Overall status

Here is a report of what everything looks like as of today. In alphabetical order.

Ajisai flowers

The huge ajisai bush in the backyard which I got from the previous owner keeps flourishing without any effort from me. Another thing that has grown big and happy with minimum effort from me is the small berry shrub near the house entrance. The only thing I did for that one was to not cut it down, and move its branches from time to time so they are exposed to the sun.

Berries

Blueberries are also starting to come out. I am glad it survived my turning the whole bush 180 degrees. In a month or so it will be jam time.

Just a few of them.

Talking about shrubs... the other day I was cleaning out weeds near the parking and froze when I saw a wasp just inches from my face making a nest in the bushes. It's one of those long leg wasps that I have mixed feelings about. Anyway, I sure don't wanna have them making a huge nest in my garden so I can't go out. Therefore I nipped the nest in the bud so to speak.

There were already a few larvae and some eggs in there

Moving on to the garden, the carrots finally decided to come out.

A bed of carrots. They're still tiny though

Right next to the carrots is a whole mess of trees and stuff.

The walnut trees

From left we got 2 walnuts, 1 mulberry, 3 mikans, 1 kiwi, 2 pomegranate, 1 fig and some other stuff that I am not sure if they live or not.
And to the right of all that is the chicken run with the providers of egg.

bwaaak

Here is a close up of the figs. They are real nice size but I am not sure when they will ripen.

There's 6 of them this year

Here is a better view of the fruit saplings

mikan at bottom, fig on top, kiwi to left and pomegranate in center

In the backyard, I planted grapes almost right after we moved in 3 years ago. It was a pretty lousy job the way I planted it and it's a miracle it still lives. The grapes are the seedy type which I am not sure I will enjoy eating. Anyway, it was climbing up the fence which I realized was a bad idea cause almost all the leafs and the flowers got on the south side, i.e. outside my garden where nobody can reach. So I disconnected it gently and wrapped it instead around a stake and some netting inside the backyard. Still, the soil up there is pretty crappy so I don't have very high hopes.

said grape is on left side of the top row

Another thing I planted early on is the mulberry tree which was taking a bush shape but I am training to become a tree because I don't have much space. Every day I get a handful of nice and ripe berries.

black mulberries

In the backyard over the burial place I have my nightshade family. Piman, tomatoes and eggplant.

And in the center front is a baby terminator

The plums/anzu or whatever it produces tree which I sprayed with neem oil has produced much much less plum pockets, and a little more actual fruit this year. Hmm... maybe I give it a chance after all. I will spray it again next winter and hope for even more improvement.

I actually can get 2 fruits in one shot 

Next in the backyard are the group of random insect repellents that don't work.

mikan, onion and marygold. Smell nice.

Let's not forget the mini pond I made...

Lotus flowers and some other water plants

Again, those water things also take no effort. Another effortless poor thing that lives in my garden is the rose.

Thanks for not dying

The backyard steps are almost full of weeds this year. Although I have picked weeds like twice already. I did plant some potatoes, lots of different flowers, string beans and strawberries, but somehow the weeds seem to like it the most. I will give the whole thing a new try again soon.

What can I say... I'm a lazy bum

In the middle of the garden is the strawberry bed, with the new-coming pears.

In the back there are the cherry trees and green peas

And finally, in the forest front, I am digging a little at a time, and this is how far I have come

Almost a quarter of the length

Timberrrr...

Scorching hot days are becoming more and more frequent and nice and cloudy days when I can dig in the soil happen less. I got fed up waiting for a cloudy day, and on a very sunny day took my chainsaw and lumberjack gear to make some small adjustments to the forest.
Maybe I mentioned it before, that Mr. O has been saying more than a couple of times that the leaning tree over by North-West side of my plot, which leans over both my land and his, but originates in the plot north of both ours, belonging to many people and none, is quite annoying and that he would be happy if someone (nudge nudge, me) took care of it.
I too think it has to go, cause sooner or later I will have planted something under it and it will fall over during a typhoon and crush everything beneath it.
Last time he said the same thing, I told him I am thinking about cutting it down, and at the same time told him that I want to cut the "roppongi" trees on the west border which I have left intentionally. I told him that the reason I left them there is that they kind of lean too much over his plot and I fear that if I fell them and cannot control it, they will fall over the small trees in his plot and break them.
He said that it's totally fine, and that he didn't care that much if a couple of trees are broken as those are not fruit trees or important trees. There are plenty of small trees in his plot anyway.
So with his permission in mind, I started by cutting down the 4 sugi trees which I judged are in the way if I want to cut down the leaning tree of Pizza.

