato".

Regular tomato varieties include: Cherokee Purple, Costoluto Genovese, Mortgage Lifter (I admit I got this one for the name), Money Maker (this was my favorite last year, but I only had 2 seeds, 1 plant, 2 tomatoes, but they were SOO good). Also seeds left over from last year: Black Krim, Marmande Super, Big Rainbow, Evergreen and Brandywine.

Two types of zucchini, Black Beauty (same as last year), and a new type for us, Lebanese Light Green.

And here they are in our itty bitty green house. After this we also planted cucumbers and artichokes, so the greenhouse is ready to burst. We want to get a bigger one, but have no good place to put it.

Purple rain, purple rain

2010-03-07T18:28:00.007+09:00

Spring arrived in Gifu at the end of February, and, keeping with tradition, there has been a lot of rain. Nice, ground soaking, helping plants (including weeds, unfortunately) grow type rain.

This is our little Japanese dogwood (yamaboshi). It is just outside the back door and is very happy there, but never grows. We wonder if it needs a bit of competition to encourage it to reach for the sun.

Warning Warning! Graphic photo follows! Those who are recuperating from operations may wish for their fuzzy vision back...

We have these birds, I have no idea what they are called in English, but in the summer they hunt frogs and birds and store them for safe keeping on various tree branches throughout the yard. But they are busy taking care of baby birds and get a bit forgetful (we know how that is). As a result, we have slowly mummifying frogs impaled on various tree branches around the yard. Lovely!

We used to keep our umbrella stand outside the front door. Well, one rainy day, running late as usual, I grabbed our umbrellas, wrangled the girls into the car and pulled into the parking lot of their preschool, which was full of other harried, slightly damp mothers and children. I whipped out my umbrella and popped it open. SCREEEECH! Impaled on my umbrella spoke, right in front of my eyes was...

Well, almost exactly the same. Of course, no one else saw the nasty dead frog, they just saw (and heard) the crazy foreign mom having a fit in the parking lot shaking her umbrella like a madwoman. Oh well, I have gotten used to standing out.

So now we keep our umbrella stand INSIDE. The trees, however, remain ghoulishly decorated.

Back to the rain...

One of our two camellia trees, tucked into the gaps between buildings where they can hardly be seen. Some day, maybe 20 years from now, they will look lovely from the road when they get tall enough to be seen.

Spelling and bugs

2010-03-05T21:16:00.004+09:00

This was our broccoli 2 weeks ago, just before the recent warm spell. For over a month it was in a holding pattern, not growing at all and we kept thinking we should wait for the heads to get a little bit bigger before picking. Now they are all on the verge of flowering, so after holding out for so long we have broccoli at least 2 meals a day (I would try broccoli bread, but L is allergic, so our breakfast is still spinach bread). Does anyone else have a really hard time spelling broccoli? I never seem to get it right. Perhaps if I keep writing about it, it will eventually sink in. My husband could never remember which was broccoli and which was cauliflower, but after 2 years of gardening he never gets them wrong. He still can't keep his left and right straight though :)
Last of the hakusai (nappa). The few that are left are ready to bolt. The bugs really got to them, even in the dead of winter (though this Connecticutie can't REALLY say that winter in Gifu gets dead, even this year which is the coldest since I've been here). I don't know what horrible chemicals they must use on the hakusai in the stores and farmers' market to have them looking so perfect. The bugs think they are the yummiest thing in the garden.

Guardian of the Garden

2010-03-01T20:17:00.002+09:00

With a face like that, I don't really think she will manage to scare away any robbers. In fact, we are rather hoping they might help themselves to some broccoli which is all about to flower.
Peas are starting to sprout in the plot next door.
Which my husband, the human-rotatiller has been busy expanding...
I tackled some weeding. I started with the lawn. See all those green bits. Those are weeds.
I did about a third and gave up. I figure the grass will turn green in a few more months and then the weeds won't stand out so much.
I turned my attention to the weeds in the flower beds.
My mini irises are starting to bloom.
And the white narcissus are getting close to blooming, too.
Flower bed post-weeding. The daffodils will be blooming soon!
I moved two extra sweet peas to the back of this flower bed. I wonder if this blue hibiscus tree is still alive?
I moved most of these hardy yellow flowers to the embankment where they can multiply to their hearts' content. They are a bit much for the flower beds.
Crocus.
Last year I got some mystery osteospermum from the weird little flower shop I frequent. When they bloomed, some of them were pretty, but one had these weird pinched petals that reminded me of a clown. I didn't have the heart to outright murder it, so I moved it to an out of the way, partially shady, totally sandy and devoid of nutrient corner. Well, it turns out that it loves partial shade, total sand and no nutrients! Look at how it has thrived, threatening to engulf this baby camellia tree.
And it is about to bloom. If I am not mistaken, I think its petals might not even be pinched any more!
One of its sisters which stayed in the flower bed has also started to bloom.

Springing!

2010-02-25T17:13:00.003+09:00

The yellow crocuses are croaking their little hearts out. No signs of any other colors yet...
My first daffodil on Feb 22
And on Feb 24!
Apparently pansy season is over, because pansies were going for clearance discounts at the home center. I got some to fill in for ones that didn't like this year's cold winter. Only one of my pansies which I started from seed has bloomed so far. Haven't got a decent photo yet, though. I also got some anenomes because about 80% of mine didn't make it through the winter.
I pulled out most of these little yellow flower plants last summer because they were getting out of control, but they are back in strength. Quite cute, but I think I need to move them to the embankment because they are more of a hardy wild-flower (weed?) than well-behaved flower-bed-flower.
Speaking of hardy wild-flower weeds on the embankment, dandelions are blooming. The girls love to pick them. And they are cheerful and bright at a time of year when the embankment is pretty bleak.
And I have always loved these tiny blue flowering weeds. So cute! Though I do pull them out of my flower beds.
Our one strawberry meets a bitter end. So we are holding out for the blueberries...
which seem to have adjusted to their new spot on the north side of the embankment. We hope they are happier here than they were in their previous location.
None of the snap pea seeds my husband planted came up, so he bought seedlings at the garden store and planted them in the new field in the empty lot next door.
Helping keep those weeds down, every little bit counts.
Nothing like a well deserved rest in the sun after a hard morning weeding the garden. It's nice to know that the vegetable-picking basket is good for more than holding just spinach.

