Tree identification

Ok, so here is one more picture of the tree near the blueberries which I don't know what it is.

The trunk

By the way, here is another different unknown tree...

I don't think the berries are edible

Tilting Corn

It hasn't been very windy. We haven't had any typhoon or even slightly strong winds yet.
But for some reason when I came home yesterday a couple of my tomato branches had broken by the wind, and almost all of the corns had fallen over and lying there horizontally, their root barely in the ground. Very weird... maybe I should have planted their seeds deeper, or maybe the soil is too loose.. anyway, I lifted and set them straight, and hilled them up a bit.
The cobs and the stalks had already started to take compensating measures, based on the gravity and the sun I guess. They were no longer straight but kind of bent...

Not what I expected...

Tiny Jungles

The wet season is upon us, and the weeds are growing like never before. It's almost like I didn't even remove any weeds to start with. Well next year I won't bother picking all the weed early on cause it will just be replaced. Hmm..
The blueberry bush is huge. Actually it is 2 bushes with a bit of space between them but it is tough to get in between them cause they are  so overgrown and weighted down by all the delicious berries. Looked closer and saw that some non-blueberry bushes also grow there. Identified the biggest one as ornamental flower and removed it cause those flowers are not really my type. They bloom late and are not that beautiful and don't smell good. Just take up space is what they do.

The yellow flowers in the middle are no more

With those gone, I can get in there and pull out lots of other annoying weeds too. Have to remember to prune the blueberries in the winter to make them more accessible. Maybe tie up a couple of branches and train them not to all lean in the same direction. As of now they all cover my patch of eggplants, which despite the shade keeps on growing.

The eggplants have just started blooming

Next to the eggplants I have my pepper patch which also is shadowed over by the blueberries. Still... they too seem to get enough sun somehow

Couple of pimans in the pepper jungle

Another jungle that is starting to get completely out of control is the cucumber. I get a good size cucumber every day these days though so I am not complaining. Keep pruning the lower leafs as soon as they turn yellow or start getting spotty and all is fine.

cucumber monster

I would love to also list the carrot jungle, but unfortunately they tend to die all the time. Some bug must really like those young carrot tops. It leaves all other young leafs alone, and chews up only the carrots' greens. So here is the carrot patch after two rounds of seeds. All gone to waste.

Hmm... the carrot jungle

Next to the carrots is the little patch with the huuuuge sunflowers.

Getting there.. I hope it gets big enough so I can eat the seeds

Another real jungle is the strawberry patch. I have made a mistake to have it real wide, to allow the runners to roam free. In doing so, I have made the middle parts inaccessible to myself. The patch is dominated by strawberries as they spread around, but underneath the weeds are lurking and if I don't pull them every once in a while I think they will take over easily. I should have started off with black mulch sheet. Oh well, live and learn I guess. Oh, and moles also have dug a couple of shallow tunnels there. Anyway, I have started to make a new patch of strawberries in the backyard's lowest step, using young runners from this patch. At the moment there is only 4-5 of them there but they will spread before winter I hope. Stupid enough I did not use black plastic mulch there neither. D'oh!

strawberry fields forever

Here is a picture of the backyard where the tiny strawberry leafs can be seen in the right corner of the lower step. Originally I was gonna have flowers there but what the heck I thought. There is enough flowers around anyway to attract good bugs.

Still haven't cleaned up the left side for the future runners

The melons are getting bigger but only 2 or 3 are getting to regular size so far. The leafs of the plants on top are all yellowing and dying so I am afraid this first round has been quite a let down. I think the soil was not ready. It was too much clay where the roots wanted to expand, and all the water kind of stayed in there and made the leafs yellow. That plus the brown bugs eating at the leafs, and hiding in the weeds above. Even if I dug quite deep where the seedlings were put and put compost, the soil around that hole was tough clay. The second level melons which were put there later and at first didn't seem to have a prayer have now grown into huge things. I did not prune or water them extra but just left them alone kind of. They seem healthier so we'll see from the end results. If the fruits are better then next round I will just leave the melons be on their own.
As for the soil, I will plant something else for a couple of years to make the soil softer and ready for melons.
The top row, which is full of weeds, I have started to clean. It is a big project. I dig real deep, remove ALL roots (most of the weeds there are the root/rhizome type) including the huge roots of the trees I cut down earlier. To keep the weeds at bay for a while, I will plant potatoes there first, once the soil has been cleaned. I have still not dug enough to see what actually separates the outside weed jungle and my side of the fence. I hope it is a tall concrete wall, but I don't think it is. I think it is just posts holding up the fence, buried deep....That is where the rhizomes of the weeds come in. I will use roundup to kill the weeds near the fence, on the outside. In best case I will cut and cover the soil on the other side.... Not decided yet. So far I have only dug like 30 cm wide and half a meter deep and cleaned the soil, so still there is a lot to go.
Enough of that. Let's change the subject.
After taking those pictures I came inside and found this little fellow crawling on my arm.