Before picture

I started with the smallest one, nr 4 from right. It really leaned over Mr. O's land so I didn't even try to make it fall over my land. however, I did cut it so that it wouldn't fall over the row of fruit saplings which he planted last year. I was very happy to see that the tree just missed the saplings, and didn't break any other trees neither when it fell.

Just missed the tiny saplings to its left

My memory from winter told me that felling sugi trees should be relatively easy work and I should be done quickly. Especially if I am not hauling real heavy logs, and if I only fell 4 trees 3 of which are relatively small. So I didn't bring anything to drink with me, which is very exceptional. Huge mistake!
I must have underestimated the heat, because only after having cut down 1 tree, the smallest of the four, I was panting like a dog. Time to run home and bring back some liquid.
Then it was time to cut the tree up in pieces and put the pieces into my plot. I did take care to cut the bits small enough so I didn't have to use much force moving them. Lessons learned from last time. This was all done in an area with lots of shade, so I was spared from the direct sun and heat. But still, the big bottle I brought with me was down to half when I finished the first tree.
The second tree also went down pretty good. That one also fell over Mr. O's land as planned, without hitting any trees, and cut up and moved over to my land. I was staring to feel real confident.
I was out of drink, and facing the 3rd tree, the biggest one. Almost 30 meters tall and with a girth in class with the huge ones I felled in winter. I decided that I would cut that tree first and then go to get a drink.
I could not decide which way it was leaning cause it was a bit curvy and also had lots of big branches on the side that was not my land's side. Anyway, it was a pretty huge tree and I really didn't want it to fall over in Mr. O's land, so I used my trusty wedges and a couple of quick cuts followed by lots of hammering, and it was down in my plot. As a bonus, it just fell down about 1 meter away from my oil drum which I had been too lazy to move.

Juuust missed the drum

I also decided that it was too hot to start chopping down that tree. Not much shade over my plot, and I didn't need to hurry to clean up things. Also it had fallen just south of the line where I had dug out roots, so I don't need to access that part of the land until maybe a year or two from now.
Only one tree left, not big, but not tiny neither. Looking at it I think it was kind of straight, with a tiny tiny lean over Mr. O's plot. Nothing that my wedges and my expertise could not handle. Remember I am extremely confident now. Time to get a drink and cool down a bit before the final, easy tree.

Oh shit.

I guess you can't win them all. I did take my time and wedged properly and cut gradually but the wind was simply not with me. Just when the tree started to kind of fall over, and I heard it crack, a gentle breeze at the wrong time changed its direction and the tree tipped over the wedges instead and fell over diagonally on Mr.O's land. I was able to get out of the way when it was coming down, I think because I was paying attention to the tree's movements and sounds. The tree fell and broke the branches of two small trees in Mr. O's plot, no saplings or fruits though, luckily. And the tree's top went over to the bamboo grove in the north and got stuck there and kind of just hung in there.
Awkward.. but I remembered how I handled a similar situation in winter.
I started to cut it into small logs so that it could gradually fall down on the ground. Every piece I cut made the tree shorter and that piece would fall flat down.
However, for each piece, the remaining of the tree would lean more and more, until it was kind of 60 degrees coming down from the bamboo grove. That was tough cause I had to climb up and stand in the slope, with my arms and the chainsaw lifted more than I was happy with and cut bits of sugi as well as supporting bamboos.
The bamboos were the risky ones, because they were holding the heavy tree with their elasticity, and a tiny cut would make them bounce with great force in unexpected directions. I think I was very lucky that I only had to cut 2-3 bamboos and was not hit by them. Also the slope was pretty slippery being sandy covered with leaves, so I did slip once.
Anyway, with lots and lots of effort, and a huuuge deal of caution, I managed to clean up the mess. Mr. O will surely notice the 2 broken trees but I had his blessing beforehand in case.