First Signs of Spring!

2010-02-14T15:04:00.002+09:00

Bits and pieces

2010-01-10T19:58:00.001+09:00

My store bought pansies are doing fairly well this year despite the unusually cold winter.
But once again, the pansies I started from seed are doing a whole lot of nothing. They got a few leaves and then just stopped. I don't know if they will start growing again when the sun comes back or what.
The stalk is the only other flower (other than camelia) that is in bloom right now.
The mums were finished, I pulled them and the girls made lots of flower soup in thier sandbox kitchen.
My husband gave the mallow trees a good trim.
The lettuce is coming along well, hoping for salad days soon.
The broccoli is particularly sweet this year. I think it is the same type as last year, so I wonder if the cold makes it sweeter.
Spinach spinach spinach. I have told my husband he is NOT allowed to sow spinach anymore unless HE is in charge of the thinning/picking. He believes that he must sow every seed in the pack no matter how little space is available. I love spinach, but the amount of time I spend each day picking cleaning and preparing spinach is really absurd. We have spinach sauce spaghetti, spinach bread, spinach with mashed tofu, spinach salad, tuna spinach, spinach omelettes, you name it, we do it with spinach. Ah well, much better than daikon!
These are the birds (storks? herons? cranes? I really don't know my birds) by the river behind our house. We also have lots of cormorant (this IS Gifu, home of cormorant fishing). Not really relevant to the garden, though they do make a small contribution towards natural fertilizer on occasion (mostly on the cars, unfortunately). Despite the mess, they are amazing, I love watching them soar above as we garden. The government is concreting over the banks of most rivers in our area, so there aren't many places left for them to go. I hope they keep their bulldozers away from our river.
Not the greatest photos, but trying to photograph birds while walking a sweet, but emotionally disturbed dog, is really tricky.

patience

2010-01-10T17:02:00.000+09:00

Narcissus blooms in January here in Gifu. They are so pretty and cheerful, I would love to have large patches of them like our neighbors. But I think it will be a few years. Here are ours:
The girls love kinkan (kumquat?). We dream of a big kinkan tree like this someday...
But at least we got our first few kinkans this year.
When we moved in 2 years ago we saw the mikan (clementine?) trees next door
And planted ours with high hopes, still not a mikan to be seen.
However, the neighbor beyond planted her mikan tree the following year and look!
Lucky duck!

Today the yard, tomorrow the world!

2010-01-08T17:49:00.006+09:00

This camelia is one of the few things in the garden that actually looks presentable, and it is facing the empty lot next door wedged between the school and shed where no one can see it. The store bought pansies are starting to come back after being squished beneath the snow, but once again I started pansies from seed too late and the seedlings are just sitting there not doing anything.

I did manage to get a bit of pruning done today and chop off all the dying mums. I am not super-fond of chrysanthymums, but they sure do love our garden. I do my best to kill them, but they come back stronger every year. Actually some of them were quite pretty. I did take photos while they were in their glory and will try to get around to posting those at some point.I didn't finish pruning though. What is with our rosemary? It grew like the dickens during December? Is this the usual season for growth spurts?Our kinkan (kumquat? maybe? They are like itty bitty oranges and you eat them whole) tree finally has actual kinkans this year. hooray!
The avacado and mango trees are surviving the winter well so far in our little greenhouse.

Here are some daikon growing, for those who are not familiar with daikon. I have to go figure out what to do with the other half of one that is sitting in our fridge tonight. Sigh.This is another photo of the area my husband built for the blueberry bushes and baby trees at the bottom of our side of the embankment. He hauled lots of dirt up from the river bank. All part of his plot to...

take over the world!!! Or maybe the neighborhood...

Here is the expansion so far. Out on the the embankment and down the other side. And nowinto the empty lot next door (with the owner's permission). We will stick to underground and inedibles here, however, because the guy with the plot next to this uses enormous amounts of chemicals. He lives a few blocks over, but must have a spy cam trained on my laundry poles, because he invariably shows up with huge tank fulls of noxious spray as soon as I hang out four loads of laundry and all the bedding. When there is a particularly well aimed wind he sometimes also burns plastic .
While I was hiding out at the computer upstairs the girls suddenly noticed I was missing. I heard them knock over the coat tree and found them ready to mount an expedition into the dark windy cold yard to find me. They seemed a bit confused about whose coat was whose.

pumpkins

2010-01-07T15:55:00.004+09:00

If anyone is dying to see how our pumpkins turned out, there are a few photos on my school blog:
http://connectenglishschool.blogspot.com/2009/12/halloween-party-2009-pumpkins.html
We had 7 Howden pumpkins this year, and I have seven students! Perfect! We played toss the hula hoop around the pumpkin to choose pumpkins for carving.

Happy New Year!!

2010-01-05T17:28:00.003+09:00

I'm back to blogging again after a long break! Sorry about that. I have a lot of catching up to do and will try to get around to posting fall photos at some point. But here we are at winter already. Gifu has had two snowfalls already this year. One in December (the girls and I were in the US and missed it) and another at New Year. The New Year snow is almost gone but we are expecting more tomorrow. During the past 11 years I have lived in Gifu, it has rarely snowed more than once a winter, so this is unusual. Though it snows, the temperature rarely drops below freezing, so the winter veggies manage to hang in under the snow until it melts. Here is an update on how they survived the most recent snowfall.Spinach. Oh spinach. We love to eat spinach. Good thing too. Boy do we ever have spinach. My husband and I disagree on what is a reasonable amount to plant in a given space. As of next year, he will be removed from seed sowing duties. Right now, he prepares the beds and sows the seeds. I thin, pick, and cook. This is a major problem, because he believes he must use all the seeds in the packet, no matter how many packets he buys or how much space is available, or how much spinach one family of four can reasonably be expected to consume. This is just one small bed of many. The spinach is hardy and got a bit flattened by the snow, but still tastes yummy.
Daikon. I told him not to plant daikon, as I am in charge of cooking and a few daikon go a long way. His father grows daikon and gives it to us. Does he listen to me? See above about finishing seed packets. Drowning in daikon are we. Anyone have any good daikon and/or spinach recipes to share?
Hakusai. The bugs got them at first, but they are doing better now that it is colder.
Lettuce from random left over seeds from last year (when I was in charge of seed sowing) doing well.
The broccoli is gorgeous and delicious. And in perfect moderation. Hooray!
Baby strawberries. These are new plants we bought in the fall that are in planters.
The strawberry plants that got accidently transplanted with the raspberries to the embankment are also starting to flower. This poor confused raspberry plant was actually raspberrying under the snow.
My husband built a reinforcement for the bottom of the north embankment and transplanted lots of his baby trees.
Including the red maple which was in middle of the back yard.
Today's harvest. I am off to cook it now.

