mostly veggies

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

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).

the tomatoes are always redder...a neighborhood stroll

Our kabocha had its first flower this morning. A baby girl! Unfortunately, we have no boys yet. There was a bee, I hope it was a far flying bee that had visited the male kabocha flowers a block away. We tried hand-pollinating it with a male American pumpkin flower too, just in case.
I can't remember if these are the Sugar Lump or Chadwick's Cherry, but they are cherry tomatoes, have been this size for about a week, but aren't getting red yet.
Marmande Super. I decided to take the dog and the camera for a walk and see how the neighbors' tomatoes are coming along.
Here is our embankment from a distance. We are on the right in front of the bridge.
It is said that tomatoes do better if protected from direct rainfall. Some people have clear plastic awnings. Some make do with what is at hand. And some (like myself) don't bother. I went up close and it looked like the one with no umbrella was doing just as well as the other two, so I'm not convinced it makes a difference.
I checked lots of gardens, in the last one (the local tomato experts, imo) some cherry tomatoes were starting to redden. These people moved in last year. I've never seen them, but I check their tomatoes almost daily (they live across from the park). They were way ahead of the rest of the neighborhood and some day I hope to run into them to learn their secrets. No umbrellas or other coverings here.
This is a random photo of mums....just because I can't help but wonder why one family could possibly need so many chrysanthemums. He hasn't even finished planting them all yet. This man has tons of plots of land all around. Maybe he just wants to fill up space. I know he doesn't sell any of his produce...
Here is another of his plots. Look at all that space! Wow! We are not as rural as our photos may appear. Most people have houses on 50 tsubo (1/25 acre?) lots. I was feeling rather jealous and almost stole one of his male kabocha flowers (not shown here) to bring home to pollinate our female. But decided that it was bad enough being known as the crazy foreigner (with a crazier dog) who wants to photograph people's tomatoes without being known as a kabocha flower-napper as well.

a few more flowers blooming

The yellow lilies decided to join the orange this morning! It is nice to have different colors bloom at the same time. Last year they took turns.
I planted these bulbs (pink, white and yellow) in the strawberry patch before I knew it was going to become a strawberry patch. I am glad to see they survived the raspberry/blackberry transplant and are starting to bloom again.

turtle and raspberries

Yesterday, I was headed out to the pumpkin patch, zapper racket in hand, ready to kill some evil orange bugs, when I saw this turtle on the path up the embankment laying eggs.
It was pretty hard packed dirt as we use the path daily. Used, I should say. She dug a hole, laid her eggs (I presume) and covered them up again with her rear legs. If I hadn't seen it, we wouldn't have noticed and the baby turtles would be squished.
From the opposite angle, showing her position smack dab in the middle of the path.
Here is a close up of Mama Turtle headed back to the river. I read the incubation period for turtle eggs is 2-3 months, so we may or may not be back by the time they hatch.
The raspberry and blackberry bushes are on the far side of the embankment. Out of sight out of mind. I really need to weed them. Luckily, we had followed the turtle and noticed the raspberries were starting to ripen.
The girls ate 2 each. The verdict was "Yummy"

pollinating pumpkins

M pollinated our first pumpkin flower this morning! It is one of the Cinderella pumpkins. Of course, the timing is all wrong because I want them for Halloween, but exciting nevertheless. They say the best way to store pumpkins is in cool, low humidity conditions. If a place with such conditions existed in Gifu in the summer, that is where I would like to be stored as well! Both the pumpkins and I are out of luck.

Lily
The annuals are starting to spread out and cover the fading bulb foliage...
We have 3 baby eggplants.

"harvest" June 3

This was our first full size zucchini harvested on May 31 but the photos were on another camera.
The girls now do a zucchini dance to celebrate each zucchini we pick. Let's see how long that lasts. It's only day 4 and I'm starting to wonder how many zucchini we can eat.
The girls pick their own "tv time snack" every afternoon. The yellow ones are really good, and so is the reddish purple one. A pleasant surprise because it looks very simple to the icky purple ones. Unfortunately, I don't know what kind any of them are, because I would like to try the good ones again sometime.
L has her tv snack in hand and is waiting....
This morning's harvest. One regular zucchini. One zucchini with identity issues that thinks it might actually be a butternut squash. One very small strawberry that will have to be cut in half and shared. And one loquat fallen from the neighbor's tree into our yard. Of course, we will have tons of lettuce and cucumbers, too.

May 31 and June 2

Our neighbors downriver have their embankment covered in these cheerful yellow flowers in May/June. I pilfered a few from their drainage ditch where they (the flowers, not the neighbors) were trying to grow out of concrete and planted them on our embankment. Only one survived. So much for my grand plans of fields of yellow next spring. My next plan of attack is tol wait until the neighbor's flowers go to seed and pilfer seeds while walking the dog and hope to get more going on our part of the embankment that way.
My husband's pretty purple flowering Indian tree is starting to flower. It seems to like its new spot by the strawberries.
My husband spent two days out weed-whacking the embankment
and the empty lot next door. He took these two photos of his hard work. The weeds were only about waist high this time, and he says it was much easier than when they are taller than he is like last year.
I gathered a bunch of the cut weeds today to fill in the ditch next to the pumpkin patch so that my pumpkin vines won't be underwater. Unfortunately, the weeds had gone to seed so I may have a lot of weeds growing out of the ditch... One pumpkin, the cinderella, is making moves towards the embankment and we will have to take down the netting soon.

My first pumpkin bud on the Cinderella pumpkin. I am trying not to get my hopes up because last year all my female flowers rotted before blooming for two months before I finally got blossoms to pollinate. My husband took a great photo of our current enemy #1. Evil!!! I kill 20-30 a day, but it isn't really making a dent. They, on the other hand, are making huge dents in our pumpkins and cucumbers, and some nibbles on the zucchini and watermelon leaves, too.
at the base of the embankment. Pumpkins on the left, on the right, broccoli (mostly gone) in front, green beans in the middle, and cucumbers along the fence.
A fuzzy shot of today's cucumber harvest. I am starting to get worried. 9 a day...that's 63/week and this is only a week after our first cucumber. My husband also has 2 more generations coming up. The zucchini is started to scare me, too. None yesterday, but it looks like 2 today, maybe 3 tomorrow....

carrots and tomatoes June 1

The girls love to pull up the multicolored carrots. They eat them every afternoon for snack, even though they don't taste so good. The yellow ones are quite tasty actually, but the purple ones are dreadful.

Here are the tomatoes that weren't ready for my last tomato photo shoot. Big Rainbow.
Black Krim
Brandywine
Evergreen