All flattened!

Hooray! Just when I had more than enough of cutting branches. My hands aching...but finally, the plot is all flat, i.e. all bamboo have been de-branched. Now I just have to sort them out. Recently I have been accompanied by literally tens of thousands of flies who gathered whenever I kicked over a bamboo shoot and feasted on it.

All flat

All flat, taken from opposite side

Just started to clean up the tiny branches

As mentioned before, I have to sort the bamboo into 3 groups. I already started with the tiniest branches which I am going to put alongside the north side, and make a kind of a border there.

like so

I will also cut as many bamboo I can from the north side so there will be none left to fall over my land when wind blows. I went up there by the way and had a look. There is quite a lot of bamboo but it is nowhere near as dense as my plot was. I think if I fell them and continue felling the new ones a couple of times a year, it should be manageable. I just have to make sure who the lazy owner is just in case. But from the looks of it, the land has been left on its own for years and years, except for those who come and pick shoots to eat.

north side. You can see hint of the border I am making with tiny branches

So..plan-wise, I would say I am on track with the schedule.

1 done, 14 to go

At home, things are popping out a little here and there. Good and bad things. Let's get rid of the bad things first. I spent a couple of mornings picking all plum pockets I could see from the tree. Next year I plan to spray the tree with neem oil early on to prevent the infection. But this year I guess removing the bad things that pop out is the only thing I can do.

there is a lot of it

Now to the good things. Strawberries are blooming like crazy and I hope I can eat some sweet home made berries this year.

The bed in the backyard

The zucchini seeds have germinated and tiny leafs are out near the chicken run.

And the chickens keep staring at them with hunger

And near the front gate, peas I planted are ready to harvest so I will use them for cooking. Most people just plant a bush or flowers near their front gate but I figured why not plant something I can eat.

I just let it climb wild. Didn't water or anything.