misc pink flowers

2009-10-03T20:02:00.003+09:00

This was one of those mystery plants that I bought at the weird and unfriendly but exceedingly cheap flower shop I have mentioned before. Some days I really like it and others, I'm not so sure. It is in it's second year and doing well.
Despite all my efforts to kill them the mums keep on coming back. I guess they like being chopped back to the ground frequently all year long. These are actually the prettiest pink ones. Or they will be.
Buds starting.
Two big cosmos on the south side of the embankment really took off from all the seeds I scattered last year. I also got one Howden pumpkin to grow over here.
These flowers do really well along the south fence and seed like crazy. I keep throwing the seeds up along the embankment in hopes of getting them going up there, but no luck yet.

I thought I was so lucky to get this shot of a butterfly in our rose giant. But then I went out 6 hours later and it was still there. When it was still there the next morning my husband pulled it out and it flew away. I guess it got stuck.

biotope

2009-09-11T16:32:00.004+09:00

My husband begged two big pottery containers off of neighbors and friends, got some plants and little fish (guppies, maybe?) from the river with the girls and made two little biotopes. The plants grew quickly (lots of roots).
The little fish did well, lots of mosquito eggs to eat, I'm sure. But they were kind of hard to see.
So we got some goldfish.
And set them free in their new home. They did well until the first hot day, and I think all of them died. So sad. But the little river fish are a hardier species and are still going strong.
And the girls like searching for them.
Then one day we got buds.
And flowers! Very pretty. They only bloom for one day, but we have had them continuously for over a week now.
from above
and close up

in other garden news...

2009-09-04T16:22:00.002+09:00

I'm sorry I am just not able to update the blog as regularly as before. I am trying to exercise more, and the time has to come from some where. I would prefer to cut out household chores, or breaking up fights between the girls, or cooking. However, blogging is where the time ends up coming from.
The okra is reaching for the stars. It is getting to the point where it is very hard to harvest. Too bad we don't have any tall people in this family.
We get about 10 pods a day, which is really more than enough okra for a family of 4! Luckily, I had an okra-loving friend visit on Monday and gave her a whole big bag so we had two okra free days. It's good stuff, but I am starting to run out of fresh and exciting okra ideas. Simmered okra, okra gomae, curried okra, okra pesto spaghetti, help?
The baby trees on the embankment are coming along nicely despite the occasional pumpkin vine attack.
Tomatoes in planters survived, barely, but are sad and pathetic. We get maybe two cherry tomatoes a week. All the ones in the ground rotted in the July rains.
Even sadder and more pathetic, but trying!
We have baby kinkans on our kinkan tree. They look like marble sized oranges and are eaten whole (except the seeds). We hope to have kinkans to harvest this winter!
Edamame plants are doing well.
Fall cucumbers are planted. The second generation of cucumbers have more or less fizzled out and we are going through cucumber withdrawal with only 2 or 3 a week. Okra just isn't the same...
And finally, cosmos on the embankment! Finally, after sowing seeds seeds and more seeds three plants have come up and two are doing really well.

pumpkins

2009-08-31T20:29:00.007+09:00

We bought a pumpkin stand yesterday (I think it is actually marketed for flowers) because the only relatively cool dry place we have to store pumpkins is in our front entrance which was getting a bit crowded. It is a great stand because it folds up for easy storage during non-pumpkin season. So these are the pumpkins my husband harvested while we were in the US, two Cinderellas and 6 kabochas.
Three Howden (Jack o' Lantern pumpkins) are coming along well on the south embankment. Hopefully will be right on time for Halloween, maybe a bit early.
One more Cinderella on the way.
We have terrible udonkobyo (powdery mildew?) and the evil orange bugs have multiplied exponentially.
Pumkin vines on the north emankment (by the river)
And south embankment (just before a major pruning)
Baby kabocha
Baby Howden

July rains bring...

2009-08-31T20:22:00.004+09:00

dead tomato plants for starters. mold and rot mold and rot. Luckily we weren't here for a month of rain rain and more rain...My husband's baby trees down by the river were submerged
These are the bigger trees by the river at the beginning of August
And yesterday (normal) from a slightly different angle, but you get the idea.
(I think these two naked teenagers actually stole this boat, but I didn't have the nerve to confront them.)
The pumpkin vines were also under water. That one pumpkin you see in this photo rotted. Luckily the pumpkins survived and are doing great!

Gardening in Connecticut

2009-08-30T13:34:00.006+09:00

We were at my father and stepmother's house in CT for the last two weeks of July. This is the house in which I spent my weekends growing up "helping" my father in the garden. I didn't have a good camera with me, so I can't really do it justice, but here is a snippet of my father's garden as it was in late July.
I was having serious misty lense issues with the camera, but it came out kind of cool, I think. This is my father's main vegetable garden which he has attempted to make wild animal proof. He used to have a woodpost fence, but Chuckles, the woodchuck would sit on the posts and well...chuckle.
Just inside the gate.
Dad's kohlrabi is gorgeous. We've tried it here in Japan a few times, but no luck.
Beautiful and delicious fortex beans. M, especially, loved these. My father gave me three packets of seeds, but they mysteriously vanished from our luggage on the way home.
Look what we are missing out on!
Grape vines on the fence, with gladiolus beneath and baby carrots plants in the foreground. The grape vines are new and have baby grapes! Please tell us how these turn out, Dad!
This year was a bumper year for blueberries. These blueberry bushes were quite big when they moved to this house 33 years ago (though I was much smaller, so maybe they just seemed enormous) so they are very well established. M picked buckets of blueberries and L ate buckets of blueberries. Coming from Japan where we harvested a total of 4 tiny sized blueberries, we were in blueberry heaven. I think part of the secret is the huge mounds of leaves from the property that they haul to the blueberry patch each year.
Raspberries, too. I remember when my dad brought home several sticks and claimed that someday they would be a raspberry patch. We were skeptical, but here it is!
This is the shed that my grandfather built when he was...in his 70s I believe. Isn't it just perfect?
These are gratuitous yard photos so that my readers in Japan can be green as with envy over the acreage and large trees as I am.
This was my favorite tree, we used to climb it as kids.
And there is a park across the street with farm animals, a small playground and lovely scenery.
Thank you so much for a lovely visit D&D!!!