Baby terminator

I let him out to go eat some baddies and grow big. There are lots of baby praying mantis running around in my garden, a couple of different types and colors. The frogs have all vanished. I guess they tried running around too but were picked up by birds or maybe stomped on by me accidentally... even though they had a couple of nice hiding places near the pond, I found some of them in the wrong side of the garden, and returned them in my hand. But now there are none of them left. Just a pond with some insects and greens. Next to the pond there is a mikan tree, with three tiny fruit still hanging on there and getting bigger.

Can you see all the 3 mikans?

After my last complaints the corn must have heard cause now suddenly tiny corns are sprouting from the sides.

Children of the corn

Peanuts getting larger and larger...

Peanuts with a side of garlic and potatoes

And so do the tomatoes, but still no red ones.

Come on already, you look so delicious. Turn red soon.

By the way, I am trying to identify this unknown tree between the chicken run and the blueberry bush. Is it fruit? It takes a lot of space so I need to know. Hmm... here is what its leafs looks like

What am I?

Good morning sun

Finally this morning the first sunflower opened. The sunflowers are getting really tall now. The tallest, still without a flower, is about 2,5 meters tall.... I had to hill them a bit yesterday to get a better root holding, as I saw tiny roots appear just above ground. I also tied them together to prevent them from tipping over when there is strong wind.

Banzai!

In front of the sunflowers, in the picture is the asparagus patch with the first year plants.

Interesting shapes

Yesterday one of my hens made the longest egg so far. It really was so long that I thought it may be a double yolk, but it wasn't.

As usual Sony's camera reduces anything unique to achieve equality for all and avoid offending anyone

The picture doesn't do the egg's longness justice... I don't know, maybe it's the angle I took it.
Anyway, another weird shape I encountered yesterday was this:

Minion taking a nap

What made me want to take the picture was actually that Minion was sleeping and his face suddenly turned into a Japanese smiley face with the upside-down "U"s for eyes. Like this: (^_^)
Extremely cute and I had not seen it before. So I grabbed my phone and knowing that the idiot camera's default auto-superior-quality (not!) settings turns any picture taken of my cats into just black balls, I went into the camera menu and changed the settings to manual as quick as I could, which given the retarded and non-intuitive menu system wasn't that quick, and by the time I snapped the picture Mini had no longer the cute smiley eyes. Thanks Sony again.
At least I got his shiny chewbacca face. Hehe
Just for comparison, here is a picture I took right after using the auto super hyper genius quality settings.

Face? Tar ball? Spider ass? Who knows, but we get equality for all...

Garden update

Pics and updates from last weekend. Soon there will be lots of yummy things hopefully.
First off the feijoa at the front gate. It has just started blooming. The flowers are beautiful but there is no special fragrance...

I hope at least the fruits are sweet

Next up is the rose near the kitchen. There have already been 2 big flowers which I picked and put in a jar on the table. Each of them last about a week inside and smell nice. This one I left outside and by yesterday it had lost all its petals... so it seems I took the picture right on time.

The 3rd rose

The beans stopped producing and got pretty tangled and messy eventually, so I removed them and put in more peanuts. Here is what it looks like when I planted the peanuts directly in the bed, instead of indoors in planter. I think 2 or 3 of them got their baby leafs eaten by bugs before they managed to get established but the rest (knock on wood) seem OK like in the picture.

Bugs in my garden are too hungry...

The tomatoes are getting along just fine. The biggest ones are over 2 cm each but still green.

I keep tying the potentially heavy branches up

After my nagging about the corn, something is started to come out from the tops. But still no site of side shoots or corn itself. Only on the top. Hmm...

Maybe I won't bother next year... or try a non-giant seed

Next up is the string beans. I just harvested the first and only bean that was of a good size, but there are plenty on their way. These are real good climbers. Next time I will make their trellis taller.

Can you see where the bean I took is?

