Bush rotation

Haha, well now it is official. The daikon radish were a failure. I picked the 2 biggest ones, and they are no bigger than my carrots.

Actually they are smaller

I think the reason is that the soil has very poor quality plus I started them too late so they didn't get enough sun.
Had a week off and nothing to do in the garden, so I did the only thing I could come up with: clean up the peppers, eggplants and tomatoes. Yes, although they did their best to keep on going, they finally gave in to the frost, which to be honest was not very severe. So their place will be unused until spring.
Lesson learned: pull up the vegetables much earlier even if they start re-blooming cause the harvest will be minimum and the place can instead be reused for winter crops earlier.
After the beds were cleaned I noticed how much the blueberry branches occupy, and decided to do something...

This is what it looked like before

Of course before doing anything I had to clean up the weeds and mini bamboo grass jungle that had formed around the bushes, to even be able to access the blueberry itself.

from the side. The branches pretty much cover the beds 

It took a while but I cut all the grass. I think the mini bamboo are starting to weaken after me cutting them down so many times... Could it be the roots will die in a few years if I keep on repeating this?

Without the weeds, you can see the blueberry bushes more clearly

The leftmost bush, the biggest of them all, is right next to the cherry tree. So I cannot pull it out with its roots as they pretty much share the same spot with the tree's roots. All I could do there was to tie the branches up with a rope and pull them up as hard as I could, bend them backwards and over to the cherry tree trunk's other side. So now they are not hanging over the beds anymore, and are pulled back with a rope, and are also supported backwards by the cherry trunk. Maybe in a couple of years those branches harden and take this new form...
The middle bush has its own spot, and I took the bold step and pulled it out with its roots (not all its roots but hopefully the major parts) and rotated it 180 degrees so now it is hanging upwards. Just hope the roots take hold again. We'll see next year if I managed to kill it or not.
The rightmost bush was not as much nuisance so I just tied up a couple of its branches and pulled upward.

tied up and rotated. Blueberry roots are wide and shallow

So now the beds underneath the bushes are more open and seem bigger. Hopefully I can use them better next year.

from the side. So clean.

We met up with the surveyor by the way, for putting in the border posts. There was not much to measure... he looked around for natural indicators of the boundaries, such as big trees or different growth, and with the two other owners in place it was easy to come up with spots that we all agreed.
One of the owners kind of knew which tree was part of which plot, so that helped too. Neither of us really minded that much to get as much margins as possible, and no one was interested in pushing the boundaries to gain a couple of extra centimeters so I think this method was fair. Finally the spots were defined and wooden posts put in place. They more or less ended up in the same spots as the selling real estate agent had marked, actually a bit farther away so now my plots are bigger than I thought.

One of the wooden posts. 

Next the surveyor will measure the distance between the posts and calculate roughly the areas, and get our hanko on agreement that these posts are OK. And then he will replace the wooden posts with concrete markers.
After that I can get to work. Finally.
Oh while we were there following the surveyor around I got to chat with the owner of a farm plot nearby, and it turned out he was not using his plot so he agreed to lend it to me for free so I can grow something on it. He said it is 1 tan which I think equals 1000 sqm. Yeay! A real flat farm plot with good soil and sun. Have to plan what to grow there by end of winter....
I have got an electric chainsaw now. After the forest boundaries are defined, I will start by cutting down all the bamboo, and put them sideways in the north side among the existing bamboo to keep them from rolling down. Then I shall rent a small excavator and dig out the roots. And then cover the whole area with sheets of carton to keep weeds and new bamboo from growing. After that it should be easy to keep the bamboo controlled.
Still haven't figured out a way to stop the roots from spreading into my plot again from north and south. Maybe dig a deep trench and fill with concrete?
After I have cleaned the plot, I will be planting fruit saplings while keeping the cardboard mulch between them. And I am also thinking of honey bees.... 

Winter is coming

The potatoes in the backyard took their time to pop out and develop a few leafs and for a while it seemed they were big and strong enough to make it. But we had a couple of sudden frost nights in a row and I guess the top row of the backyard is the coldest (lesson learned) cause now they all look pretty dead... better luck next time I guess. I will plant potatoes up there in summer instead, and more hardy vegs in winter. The other veggies on the lower rows and under the nets are still fine.

Good to know what survives the cold

In a week or so I am going to start pruning the bushes and trees. Just waiting for the final leafs to fall too. Also I am supposed to widen the holes of the roof netting of the chicken run, so that snow doesn't pile up and collapses the whole run like it did last winter, and still not too wide holes so that chickens can fly out...
It is getting real cold now, and I am not going out more than necessary, which means only to feed the chickens, early in the morning when it is the coldest. Brrr, get out of warm and cozy bed and straight out into the cold.
The cats feel the cold too cause they more often than before set their differences aside and cuddle together to keep warm.

They fight a lot, but deep inside they are all friends

Oh, after 1,5 years, finally I came up how to make borders for the forest plots. After talking to the owners of the neighboring plots and a couple of surveyors, I picked the cheapest solution which means getting the neighbors' agreement and hanko on a measurement by the surveyor. The measurement will not be registered with the city, but is still official as there is a written agreement between us. The surveyor will basically define 4 lines using 8 concrete posts. These lines will be the borders between my 2 plots and their surrounding ones to the east and west. North and south borders are not going to be well defined. South border is a dirt path belonging to the city, which is so-so defined as its shape can be seen, kind of, without having to measure. North border is a narrow and very steep strip of forest which is share-owned by over 100 people, many of them I assume are not even alive. It is not really used.
Anyway, having the west and east boundaries defined, I can do what I want within my land as long as I don't try to push to north or south too much. I will just leave a meter or so just to be safe.     
I am not interested in planting anything in the south path, and neither in the steep north strip.
First measurements are supposed to be done next week.

Garden snoozing

Gradually it has gotten colder, and although the delayed cold at first confused some the trees so much that they started blooming and even fruiting (the lilac started budding anew, and yep, I found 1 big berry on the little mulberry tree), now they are all finally going to sleep.
Some of the veggies still thrive. Surprisingly the mini tomatoes, the peppers and the eggplants have not sang their last songs...

still going strong

and I can still go out and grab a handful of fresh tomatoes from the freezing cold garden any day.

Still sweet, and still the kittens like to watch

The carrots are now shaping and I already picked up 3-4 so so sized ones. Very very delicious.

Although one had this weird shape.

The round tiny one in the picture, even though on the surface it looked bigger, its roots somehow had not developed as much...
The daikon patch is not exactly successful... but one or two have started to look like daikon.

Not sure when to pull it out though

I'm gonna let it be there a long while to see how big it gets. The broccoli are now blooming, tiny tiny green flowers are forming.

still lots of leafs

Oh, here is a picture of the walnuts losing their leafs and going to sleep. Almost invisible again.

the salad leafs decided to grow out now

The "main" bean patch doesn't look so main. Most of the broad beans rotted before even germinating, and the green peas are not climbing as they should for some reason, maybe it's too windy cause they tend to cling together in clumps...

At least the garlic seem to like it

This morning we had the first frost. The soil was white and crystals had shaped. I suppose officially everything not winter should go to sleep or die now.

frosty

But of course I still have all the year-round veggies and winter stuff, plus some netted stuff

The green peas in the backyard are "main" now

I was gonna harvest the last of the peanuts too, but it looks they are still small... I will wait until there are no leafs

almost there...