Away until late August

2009-07-14T20:52:00.001+09:00

The girls and I will be in the US until August 18, I hope to resume posting the week after our return. See you then!

loose ends

2009-07-14T20:24:00.006+09:00

We are leaving tomorrow and I still have lots of photos in my blog file, so here they are...One of the pouring rain days we've had every day for the past few weeks, until today which was (and still is) boiling hot.

Ready to be made into casserole.
One of my many sick (now dead) tomato plants.
New baby Money Maker. This was the best tasting tomato, so I hope this baby plant makes it.
This is a small bushy plant with little white flowers that my husband "rescued" from some mountain. It was totally attached to the ground and blocking my access to the reisentraube tomatoes. My husband finally moved it and we saw why I couldn't get the pots to budge. Serious roots! My husband replanted them along the path up to the embankment. No need to worry about landslides with those roots.The new access to my tomatoes!
Harvest a few days ago.
Our second mango seed. My husband clipped it before planting. Our first mango seed (planted as is) sprouted a baby mango tree! Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a photo.
My wonderful husband filled in the moat surrounding the new pumpkin vines with cut grass from the embankment.
Our only significant Howden pumpkin.
Newly potted tomatoes. I am going to try to cage them.
M washing carrots.
Balloon flowers have loved this terrible weather.

garden July 11

2009-07-14T20:15:00.003+09:00

We are leaving for the US tomorrow and so I want to have a basis of comparison for when we get back on August 18. I got about half of the spare tomatoes potted. I have lost all but three of the big tomato plants (2 Evergreens and a Cherokee Purple survive) to some sort of wilt, it might be the yasude eating the roots, but the roots look really strong. I don't know what it was.
Cherry tomatoes front left, edamame in the middle, a few remaining large tomatoes and some basil and green beans back right, shiso shiso everywhere on the right. The Black Plum are the strongest survivors of my tomatoes, unfortunately they have kind of a mealy texture and are really best for cooking. The sugar lumps are going strong and I still have two Reisentraubes which are the tastiest. I lost my original Sweet Orange II and Chadwicks Cherry but second generation plants are doing well.
A large shiso thicket front left, behind it are more cherry tomatoes, behind that (not visible) eggplant and peppers. Cucumbers back right, cosmos front right.
Watermelon in front, okra, zucchini (2 second generation plants not visible).
Two zucchinis, lots more shiso surrounding the carrot patch, and 3 surviving large tomato plants at the back

pumpkins

2009-07-11T21:05:00.003+09:00

We picked our first kabocha ever!
And our second kabocha ever! We must have two of everything in this household!
We took a peek under the upside down cinderella pumpkin and found that ants were nesting on the bottom. Yucko!
So we flipped it over, though we had to pull out some roots it had put down.
And now we have two right side up cinderella pumpkins. The stems still are not woody, so I guess they are not ready to harvest yet. It is really hard to tell. Speaking of harvest...
Here is this afternoon's harvest. Including our first two second generation cucumbers. The large tomatoes are evergreen, that's as red as they get.

fungi

2009-07-09T20:55:00.004+09:00

So I'm thinking maybe we should give up on zucchini and tomatoes and grow shiitake instead. This morning I went outside to find...these huge mushrooms growing out of one of my potted plants by the driveway. Fungi everywhere!
Little white ones growing out of the sand next to the path to the classroom.
A close up of one of the little white ones. They also grow on the lawn.
Brown ones grow on the lawn, too.
And the lawn has some sort of invisible but deadly fungal infection caused by overwatering (!!) which we need to kill with some chemical, but it never stops raining long enough to apply it. Even when it isn't actually raining, the humidity is 99% so it may as well be raining. I feel like we live in a tropical rainforest.
Udonkobyo (white flour disease?) is also running amok through most of the garden, especially the cukes, pumps, and zukes. I spent hours today cutting off pumpkin leaves and carting them down to the river.
A cucumber leave with more advanced udonkobyo.

pumpkin pumpkin

2009-07-08T20:06:00.003+09:00

Most of my plants, like me, hate this endless rain and high humidity and many have died or are slowly rotting. Not the pumpkins! They love this weather! The pumpkin vines have become like steam rollers, flattening everything in their paths. This is a Howden vine ready to smash a blueberry bush on the left and mallow tree on the right.

After a long hiatus, they have also finally started to produce female flowers again. We had a few (1 Howden, 2 Cinderella, and 2 kabocha) baby pumpkins that got started in May, but after there was not a blossom to be found for over a month. I go out and check bright and early every morning because we hand pollinate, but the few female buds shrivelled and died before blossoming. However...The drought is over! The floods are here and the girls are loving it. We get 3 or 4 female flowers a day (from 7 vines). We have 3 Howden vines, 2 Cindrella vines, and 2 kabocha vines. Plus a bunch of extras that got planted a few weeks ago.
The day after pollination.
These are our early Cinderellas. Getting bigger and bigger, but the stem isn't getting woody and they don't sound hollow, so I guess they are not ready to pick. One is right side up and the other...
is upside down. I'm a little bit worried they might get stolen as they are far from common in these parts and pretty exposed on the embankment. We will have to rely on our trusty watchdog (who is the biggest coward in the world and is even afraid of our cat) to keep them on the vines until they are ready to harvest.

