Getting colder

Especially in the mornings it is really cold out. I can almost see how the ground is just on the border of frost. The sun is quite low all day and the vegetables are not growing as fast as they did earlier.

I have now covered the wide strawberry bed with a double tunnel. Hopefully it will reduce some frost damage. This was a lesson I learned last winter. The big difference in temperature in the tunnel and outside. This summer I think I learned another lesson. Pruning helps.

I did a bit of pruning in the beginning of summer but after that I pretty much left everything to grow as they please. As result, the vegetables I got in the beginning were nice and big but got smaller and smaller as time went.
Here is an example of eggplants I picked last week. These are not new eggplants, but have spend almost same amount of time on their branches as the big full sized ones.

OK, the one in the left is not an eggplant

They just don't get bigger, and stay midget sized as the plant keeps making more new branches and leaves.
I took a bicycle ride halfway to Honda. It was a nice morning and it only took a few minutes until I could not hear any trains neither cars. So extremely quite and serene. Just farms, fields and forests. I was talking to a local guy there and he told me that most of those farms and fields are not for sale although they may be empty or look abandoned. It's just the same old usual thing, namely that the owners are too old to work them, and their children are busy in cities or not interested. However, I heard it is easy to ask around and just borrow a field from its owner to grow crops and sell.
Doing so a year or two, one can achieve the coveted farmer status, and may eventually be able to buy actual farmland, instead of like me having to just go for forests...
Once I feel comfortable with the garden and don't have to spend too much time on it, I may have time enough to take over a tiny or medium sized field...