20 meters

It was tough but I finished digging 20 meters along the side of the plot, cutting off roots that were crossing over from the neighboring plot. It took some time as I did it all manually with a shovel and a pick axe.

20 meters trench

Now I needed to widen it to a meter, so that I can bury the root barrier sheet there, backfill with soil and still have some margin to continue cleaning roots on my side later on.
The digging and removing roots itself is not that difficult. In fact it is pretty interesting and I could very well do the whole plot by hand.
However, every time I got home from hours of digging, I felt heavy in my lungs and eventually developed a bit of coughing and itch in my chest. No matter how well I used the mask it seems the dirt and stuff somehow find their way into my respiratory system. Especially in there corona times I don't want to intentionally weaken myself so I decided to stop digging for hand and get a backhoe again and finish the job that way.
This is how far I got with the widening before I decided to use machinery.

3-4 meters maybe?

I noticed how gradually more solid and clayey the ground gets after 30 cm depth, and how if I just leave it like that it probably would turn solid.
Also, although it is hard to imagine, the ground is really FULL of rhizomes. I think after removing all the roots I would be left with noticeably less soil than now. So I decided to, after I am done de-rooting the plot, mound up the top soil in rows on top of the hard surface and make my swales that way, with paths in same depth as I have dug now.

Archeological finds

The digging continues. Right now I am just digging  a 20-30 cm wide and 40 cm deep trench along the rope. That should be the most difficult part. After that I will make it wider (1 meter) and deeper (half meter, which is the height of the root barrier)
Here is the progress so far, a couple of days' worth of work:

4 meters...

And a day later:

11 meters

I dig around the poles that keep the rope up. While digging, I found this in the ground:

treasure from the past

I wonder how many years from now this bottle would count as archeological material and classify my plot as preserved and prevent me from working on my land more.

And so it begins...

No matter where I check for ways to eradicate bamboo, it is always written that completely getting rid of bamboo is difficult next to impossible, and that the only way to do it is to remove all the roots manually, and that doing it is quite a feat and that they would love to shake the hands of whoever actually manages to accomplish it.
Well,, I guess it is a good enough challenge for me. I start in the corner, and dig away...

I slowly work my way along the line

The plan is to dig a meter wide 30 meters long trench along the rope, removing bamboo rhizomes and then to bury the root barrier sheet in there and backfill with soil. That gives me a meter wide root-free margin while I remove the roots from the rest of the land and plant maybe 1 row per year...
Hmm... does it mean I will be finished with the whole plot 7 years from now??? How poetic.

PTS Therapy

Looks like I am destined to dig out every root in my forest plot by hand. It will take a long long time, maybe years. But the result, if I don't die of old age in the process, will be beautiful.
As the first step, I marked the border between my land and Mr. K's land. That line is where I will dig a trench and bury a bamboo root barrier sheet. Also everything on my side of that trench will be dug inside out and roots be removed.
Here is the before and after picture. Now I can start digging.

More old bamboos to be disposed of

I just wonder... by doing all that digging, will I totally mess up the soil PH, or will the structure and organisms somehow manage it cause I will be doing it manually and gradually?

The rope looks almost civilized

Civet

I check for bamboo shoots for 20 minutes or so every other day, but so far there are only 2-3 each time. Either someone is taking care of them when no one is around, or this year the roots are weaker or something. Maybe the messed up weather has confused the season for the bamboo too so they all pop up later. Who knows. At least right now they are not there yet.
In the garden, I cleaned up a row in the backyard and planted whatever seeds I had left of eggplants and paprika and string beans. And in the main garden beds, where there are no saplings, I put corn.
The plum tree which I have been spraying like crazy with neem oil has now lots of tiny fruits, but unfortunately the plum pocket disease has not vanished. However, the affected fruits seem less than last year. Could it be that the neem oil is helping? If by the time summer comes the tree only gives a handful of fruit again, and the rest turn into zombies, then I will just cut it down and plant something more resistant.
This morning early I went like usual with feed to the chicken run. After feeding the birds, on my way back to the house I decided to walk past the tiny pear sapling to see if it has decided to grow a tiny branch yet.
Then I heard a bark/hiss from the civet trap, which I had completely not noticed on my way up to the chicken run. The trap has been lying there for ages now, with 1 single egg in it which I figured had rotten. It was there all winter and I had learned to walk around it and just ignore the whole cage. So imagine how my heart jumped three meters when I heard the sudden bark of a civet for the first time in my life. Apparently the civet thought I got a bit too close on my way back and wanted to scare me or something.
It had rained heavily all night last night, as well as strong winds so I wonder what made it come out and look for food in such a night. It was a very scared and exhausted thing, and I gave it a banana to eat before thinking how to deal with it. It wolfed the banana down and continued to hiss angrily at me. It was in pretty bad shape, it had scratch wounds and missing patches of fur which I don't think were from the cage.

The culprit

Maybe it had little baby civets waiting for food back home, maybe it wasn't the same civet as the one who tried to eat my chickens last year and the one who took one chick the year before that. All I know is it was in the garden despite the fencing and digging in my crops and eating whatever little I was planting. It was just being a civet doing what civets do to live. Of course, civets are not native to Japan and were introduced from other countries so it should have been doing civet stuff somewhere else.