The cucumber is also a good climber, even though it needs a bit of help and guidance. I keep removing bad leafs from under it but still it has managed to turn into a bushy beast.

Baby cucumbers all over but none big enough to pick

The giant blueberry bushes are now full of tiny berries racing towards maturing and being eaten. In the weekend I spotted the first big black one. Very sweet.

The lone berry, very nice size. I fertilized the bushes earlier.

Speaking of giant, the sunflowers are now towering way over me and there is no sign of stopping. The other day they started leaning into each other with a bit of strong wind, so I tied them up together. Only 1 or 2 have flowers but not opened yet. I will need a ladder to look at the flowers when they eventually come out.

Huge

The pomegranate bush bloomed like 4 or 5 flowers, but they are all falling off. I guess some bug or bird is biting them off. Oh well, it is still a tiny bush so it maybe just as good not to put all its energy on making fruit just yet. It should grow bigger and maybe then the fruits can be protected too.

One of the fallen flowers and the one last remaining one

The kabocha has been a bit disappointing. When the male flowers are out, there are no female flowers to pollinate, and when the rare female flower finally pops up it is either too weak and falls off after a couple of days, or there are no male flowers all of a sudden. Plus the leafs are turning yellow really fast. Maybe I have been overwatering them. The melons are better. Already there are around 10 melons growing. In about a month or so they should be ready to eat.

Can you spot all of them?

Oh yeah, not sure if I mentioned it. I planted 3 passion fruits in the backyard. I dug really deep and put compost and nice soil before putting in the saplings. They are still not so tall. Hopefully they will start climbing. I also trimmed down the annoying hanamizuki that was casting shadow over them in the afternoons. Poor hanamizuki, first I trimmed one third cause it was stealing sun from the tomatoes and the strawberries. Then I trimmed another third for the passion fruits. Now it only has one third left that is nice to have as shadow over the pond.

At the bottom, passion fruits. Just above it the new strawberry patch.

And more flowers, the backyard ajisai have been blooming for a while now. I just forgot to put up picture.

And there is Tora in front of the shed trying to come up with mischief

And finally, the potato plant turned yellow so I assumed it was time to remove it. Dug out a few potatoes, and left some because a new plant had popped out next to it. Hope this new one gives more potatoes cause it is more in the middle of the bed. The previous one was awkwardly close to the edge. I didn't plant it myself. It was a survivor from winter.

The potatoes. I couple of them are decent size.

Holy moly!

I was up real early in the morning, around 6.30. Had just removed the plastic mulch from the melons and watered them. A day before I noticed that the my foot sank when I stepped on the soil in front of the newly installed backyard wall. I gathered I had not stomped hard enough but took it positively because I'd rather have loose soil than hard clay.
However, since this particular place was next to the wall's post, I want it to be solid so I started stomping the ground around the post to compress it. Realized then that the soft soil seem to have a pattern. A long and narrow one, which I recognized from last year. Mole tunnels. Oh great. Well nothing to do but to learn to live with the damn things. I read somewhere that if the soil quality is good the moles will not find enough food in it and will go elsewhere. Not sure if it is true though. I think they eat the grubs that lie deep in the soil and those grubs are not gonna leave if I have good quality soil even...
Anyway, I had just finished watering the backyard and was putting an extra thin layer of soil in stead of the mulch to keep the moist for now. After that was done, shovel in hand I made my way back to the main area when my eye caught a tiny quick movement on the soil. Just one bump.
I immediately connected the dots. That must be the mole. Without thinking twice I charged and hit the soil that had just moved with the shovel. It moved again. I used the shovel to block whatever was there from going deeper into the ground, and instead forced it out. And bam! hit it once with the back of the shovel. I had read that moles are very sensitive to shock and get heart attack from even small amount of pressure applied. It seems to be the case here cause the mole was just lying there twitching for a couple of seconds and then died. I check it closer. No blood, no sign of broken limbs of extreme pressure. Nothing. Just a tiny heart attack I guess.
I cut it up and put it in the compost. Now I wonder how many more of them there are....
I have already felt a tunnel between the pond and the hanamizuki tree. Will keep an eye out.

Caught it right at the wall post in the background

Not so big, but bigger than I imagined

The traps I set last year didn't work and just rusted. I guess I will have to just rely on chance encounters to kill them off.