rain rain rain

2009-07-07T20:55:00.003+09:00

I know it is rainy season, but enough already. Everything is rotting. Except the weeds of course, which are thriving. And the pumpkins, but more on them in another post. M is very unhappy that we haven't been able to go to the park (i.e. the mud pit) to practice monkey bars. To me, this is the silver lining, no park!
Balloon flowers, which are doing very well this year. I guess they like the rain.
My husband took this photo of the lily.
Not to end on a drippy note, some of the sunflowers have survived the dreaded dust bugs and are blooming (or about to bloom).

tomatoes, individual portraits

2009-07-06T18:14:00.003+09:00

Money Maker. I only had 2 seeds, only one sprouted and the plant died. But I got one vine ripened tomato and several box ripened. This was the best tasting tomato I grew this year. An almost smoky flavor to it. I will get more of these seeds next year for sure. I am raising one baby plant from a clipping and hoping it will survive!
Marmande super. It definitely won the beauty contest. A very stylish tomato. One would expect no less from the French. Nice flavor, too, but hard to tell during rainy season as they are all a bit watery. I lost both of these plants.
Brandywine top
and bottom. It was a little bit bland, but quite tasty. The blandness is probably because of the continuous rain. I hope it survives until we return in August.
Cherokee Purple. A VERY unattractive tomato. But what it lacks in looks, it makes up for in taste. It is really yummy, great texture too. And it seems to be quite a good producer, and not to mind the terrible weather here. If you don't like the view from the top, just look at the bottom...
It looks like a normal tomato from beneath!
Evergreen. It is hard to tell when it is ripe, but it gets a little bit yellower, especially on the bottom. Also quite tasty and a good producer. The only type that has multiple survivors (my large tomato survival rate is at only about 30% right now).

tomatoes, sliced

2009-07-05T23:10:00.002+09:00

June 30
July 2
July 3
July 5 (from the top: Brandywine, Evergreen, and Money Maker)

We had tomatoes on July 1 and July 4 as well, of course, but how many tomatoes on plates do you really want to see?

cosmos and creatures

2009-07-04T17:59:00.003+09:00

We have cosmos of many different colors going now. I have to start collecting the seeds and sowing them on the embankment.

The place where the turtle laid eggs on the path was all dug up by something. I guess we probably won't have any baby turtles. Here is the post where the turtle laid the eggs in case you missed it http://gardeningingifu.blogspot.com/2009/06/turtle-and-raspberries.html
It wasn't me! She may eat her roof and a few cosmos, but Jackie says she didn't eat the turtle eggs.

technical problems

2009-07-03T17:48:00.001+09:00

Sorry, I seem to be having trouble uploading multiple photos to blogger the past two days. Has anyone else had this problem or know what I can do about it? Thanks!

vegetables

2009-07-02T20:07:00.006+09:00

Cinderella pumpkins are getting quite big. This photo was taken 3 days ago, and after all the rain it's even bigger now. How does one know if a pumpkin is ready to pick???Ants are very attracted to the okra flower buds. It doesn't seem to be doing much harm, but is curious.
I have chopped off the older sections of my two remaining zucchini that were no longer producing viable flowers. The new stems seem to be hanging in the through the rains, but I am not sure if we will ever get any more zucchini out of them or the three new plants.
My husband's method of protecting a baby watermelon from the floods.
Reisentraube tomatoes, I get one or two ripe ones a day now.
Black plum, also one or two a day.Edamame are coming along and you can see sweet orange II and Chadwick's cherry tomatoes in the background. Of the cherry tomatoes I think the sweet orange II and gold currant are the best. I am not sure about Reisentraube because my younger daughter eats them all.

flowers

2009-07-01T16:16:00.002+09:00

I am trying to alternate between vegetables , flowers, and tomatoes. Otherwise I seem to get stuck on tomatoes. I didn't even like tomatoes until I was an adult. The only ones I would eat were the ones from my Dad's garden! Thanks, Dad :) Anyway, writing about flowers today...Some of our baby trees that we transplanted to the embankment in the spring are doing well and starting to flower.
I think I have 4 different colors of gladiolus now. Most are still just starting out.
Red was new this year!
I need to post photos of my flower beds occasionally, so that I can check back and remember more or less where the bulbs were.
I planted some petunias in this dark miserable space between the classroom and shed that is usually filled with dokudami and other weeds. I thought they would die, but apparently they don't mind minimal sunlight, no nutrients, and being right in front of the air conditioner vent. We have a mouse living in our tool shed on the left. I am afraid I will decapitate it when I put the shovel back one of these days.
I think these wild flowers are very cheerful in large numbers and on a mission to fill our embankment with them. Every time I walk the dog I dutifully bring home piles of seeds from up river and spread them over our embankment but so far...
We only have the one. Can you see it, right in the middle? Not really. But it IS going to happen. I am determined. Bachelor's buttons followed by yellow flowers followed by cosmos. A hillside of flowers. Maybe daisies, too.
Marigolds in the rain amongst the watermelon vines.

bad mommy gardner award

2009-06-30T20:05:00.002+09:00

The weather forecast said that it is supposed to rain from Tues-Fri. Desperate to get some planting done on Monday, I abandoned my feverish child in front of the tv and went out to pot, repot, and plant. Here are 4th generation tomatoes, in sand.
Third generation tomatoes in bigger pots. Also campanula and many others not in this photo. I want to get everything into big pots or in the ground before we leave for the US on July 15, otherwise they will not survive the summer heat.
"spare" pumpkins, I think they are all Howden but the popsicle stick markers rotted, planted in the space that used to belong to the brocoli at the base of the embankment. The challenge will be to build bridges for the vines across the moat that surrounds them whenever it rains.
I thought she was being awfully quiet...