Well well what do you know

Went to the woods to kick some bamboo shoots and waste a bit of power to dig out a few more decimeters of roots.
Was interrupted after 15 minutes or so by the old guy who lives nearby. He was out walking (or maybe he saw me passing by his house and into the woods and decided to come and have a chat) and stopped by to give me some compliments on how nice the land was becoming, and also to let me know the path was now much nicer with the gravel which I made the city people come and pour.
We kept chatting about all kind of things and then saw Mr. K come in with his mini truck and the weekly dose of garbage to be burned.
Oh great I thought. Now I have to give up and go home. He gave us a quick hello and went back to unload his truck.
I continued chatting with the old guy a bit more, he was pretty sympathetic. We talked about how he played golf when he was younger (my age), how I was same age as his young kid, how he had a bad knee and had to have it replaced with a metallic one, how the new corona virus was killing off people, how sad it is that young people are not into planting things anymore and how the government was taking their motivation by enforcing a lot of hurdles and regulations, how I should not give up on this piece of land, and how he had no idea who Mr. K was although he had seen him around a few times. Then he went over to Mr. K to ask him who he was.
I took the opportunity to dig a little more while they were chatting, before the fire would start.
Then suddenly I found a piece of bamboo which had been buried for a while and which ants had turned into their nest. When I pick it up and opened it, it was absolutely exploding with ants. I found it extremely funny, so I went over to the old guys and showed it to them, with a smile. Mr. K said right away "want me to burn it?". No, thanks I said and took it and threw it back in my plot, and continued with my digging. He really likes burning things.. hmm
After a few minutes the old guy came back to me and said bye, of course not without chatting 10 more minutes. By the time he was gone, the fire of Mr. K had just started and I was hoping that it contained only wood for once.

Lets see... what else can I put in there?

I wasn't that lucky. It started with wood and then he added a couple of plastic pots and pans, some books and some large frames, and a child seat (really, no joke), and some other unidentifiable things, which all smelled like rubber when burned and produced a heavy black smoke. Nice. I go home now.
However, before leaving I called him over and asked him what he was burning. He said house garbage. I asked if it also had plastic and rubber in it (as if the smell was not enough to answer that)
He said yes and asked if I had any complain.
I explained to him that the fire is not hot enough to burn the plastic and stuff and that all the toxic stuff goes up in the air with that black smoke, which is very dangerous to inhale. I also explained for him that I, being a human, inhaled extra amount of air and deeper than usual when doing body work such as digging. I told him that burning wood is fine as it is still less toxic and hopefully burns more complete with the low temperature fire, but that he must please stop burning plastic, rubber and other garbage when I was nearby working my plot, because it affects my health.
I told him that I am going home now, so he can take his chance and burn all he wants, and that I will come back and work tomorrow instead. But from now on, no more plastic burning in my presence. Also I made sure to mention that it was illegal, although I had no intention to report or complain him if he just kept it away from me.
He either understood or got worried about having to pay fine. Anyway he apologized a lot and said he understands and that he will stop burning non-wood when I was there. Then he continued to apologized like 10 more times and bow, and then 20 more times when he caught up with me again just after I left the plot and was about to ride my bike. I told him that apology is not needed, just do that stuff when I am not there, and also be careful cause the neighbors might just report him instead of complaining directly to him. He got the point.
See you tomorrow, he said finally. That is the day he will be back not burning stuff but cutting weeds.

Apples and Pears

The new saplings in the garden seem to have survived their transplantation and are coming along fine. Although the two pear trees seem a little bit off sync.

Pear tree number 1

It is hard to tell though, cause right now only one of them has branches with leafs on it, and it has even produced 1 tiny white flower. The other tree is just a stick struggling to make leafs and branches. At least it is not dead...

The 2nd pear. Camera had a hard time focusing on it

Hopefully next year both will have branches enough to see if they bloom together or not.
I was bored yesterday so went out for half an hour in the garden and cleared out lot of weeds from one of the beds in the backyard. I was surprised to discover the many strawberries that had survived under the thick cover of the weeds. I thought they were all dead and that I had to replant using the few remaining ones in the other bed. After I was done, I spread the remaining bamboo shreds from last year to serve as mulch. Lets see how it goes.

I kept a few tulips too

The apple sapling which I bought from home center and planted earlier last year lost its leafs over the winter and went to sleep I guess. I took the chance to prune a couple of weirdly aimed tiny and low branches, and now that it is warmer the tree is starting to make new leafs. I was not sure when it blooms so I waited to buy a partner tree for it until I knew the timing.

Apple sapling surrounded by weed

As a joke, when I was done pruning I stuck one of the tiny branches into the soil of a bed where I had thought the next apple tree should go. And then forgot about it...

Survivor apple

Well, it seems the stick decided to grow leafs. It will be interesting to see how far it gets. It's just a stick and not grafted so it depends on how strong it will be as root stock.
By the way in the picture above you can see a couple of foot prints, I hope they are Tora's from when he was walking around there the other day. Otherwise I am in trouble, as it means the civet is back.