cleaned up

I was out of energy, thirsty and hungry. And had spent much longer than I had expected, so I called it a hot day and went home. Another day when I feel ready, I will cut the bamboos surrounding the leaning tree as well as the leaning tree itself.

After picture

Creeping on...

Whenever the weather prediction is not sunny nor rain, that is when I take the opportunity to dig a little further. I thought I had loosened out all the roots but during my cleanup work I hit a big one that somehow had avoided being taken care of. So I hit it a few times with my pickax, which shattered it to pieces and I could remove it with the shovel.
My last blow was probably a bit too hard cause it also broke the ax handle...

I guess it had to happen sooner or later

After a couple more hours, this is what the site looks like:

So beautiful

Every meter the zero-roots area expands gives me such humongous hard-on, eh... I mean motivation to dig more. Nevertheless, it is tough tough work and I can`t rush it or do too much unless I want to break myself.
On the home front, the garden has gone into jungle mode again. I keep the weeds down as much as I can but the rest pop up so there is a kind of balance. It`s a weedy sort of garden. Actually I noticed by accident that the bugs that usually eat my vegetables are concentrating on eating the weeds this year. Maybe it`s a good thing that I am not able to get rid of all of them...

On the right, fig tree with 5 huge figs. Left: Mikan in full bloom

Every day I can pick a couple of strawberries which is cool considering I thought they had been extinct. This morning I picked 3 nice ones, but also found on the ground 6 butts of big red ones that had been eaten clean. Something is picking and eating the ripe berries. I am not sure if it is birds, or if it is another civet... I am going to watch the ripening berries closely and see if they get eaten during the day/evening or night. That should narrow the suspects down a bit. Whatever it is, it has the good taste to eat the whole berry and leave the butt on the ground.

One of the stray strawberries

Maybe I should just give up growing things that are delicious and appear above ground. Or maybe I should cover them with see-through vinyl or net. I will think about it later. One thing is sure though, I have lots and lots of green peas now.

Peas. The only animals stupid enough to eat them are human vegans

Golden week 2020

Almost a whole week off, and nowhere to go because of the corona lockdown. So I took the opportunity and rented a backhoe for 2 days to dig the plot and save my lungs from some of the dust and dirt by not digging manually.
This time the backhoe I got was real real new. On the hour meter it said 70 hours. Wow. Completely different from the piece of crap rusty thing I got last time.

Ain't it pretty?

First off I shoved all the pieces of bamboo lying around to one side so I could get around easier. Then I widened the east side trench. Then it was lunch time.
After that I went on to dig out roots on a 7 meters wide area on the north. So basically after I was done, I had dug out roots from 25% of the plot's whole area.

It is starting to look like a war zone

The plot, after the second hoe attack, from above

While digging with the hoe, I found a couple of snakes which I carefully helped to the side of the digging site so they could go hunt frogs or whatever.
After returning the backhoe, I took a day's rest. Now the roots were all dug out, but not removed, so they were just mixed with the heaps of soil, and needed to be removed by hand. I don't have a tractor and fork, and some of the root pieces are small (10-20 cm) so manually removing them is pretty much my only option if I want a clean plot.

Just started to manually remove roots

So after the rest, I went in with a shovel and little by little took out roots and cleaned the soil, starting from east.

30 more meters to go...

After a day (well 3 hours really, but it is my limit of cleaning roots by hand in the summer heat), these pictures above show how much I had achieved.

Here is where I put the roots I found

The big roots I just put farther south, so they can dry in the sun and so that I can shake out all the soil that is stuck to them. The long roots I throw along the north wall, north of the wall. I figured that is only right because that is where they originated.