liquor and tomatoes

2009-06-29T20:21:00.003+09:00

Okay, the title is misleading. Not in combination.Somebody, I think my mother, was asking what we did with the loquats. Well, we (mostly my husband) ate lots, and gave some away. He kept all the seeds and I was getting worried about where we were going to put 100s of baby loquat trees. But it turns out his friend made loquat seed liquor, which has medicinal properties in Chinese medicine. Unfortunately for my mother, it tastes of anin (like in anindofu) which I know she didn't like. I like it though. I guess we will find out in 6 months how it tastes.
Some of yesterday's harvest. We are really pushing cucumbers and green beans these days.
Some of last night's dinner, all veg from the garden. hooray! Supplemented with kimchi cucumbers. And rice, of course.
I finally got around to repotting and putting cages around my second generation of cherry tomatoes. This is golden currant.
I harvested our first two real tomatoes yesterday, a Black Krim and a Cherokee Purple. The Black Krim was severely deformed and not the best taste case. This Cherokee purple looks okay from the top, but the bottom...
It was quite yummy however!
These are all the green tomatoes from plants that were diseased and I had to pull. I read you can ripen them in a box with green bananas. Unfortunately, I mixed some Evergreens in there and now I'm not sure which are which.

flowers and butterflies

2009-06-28T21:03:00.004+09:00

I planted these bulbs in the strawberry patch before it became the strawberry patch. I planted yellow, white, and pink, but only the pink and white have bloomed.
Butterfly on the oregano.
Petunias in a planter by the side of the parking area.
Pink groundcover thing that does really well in the heat.
One with smaller blossoms.
Gladioli starting to bloom. Balloon flowers are doing well this year. And campanula are still going strong.
Campanula and blue flax.
Morning glory seedlings by the classroom windows, hoping to keep off some of the morning sun. This windows face east, so the perfect spot. We had a very old pack of seeds and wanted to use them up.
Butterfly on a purple flowering Indian tree, kind of wisteria like, but it is not a vine.

Vegetables

2009-06-27T16:19:00.004+09:00

It has been blazing hot this week and I am a bit frustrated because I really want to spend more time in the garden, but between about 10:30-3:30, when I have time, it is just too stinking hot. From the time I get up until about 10:30 I am busy getting everyone fed, dressed, off to school, walked, laundry, etc. And from 3:30...picked up from school, walked, changed, snacked and then M insists upon going to the park every day to work on her monkey bars (and see her friends). Oh how I resent those 2 hours of prime gardening time spent pushing L on the swings and rescuing M when she monkey bars too high. Then back home to cook, feed, bath, etc, and it's dark. They love it, but I wish we could get a jungle gym in our yard. Too bad they don't seem to sell them here like in the US. Anyway, here are some photos from yesterday.
My crazy husband has planted the next generation of cucumbers. I managed to force my students' mothers to take home 30+ today. He does realize that the overlap between first and second generations will happen while the girls and I are in the US and he will be responsible for 25 cucumbers/day all by himself, but yet...he plants them. The rose of sharon (mallow?) trees along the fence are starting to bloom. They have grown so fast. They were foot long dead sticks only 2 years ago. I hear they are particularly good for fighting air pollution, so we planted them along the west fence facing the big road. We aren't nearly as rural as our photos may make it seem, and air pollution is a problem. There are some cosmos blooming in this photo as well. And the lemon grass (sticking out from the left) LOVES being next to the compost bin.
Eggplants are coming along really well. So well, that I am glad we only have 3 plants. You can see some of the sugar lump mini tomatoes in the background.
I tried to take a photo of my single reddening Reisentraube tomato for Mr. Wignall, but it is in a rather inaccessible place. Hopefully some of the others will ripen before we leave and I can tell you how they taste.
Shiso Shiso and more Shiso. I have to start actually using it. I think I will make shiso gyoza this week.
Watermelon (left), okra (center), no-longer-producing zucchini (right) and some marigolds. Strawberry patch and gladiolus in the back. These were not really meant to be an attempt at companion gardening, we just didn't have anywhere to put the watermelons. So far so good, as long as the watermelons don't attempt to climb...
Cinderella pumpkin is getting big and turning orange. Now if I could only find a cool dry place to store it until October...

flowers

2009-06-25T14:06:00.003+09:00

Pink glads are blooming.
Bets now open: watermelon, okra or marigolds? Or can they all just get along together nicely?
White balloon flower at the back, can hardly be seen. Must remember to move it in the winter.
Purple balloon flower.
Forget-me-nots from freebie seeds my mother gave me (thanks, Mom!)
Red spapdragons, I think. Oh, Vicky told me what these are and now I've forgotten.
Pink lily also hidden behind many taller plants. Must remember to move in the winter. Must remember. Must remember long enough to tell my daughter when she comes home from school today so that she can remind me...Need to plant more forget-me-nots. Can I make forget-me-not tea?

Good tomato news, and bad tomato news

2009-06-25T14:00:00.002+09:00

Good news first. More signs of ripening. Sweet Orange II
Cherokee Purple
Black Krim
Really bad news. The big tomatoes are all dying. I will have to pull the last 3 plants in the southern row today. I am beginning to wonder if it is possible to raise tomatoes without chemicals around here...
Not to end on a sad note, our tomato harvest from yesterday. All sugar lump. Though they tasted a bit like waterlumps after the deluge of the past few days.

rain and shine

2009-06-23T21:43:00.006+09:00

Our first sunflower in the rain yesterday...
And the sun today!
First gladiolus

Today's harvest. Plus 5 okra. Cucumbers are not as scary as I feared after the rains. And I managed to force all of these on a visitor today. Thanks G!I forgot to post the photo of our first tomato! Golden Currant. My husband was away so we shared it three ways. It was slightly tart, but really hard to tell the taste from such a little sliver.
I bought some lemons for the seeds (also because they are yummy squeezed on salad udon, our summer Monday dinner) and one is coming up. Lemon tree very pretty....

Missed the boat

2009-06-23T21:33:00.003+09:00

Well, the first 2 weeks of "rainy season" was totally dry and I was worried about drought. Be careful what you wish for they say...Our veggie patches at the bottom of the embankment were surrounded by a moat. The beans and cucumbers managed to stay above the waterline but...
The pumpkin vines and two pumpkins were submerged. The waters had receded by the time I took this photo. I couldn't take the camera out in the torrential rains.
The lawn contracted some sort of fungal infection that is spread by too much water. Wasn't much we could do to stop it.
The rain killed off another tomato plant too (marmande super). I am trying to ripen the green tomatoes in a cardboard box. I have to find a green banana to put in with them. They say to keep them in warm dark place with low humidity. If there were any place with low humidity to be found around here, I'm sure it would be filled with humans, no space left for green tomatoes!

