First Cucumber!

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 26

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

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!

cool and breezy

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.

May 11

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!

In other Vegetable News...

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!