It's been a while

A week has passed and I have finally finished digging the north face. So tired of digging. I dug in the rain, in the sun and everything in between. After I finished I took a long rest just recovering from all the digging.

Sometimes Minion looks like our lord Satan when he is resting

I dug maybe half a meter deep and got rid of all roots and rhizomes. Then I dug a bit deeper in a couple of spots and found that the soil was nothing more than just thick and hard clay underneath. Still in those spots I hit rhizomes... I don't doubt that there are still rhizomes left in 50-100 cm depth (and maybe even deeper) and that they will eventually grow out and up again. But I figure maybe I have got a year of bamboo free bed... If I keep the damn leafs at bay the roots are supposed to run out of energy and die.

Finally finished! Phew! Sweaty work.

 The north side is connected to the neighboring jungle, so I created an edge where the roots etc from the jungle just suddenly hit air where the ground level drops, hoping that they will influence my bed less... Who knows what will happen.

Made a little path with blue sheet

The small path I made goes around the bed and leads to the back. I also made a tiny path in the middle of the bed so I can reach everything on it. Problem is that every time I use those paths, if I'm not careful I bump my head into the plum and prune branches that I left hanging above the bed. If the cherry and peach saplings take and grow I will have more branches to bump into in a few years, hehe.

Flattened the bed and made the middle path more clear

When the bed was ready I planted some onions, beets, and daikon radishes underneath the hanging branch. And to the right where there is nothing hanging I planted broad beans and green peas. This time as a lesson learned I left a bit of space between them to avoid cramped leafs and aphid infestation. Plus I hope the onions keep some bugs away?
By the way I had a visit and review of my peanuts bed. I wrote to the owners of the plots neighboring my forest plot, and asked them to meet and agree upon our lands' boundaries because I want to cut trees in my plot etc. I gave them my email address but didn't care writing my phone number or address cause I don't feel confident getting sudden important Japanese calls from people I don't know yet.

Intermission picture. Everyday new ones fall from the neighbor forest into my garden. Yum.

Anyway, a couple of days later the door bell rang and there was this old guy who turned out to be one of the owners I sent letter to. Apparently he doesn't use e-mail (wow) and since he has some connections in the city office, he managed to grab my home address from them (again, wow) and rode his car to my place to talk. I was super happy of course. After apologizing for no address, I told him about my plans to cut the bamboos, dig up all the rhizomes and set a root border around the plot. He asked me what I wanted to do with my plot and since I haven't decided yet I told him I want to plant fruit trees. He told me that it will be difficult because bamboo keeps falling over from north side plot which is share-owned by many, and is higher than its surroundings, so any saplings would probably break from all the fallen bamboos. He also confirmed when I asked him, that my plot originally was his, and he apologized that it is so bamboo-ridden. I asked him what he uses his land for and he said he grows peanuts. Cause falling trees don't hurt so much then.

Intermission picture. Lots of half eaten tomatoes recently. Because of all the rain?

He told me his family are registered as farmers and that is why they can own farmland, and he asked me what I do for a living. I told him quickly that I am an engineer but that I am trying to learn what I can about farming. I invited him in and showed him the garden. Of course he was happy to see the peanuts and asked me what sort they are. I answered Uhhhh... and he asked how big the seeds were and I told him. He said the peanuts are this and that sort and that they will be pretty big. He told me to wait until the leafs have turned yellow before thinking about harvesting. He said they look good.

Wide load. The peanuts grow wider every day

I told him I would love to do some serious planting but that there is not enough land so that is why I need to fix the forest plot. He said great, but it's gonna be difficult to keep the rhizomes at bay. He left me his phone number and I am supposed to call him and set a meeting time after I have managed to get in touch with the other owner. He said it would be best if we all 3 could meet at the spot and agree. He was very friendly.
So... now I am more confident about my peanuts at least.
My next digging project, much smaller than the ones before, shall be to extend the bed closest to the kitchen, and to cut down the hanamizu tree. Right now it can't be done because tomatoes and peanuts are still growing there (well it can actually cause extending the bed won't mean touching either of them, but I'm tired of digging right now)
As a sneak start... I am cleaning out the weeds that have grown out of the planters I placed there before. 

The wilderness in planters

I moved the planters into the chicken run and hope the chickens enjoy killing the weeds for me.

Wilderness moved into the run

Oh, yeah. I have now raised one tunnel in the backyard over the broccoli. I also planted chigensai (!), cauliflower, brussels sprouts and some other crap seeds I had laying around, and this time covered them with netting.

I will eventually raise the rest of the tunnel too

The carrots are still not eaten up so there is hope. I have developed a technique to avoid waste of tiny seedlings. When I pull seedlings to make space for the carrots, rather than throwing them away I put them in the ground in a bed nearby, with proper spacing between them. That way the pulled seedlings will also have a chance of becoming carrots.