This is the garden next door. I feel a little badly posting it, as I think they must have some difficult family circumstances that have left them little time for gardening this season. But still, their tomatoes, eggplants, and goya are all coming along. Seeing their garden makes me appreciate our black plastic, despite my aesthetic reservations. That said, we are scheduled for more rain from tomorrow, and our garden may be looking like this soon.

tomatoes at night

2009-06-22T14:01:00.004+09:00

Well the first two weeks of so -called rainy season were a total bust, but now nature is making up for lost time and it has been raining steadily the past few days. The only chance I had to go out and take photos of big tomatoes was Saturday evening. I put my hand in most of the photos for a sense of size.Big Rainbow. I had to pull two sick plants. This plant has yet to produce a single tomato, but I am holding out hope because it is flowering, at least.
Black Krim. I think I have two plants. And a baby plant.
Brandywine plant 1.
Brandywine plant 2.
Cherokee Purple. I think I only have one...though it is strange. I don't remember losing the others, but they must have been sick.
Evergreen. 3 plants. They were slow starters, but seem to be the healthiest as I haven't lost one.
Money Maker. Only one. I planted 3 seeds and only one came up. Luckily it has held in there.
Marmande super. Two plants.

and in non-tomato related news...

2009-06-20T23:19:00.005+09:00

Our first mallow/rose of sharon (I'm not sure what the difference is or what this is) flower bloomed.

Our first baby watermelon.
Our first baby okra.
The pumpkin patch is headed for the hills. Howden on the bottom, then Cinderella, kabocha at the top.
I am hoping the blackberries will be ripe before we leave for the US. Raspberries are almost finished.
Lemon grass is thriving next to the compost on the right. Lettuce is going to seed.
Speaking of seeds, my husband planted a mango seed and we are eager to see what happens. He says Japan is turning into a tropical island, but not tropical enough I fear.

Big News!

2009-06-20T17:53:00.002+09:00

Look! I am so excited! Finally...Sugar Lump
Golden Currant. The problem with these is it's kind of hard to tell if they are ripe because I'm not sure exactly what color they end up. The one on the left looks ready. I think we will wait until the one on the right is ready, too. Then we will each get half.

cherry and plum tomatoes

2009-06-19T21:01:00.004+09:00

black plum
another black plum (we have 3 plants)
Chadwick's Cherry (two plants)
Gold currant (only one original rather sickly plant, but 3 more second generation)
Reisentraube. Not nearly as many tomatoes as there were flowers, most fell off, but that still leaves plenty. 3 plants.
Sugar Lump. These were seeds left over from last year. I think we have seven big plants, and several more in future generations.
Sweet Orange II. Three plants.
A few of the plants have this on the stem. Is it some sort of nasty bug eggs? I tried scraping them off, but couldn't do it without damaging the stem.

too much of a good thing

2009-06-19T15:12:00.004+09:00

Yesterday's cucumber harvest.
Today's cucumber harvest. Do you see a pattern? How many cucumbers can one family eat? We are about to find out. This is only the beginning. Any good disappearing cucumber recipes out there?
We are also drowning in biwa (loquat) at the moment. The garden next door has a loquat tree, half of which can only be accessed from our yard, so they told us to take all we want. I wish we had a bigger refrigerator. Between cucumbers and loquat we are running out of room for milk and tofu.
The loquat tree, post harvest. Our yard is to the right of the fence.

tomatoes (group photos)

2009-06-18T14:40:00.006+09:00

I know everyone is anxiously awaiting tomato updates. But you know what they say about watched tomatoes not turning red. Apparently, it is true. I know because I check on my at least three times a day. The neighbors' are all reddening. Not even a blush here.
So I spent all this time labeling group photos with individual names, but then I couldn't figure out how to upload them. So here are the group photos with no labels. I will post individual portrait photos of each variety soon.Cherry and plum tomatoes. Golden currant, still sickly but holding on front left, sugar lump front right. Two baby basils where I had to pull sick GCs. You can also see some Black Plum in the back on the right.
Same cherry tomatoes, different angle. From left to right, sugar lump, gold currant, 2 riesentraube, black plum, chadwick's cherry and sweet orange II.
More mini tomatoes. Chadwick's Cherry and Sweet orange II planted a month later than the rest in the front, sugar lumps in the back.
Big tomatoes. Left to right: evergreen, black krim, money maker, maybe marmande super, cherokee purple, brandywine, big rainbow.
Same tomato patch, from the south. You can see left to right: big rainbow, marmande super, brandywine, and another marmande super.
Second generation of Gold Currant and Black Plum.
Third generation of many varieties, rooting in sand in the shade. Along with a few rose of sharons.

mostly flowers and a turtle

2009-06-17T16:28:00.005+09:00

We saw our friend the turtle, or maybe it was another turtle, in the pumpkin patch the other morning. I think her eggs got eaten by a mole or other burrowing animal.
White and pink lilies are blooming.
butterflies on a pumpkin leaf
Sunflower has survived the horrible dusty bugs and looks as if it may flower.
marigolds are really coming along
good (left) and evil (right) on a pumpkin plant

vegetable flowers

2009-06-16T14:55:00.004+09:00

My daughters' books say that bees collect pollen on their legs. This one seems to be more into the whole body experience. We are grateful, of course, however they choose to pollinate.

pumpkin flower
eggplant flower
green pepper flower
okra flower
cherry tomato flower
tomato flower
watermelon flower

weeds

2009-06-15T08:25:00.002+09:00

A gallery of my worst enemies in the garden and on the embankment.Sugina. There is a Japanese saying that the roots of sugina are attached to Hell. It may be true. I know for a fact they go down at least a meter. I think they may actually go through the center of the Earth and out the other side because I've seen an awful lot of the stuff in Seattle. This is the neighbor's method of weed control (old bath mats). I have mostly stamped out the sugina in my flower beds. It was SO bad when we started that I implemented a zero tolerance policy.
Dokudami. It has white flowers and we drink the tea, but it is still really annoying and smells like fish.
Small clover is taking over the lawn and the flower beds in the absence of the sugina.
The large pink clover is rather pretty, so I mostly leave it alone, to the frustration of my husband.
On the embankment, the worst weed is kudzu. This is a kudzu vine a few days after being cut back to the ground.
There are still kudzu vines left in the trees my husband couldn't get down. The trees were completely covered when we moved here.
Tsukushi reeds, they grow so quickly.
What happens when the weeds are left to their own devices. This is what the entire embankment was like when we moved in.

