Sorting out the forest

According to the time plan, May is the bamboo sorting month. With only a few days left, I have been fighting like crazy to finish it. It is not easy at all. The sun is extremely hot and I can literally only spend about a minute in it working before I feel dizzy and have to run to drink and then work 10 minutes in the shade before next attempt to pick up anything from the sunny area. The shady area is almost cleared out. There are lots of nettles growing there and on them these hairy caterpillars that hurt like shit if touched. I guess it is only natural that they are the only bugs crawling on the nettles without problem.

Not a nettle. Smelly leafed weed with runners which I hate.

Anyway, last weekend I managed to sort out 1/3 of the forest plot into 3 categories. (branches, chippers and burners). Hopefully this weekend I will finish the rest. But the heat is already killing me, and it is not even real summer yet. I can only work 1,5-2 hours a day before getting completely exhausted.

Branch pile to the right, chippers in the back next to the machine, burners to the left

    

Summer approaches

...and with it gradually the growth in the garden. Let's see what we got here.

String beans

For the mailman and anyone ringing the bell at the gate, there are newly germinated string beans with their first leafs to see. Also inside the garden there are more string beans where the green peas used to be.

still the green peas are there

In the backyard, the corn are getting bigger and more visible leafs. 2 rows of corn, 1 row of strawberries and top row is potatoes.

The net in the back is where the civet climbs in and out

In a tiny space next to the walnut tree a couple of sunflower seeds have popped out of the dirt. It's a nice and sunny spot so there are possibilities... That spot is like a lucky box

Not only sunflower but a mix of various leftover vegetable seeds

In the bed nearest to the kitchen I planted watermelon seeds, and a couple of them have emerged. Still the leafs are pretty tiny and if a caterpillar or another bug decides to eat it, that would be the end of it.

Hello World!

Watermelon leafs in bamboo mulch

Another watermelon baby

Next comes the huge and unruly strawberry bed, which I will divide later on.

It's a couple of meters wide

Next to the strawberry field is the plum tree recuperating from the sickness. With one or two lonely still healthy plums hanging in there...

"For dear life"

I also have a bed with melons only. They have also just started to emerge.

I think there are 16 (4x4)

The vegetables in the garden are actually very slow in growth because the soil is not exactly top quality. It all used to be lawn... Berries are doing better though. Now that the short strawberry season is ending (At least in my garden) next in line are blueberries and mulberries. Not sure which will be first, but both have already developed lots of full size berries and I am just waiting for the colors to change.

All blueberries in there, just zoom in.

The middle blueberry bush seems to have survived my crude unearthing and 180 turning of it. Good. It means I don't suck at everything.
Next we have the tomatoes. However, one of the tomato beds is kind of invaded by leftovers of last year's potatoes.

Potatomato

It's a race with win-win outcome for me. The other tomato bed is simpler

Just tomato

After that, we got two beds of zucchini growing huge leafs like crazy, and gathering those annoying brown bugs that last year ate all my melons.

Zucchini, with a bit of eggplant leftover growing from last year.

More zucchinis

And what comes after the zucchini bed? The chicken run of course.

Angry birds

And on the other side of the garden there are small fruit trees and stuff. Oh, and of course the asparagus forest.

It's a mess...

Oh I forgot the mulberry. Here it is

There are some big size berries in there already

Scorched earth

Almost every day has been sunny for a long time, and I had to water the garden by hand from the tanks a couple of times a week. I've continuously tried to add organic matter to the clay soil and it has slowly improved the beds, however, I have also been very diligent in removing all weeds and feeding them to the chickens. As result, the soil in the beds are less and less clay but since there is nothing to protect them they dry out real quick and gradually turn into sand, even with all the compost I added. So I decided to stop pulling out weeds, and instead cut them down. The big culprits with rhizomes are almost removed anyway, so by keeping cutting the top part of the weeds hopefully their roots die eventually. What I cut I shall just leave there instead of giving it to chickens, so the beds will not have to be bare and get baked day after day. I also brought a couple of bags of bamboo powder from my forest plot (there is plenty of that around my chipper these days) and used to mulch the beds that were worst off. Mostly in the backyard in the south where the sun and its reflection from the big windows is most intense.

Children of the corn

I will stop digging in the beds as much as possible, and just plant where I need to and let the rest, well, rest under the mulch.
Thanks to the nice and sunny weather, we have been eating the most delicious strawberries every day.