Vegetable updates

Here is what things looked like last weekend.... starting with the tomatoes:

Getting big

I prune them but not too much and too often... and keep staking where I think may be needed in the future. The leafs are getting big and the flowers have started falling and in their place tiny tomatoes are popping out. A couple weeks more?

Asparagus field

I try to keep the weed out of the asparagus area, but probably the asparagus roots are handling that a bit too. It's just the first year so they are still tiny. I don't water them much, and when I pull out the weeds I do it very careful not to disturb the aspararoots. In the back of the picture you can see the pomegranate bush with three red flowers just opening.

Cucumbers, tomatoes and blueberry

More tomatoes are found in the middle of garden. If I remember well, I planted both normal size tomato and mini-tomato seeds so these are the other type from the ones on the previous picture. Which is which I am not sure yet though. I lost track cause I moved the seedling pots around a lot.
Next to them is the cucumbers which is getting bigger and bigger every day. I keep pruning lower stems and leafs that don't look healthy. To their right is the huge blueberry bush.Already full of berries but not ripe yet. My only worry is that the ants will probably get to them first... as usual. I hope they leave a few good ones for us.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers just reached my height. But still no flowers. A couple of them have developed buds but they have not opened yet. These I water every time I water the garden, which is on average every other day. I don't water everything every time. Cucumbers and such I try to give water all the time but asparagus I keep rather dry. When I water everything in the garden I use up around 60 liters of water from the tanks.

Peanuts and Co.

The peanuts just started flowering so I removed the plastic mulch and prepare to hill them. Near them there is also the rogue potato plant and three garlics...

Eggplants and peppers

The peppers are several varieties but I am not sure which is which... as usual I mixed the seedlings up. There is piman and paprika and some other crap. The eggplants are too many perhaps but I am not sure if they all will survive, plus it is kind of shady under the blueberry bush, and the soil not so deep (the roots will hit lawn after 20 cm maybe) so let's see what happens

Corn in the back, and string beans in front

The corn have been rather disappointing. Not sure what is wrong, but maybe the roots need deeper soil? I did everything similar to when I planted corn in share-hatake a couple years back. This corn is called Giant Russian something but they are far from giant. More like midget. And only leafs... despite being planted first among the veggies... Oh well. The string beans are climbing nicely up the trellis I made from the tip of the trees I cut down. I think it looks cool. Small white flowers have just started to show.

Very small cucumber. Zoom in, it's there on the mulch to the left

Above is the first cucumber that is developing. And below are the first developing kabocha and melon.

First kabocha

The kabocha plants (only 2 of them) have almost only been giving male flowers. The few couple female flowers don't open and just fall off after a few days. So I am glad I pollinated the only female flower so far manually.

First melon

The first melon is holy so I put it up on pedestal. I have never grown melon and everything that happens with them is just miraculous to me.
I am not sure what kind of trellis to use for them so I have made several different arrangements to see which one works best, for future reference. So it's a mish-mash of trellis techniques.

Some I even just leave without trellis to crawl. Let's compare the outcome

Life of bugs

Last weekend I opened the meal worm box to discover I had ran out of worms. The last couple had turned into pupa. At least I have many grown bugs now so they better multiply I thought and proceeded to remove old potato bits from the box. It was then that I realized that beneath the surface there were hundreds, maybe more tiny tiny baby worms. Hooray!!!

Wormplosion

Speaking of teeny tiny baby bugs, I keep seeing more and more of these all over the garden

Praying mantis baby on the sunflower leaf

I hope they all grow big and strong and start eating the bad bugs soon

Praying mantis baby on melon leaf. Just to the right of center of the picture.

Bad bugs...well we already got aphids but they are now getting fewer and fewer thanks to the growing population of lady bugs who love all the flowers I planted.

Ladybugs humping away on melon leaf

With my Kabocha, melons and cucumbers getting bigger, recently I have also been introduced to the brown pumpkin bugs who keep munching on the leafs.

Real pests who eat all good leafs and weaken the plant and delay crop

Luckily they are quite easy to scare, and with Tora patrolling the backyard all day when I am home, the bugs can't stay on the leafs for too long. Plus they discovered my plants after they were established so the plants are relatively strong, and hopefully can handle them. When I have time I go and catch a couple too. On average I maybe kill 5-10 a day, so there are not really many...

Gotcha your brown bastard. Squish.

Not all the bugs are bad though. Here is a busy bee pollinating my melons (Huh huh that sounds rather naughty)

Bee in the flower. Bzzz