vegetables

2009-06-12T14:40:00.004+09:00

I am starting new tomato plants from side shoots whenever they escape my notice long enough to get big. I just stick them in fine sand from the sandbox, put them in a mostly shady spot, water them regularly and they grow strong enough roots to transplant within a few weeks. I am planting these new tomatolings in pots because...
though I am still in denial, I am pretty sure my tomatoes have fusarium wilt. Horrors! I have had to pull several plants and several more are looking peaked. This is a Black Krim. I cut off one of the leaf stems today and the inside is not yet affected, but I think it is probably inevitable.
A close up of the stem. Not good, right?
The cucumbers are booming. My husband removed all the baby cucumbers and gave the vines a good trim last week. It is looking like we will be drowning in cucumbers in a few days. The green beans in the foreground are also producing nicely. They have become a new target of the evil orange bugs, but so far are going strong.
The watermelon almost succumbed to aphids in the beginning, but after consistent spraying with diluted dishsoap seems to be making a recovery.
The three remaining zucchini plants are also still producing despite their white bumpy stem disease (I think that is the scientific name for it!)

flowers

2009-06-11T21:06:00.003+09:00

I thought these pinks were done in by the "dust bugs" (see below), but I cut them back to the ground and they have come back.
The colors didn't come out very well in this photo, but the lilies are really starting to give some color. And the marigolds in front are starting to bloom. I can't wait to get rid of the fading daffodil and iris foliage. The fence is a bit of an eyesore, but it came with the house and I think we are stuck with it for the foreseeable future so I just have to try to cover it up.
A better idea of the color of the lilies. You can also see the neighbors' method of weed control (old bath covers and car floor mats)
My husband thinks we should pull these clover because they get out of control and he is probably right, but I do think they are rather pretty.

bugs...ewww!

2009-06-11T20:03:00.003+09:00

My older daughter, M, is very interested in bugs. I thought there could be nothing worse than reading endless books about bugs. Then she found this one at the library "Bug Poop." Full of interesting trivia about bug poop. Such as a bug that poops its body weight every day. Another type of bug excrement is used as tea in China. And it also tells how many poops different varieties of bugs make in their lifetime. Do I see a future career for M counting bug poo? Luckily for me, this book is in Japanese, and therefore designated a "Daddy book."
M had "small animal" day at school where students were invited to bring in small animals. I thought about sending her in with our child-friendly but extremely neurotic dog (the one who eats cosmos), but then I read the memo more carefully, "small animals such as insects, frogs, crabs, crayfish, fish, etc." She is good at catching frogs, but after an hour spent looking this morning there was not a frog anywhere to be found. We had tons until they flooded the rice fields a few days ago. Mass exodus from the garden.

We couldn't find any grasshoppers. Finally, she caught a cricket, but it escaped. Time was running short and Mommy had to catch something. Well, speedy and wily hunter that I am, I managed to catch a snail. Then photograph it. And drop the lid on its head. Ooops! Panic! Luckily, I managed to catch a butterfly and two more snails who were (ahem) too distracted to flee. Off she went to school with a bug box with one comatose snail, two snails "hugging" each other, and a butterfly.
These "dust bugs" have completely taken over the sunflowers, large and small. I think I need to move to plan B for this flower bed.
It is officially rainy season here in Gifu as of yesterday. We knew it was coming from about 2 weeks because the yasude invasion began. These bugs are harmless, but last year they were everywhere! I caught over 100 a day INSIDE the house. The eaves of our house were solid yasude.
We resisted putting down pesticide because of the girls and the pets, but they got completely out of control. So this year my husband dusted around the house. You can see the white powder on this yasude climbing up the wall.
Unfortunately the powder kills other bugs, too. Most of the bugs are safe in the garden, though, not trying to climb the walls of the house. Lots of sweeping up every day as the entire perimeter of our house looks like this in the mornings.

Cosmos

2009-06-10T15:17:00.003+09:00

The cosmos are just starting, but I do love them. Especially this kind.
Cosmos and veggie patch. Lemon grass on the right, lettuce that is starting to bolt in the middle, tomatoes behind.
Cosmos and rose of sharon (mallow?) trees. We started the trees from 30cm (1ft) single branch clippings almost two years ago. They grow really fast!
I am not the only cosmos lover in the family. Apparently, they are quite tasty. Hopefully, not poisonous.

mostly veggies

2009-06-10T15:09:00.003+09:00

The millions are Reisentraube flowers are starting to turn into tomatoes. Still no reddening on any tomatoes. I hope they hurry up because they are gradually succumbing to various diseases. I had to pull two more plants yesterday. Today I planted baby basils in the spots vacated by sick tomatoes.
Oregano.
Our first Cinderella pumpkin is still hanging in there, now joined by a baby sister.
All the pumpkin vines are doing pretty well. These are the Howden. No baby pumpkins yet.
The Cinderella pumpkin in the foreground and Japanese pumpkin (kabocha) in the back. We have two baby Cinderellas and one baby kabocha. This despite the evil orange bugs.
A fresh evil orange bug trail on a pumpkin leaf.
Speaking of problems, the zucchini has some sort of icky white fungus or mildew or something. I've had to pull three plants. This happened last year, too. Does anyone know why or what I can do about it?

today's pickings and today's dinner

2009-06-08T21:43:00.004+09:00

Our spring veggies have finally reached the point where they constitute a major portion of our dinner. Here is today's harvest. I also ran back to pick toppings (green onions, oregano, thyme, chives) as I was cooking.
We don't grow rice ourselves, but get it from relatives. The onions are from a neighbor. The konyaku (icky-looking gray triangles), mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, milk, tofu, and miso are store bought. And we didn't catch the tuna (negitoro donburi). The eggplant is in the soup and I used one of the zucchinis for tomorrow morning's bread. The girls' dessert of a few raspberries and half a blueberry each was supplemented by loquats from the next door neighbor's tree (some of the branches hang over our yard).