One day's harvest

The bed in the main garden contributes most but is also most difficult to maintain, because I made it too wide, and I cannot reach the middle parts, even if I balance on the stepping tiles I've strategically put there. So after the strawberry season is over I am going to part the wide bed into three long beds with proper paths between them.
Chika is so glad for the strawberries that she asked me to expand the beds and use more of the backyard for strawberries. Which I will also do.

Another day's harvest

The berries are growing crowded so they are not very big. Instead there is a lot of small very sweet berries. And I even had too much one day so I gave to the next door neighbors.
But it's not just us who eat the berries...

Oreo eats pretty much everything

And thanks to the strawberries I also found the bad guy who attacked my chickens the other night. I have noticed recently 1-2 half eaten strawberry outside of the garden beds, Chika had heard crows during the evening and we assumed it must be them who had nibbled on the berries. But the other night I was sitting and minding my own business when I glanced from the corner of my eye a cat in the backyard. Very strange since I have fenced in everything and made it cat-proof so Tora can be outside on his own. Looked closer from the window and saw that it was not a cat but a civet that was checking out the strawberry bed and looking for goodies in the backyard. I waved my arms around till it noticed me and dashed away and fled. In doing so I was relieved to see that there was no hole or damage in the fence where it had come in. But it had just climbed over the metal net. It climbed back up and proceeded to walk, quite skilled and balanced, on top of the fence towards the chicken run, where the chickens were safe and sound asleep in their locked coop. The morning after I looked and there it was, a tiny hole above the net in the chicken run where the civet could have climbed down and eaten the eggs and bit the chicken.
Anyway... in the forest things are not changing much since I am just sorting and waiting for a good time to burn the bamboo. I did fix the motor belt of the chipper that had broken.

Me, next to the heap of branches waiting to be burned

THE PLAN is still valid, but I realized that seasons is maybe not the best way to measure progressing time, so I converted the plan to months... Here goes:

• May: 3 types of bamboo all sorted and separated (branch, chip-able and burnable)
• June: All chip-able bamboo should be shredded. All bamboo in the north should be cut down.
• July: The leaning tree in the north to be cut. Measure, cut and clear the land in south so the plot looks like on the map. (The south vegetation seems to have gradually grown and invaded the path, and the path has gradually invaded my plot, so now it is time to reclaim the land)
• August: Catch up with anything left of above steps. Prepare for burning and burn some/all the branches.
• September: Burn all the rest of bamboos.
• November: Cut down the sugi trees
• December: Clear the trees. Dig up bamboo roots and fix proper road to south.
• January: Fix soil. Fence in the plot. Fix trenches.
• February-April: Catch up. Put in saplings, bushes and flowers. Install beehives.

Berry berry nice

The new peach tree (I suppose it's one of many types of peach anyway) in the backyard has a couple of fruits that keep getting bigger and juicier every day. And that motivates me to water it and fertilize it more.... it's a good loop.

Will this year's fruits already be edible?

I also spend a few minutes every day plucking poop-camouflage-butterfly-larvae which live on my citrus trees and kill them. I thought it was the job of bees and hornets but apparently not. By chance, one of those times I did see a long legged hornet that was busy building a nest in my yuzu tree. I was picking a larvae just a few centimeters from it but it didn't notice me, fortunately. I saw it first, and backed away slowly. It had already made a 3 cm big nest... a few minutes later it flew off to get water or rest or something, and I saw my chance and picked the nest off the tree and destroyed it. Phew. But I guess there will be more attempts cause those hornets keep buzzing around that specific area.
Other than that, I have been lucky enough to eat some of the sweetest strawberries every morning picked from my garden. Hope the ants don't start feasting on them like they did last year.

Corner of backyard strawberry bed

Main garden strawberry bed, along with all its weeds

They are super sweet. I don't know what I did right though...
In the forest, I just spend time doing the sorting, and also opened up an area in the middle of the plot where it seems safest to make a big fire, in preparation for burning the bamboos.

I should maybe make it even wider

The current activities in the forest are fun because I get to choose between many tasks, and won't get bored doing just one thing. On the other hand, all of those tasks involve bamboos which I hate more and more, so there's a downside. I gather branches a couple of hours, kick new shoots, cut down bamboos in the north side, sort out and move bamboos in the plot based on their size, etc etc. So the plot gets nicer gradually..

Mountain of branches I gathered, ready to burn

.

The wall in the north

Why does everything I do sound like something from game of thrones?
Anyway, I started shredding bamboo the other day, and the machine's band broke off... cheap crap. This chipper is turning out to be a total disappointment. I ordered a new band, and while waiting, started to cut off bamboos from the north side and make a wall where my land ends and where it gets really slopey.

Like so

Every day the wall became more clear, and a couple more things became clear to me too... One is, as I mentioned before, that I need to clear everything in the north to avoid having bamboos falling over in my land every now and then. I have to keep it maintained especially during the spring where new shoots come out. Luckily the owner in north doesn't mind, and I already asked him (the old guy)
I figured I will lay down the bamboos I cut nicely without cutting their branches and just let them rot with the years.

The wall a couple days later

 Another thing that dawned on me was that I need to burn most of my bamboo, the thin branches and the real thick logs because I cannot shred them, and the rest because the chipper keeps breaking, so it is easiest to just burn everything.

The wall, even later

I have to wait though until they are dry and the weather also is colder. All this made me change my original PLAN, so now I have a new PLAN version 2.

All bow down to the new PLAN

So it seems right now all I can do is to sort and shred as much bamboo as I can, and kick the new shoots until it gets colder. Oh, and to clear the south east area, which is currently being used by everyone as road by mistake. I have to reclaim that area and clear the actual road from the bamboo and bushes that have been growing there...

Garden news

It's been a long time so here is a long update on the garden...
I bought a new peach sapling and planted it in the backyard, just next to where Chubby was buried. I figured her spirit can live on and give beauty to the world that way, or something like that.

It's already got a couple of tiny fruits

I am pretty proud of my selection of sapling. I think I am getting better at picking good ones, with the right shape and that.
I also thought that I should not give up on passion fruits so easily after 2 failed attempts and 2 winters killing the plants off, so I got a couple passion fruits too. Plus they were on sale so...

Third time's the charm

The seeds that I planted are now peeping out, all except the melons which apparently became a nice feast for the crows and other birds. Only shells remain. I guess I dug them in too shallow.
Among the others that still live, worst off are the watermelons. Something has already chewed off the tiny leafs that came out. But the little green baby still fights on, so it is not over yet.

half eaten leafs

here is another baby melon, luckily not eaten.

I also planted the remaining sunflower seeds from last year and they seem to still work.

Yep

I have been pretty diligent in removing weeds from the strawberry beds, and it seems to pay off. The tiny strawberries are taking form and the plants seem healthy. I also added a bit fertilizer.

I know, I know, the ants will eat them before I get a chance

Next up are the tomatoes. A bit shy but still... This year I opted for big size tomatoes rather than the mini ones. Less work I figured.

The typical leaf shape of nightshades are emerging

Moving further, the zucchini are getting bigger every day.

Excited to see what becomes of these

Hanging above the zucchini bed is my new favorite, making its debut this year, the cherry tree. Tiny fruits are everywhere already. Hope the birds don't get them.

Oh, come on grow! grow!

 In the backyard beds, this year I only planted different sorts of corn and potatoes, and they are coming out like there is no tomorrow. (Well not really, they are actually coming out pretty slowly which makes me wonder if all the manure and compost and fertilizer I added in the backyard is not working)
Nevertheless, they are coming out.

Corns leafs

Spuds leafs

In the backyard, the other day I met the offspring of our last year's hero. It was sunbathing I suppose.

Baby predator

Leaving the backyard and going up to the compost bins and the plum tree, there are a few plums that made it through the fungus epidemic. They are tiny but at least look normal.

A few who made it

A few more who made it

Next to the plum tree is the old peach sapling, doing its best with a couple of little fruits hanging from its branch.

peaches of tomorrow

Next to it, there are the broad beans, doing much much better this year thanks to me killing off the aphids earlier on. Plus they are growing among garlic.

Yummy

Good size too

Looking a little closer though, I see aphids have made ghettos and living like gangsters.

I hate you

I sprayed a bit of my special medicine on them and most of them were gone by the end of the day. The ones that remained became food for the lady bug.

Doing her job

and doing it well

In other animal news, I brought with me a couple of frogs I found in the woods when I was "flattening" and put in the pond. But the next day both were gone. Oh well. At least the baby frogs are still in there and growing.

These are a different sort that climb branches.

I think that's about it for now. Just waiting for the new stuff to grow...