First row almost finished

It is starting to actually look like a row, finally. I walked along the row and estimated that with 3 meters distance between trees I could fit in 9 trees in each row. However, there is a section of the row where the plot border angles inwards, making the straight row as narrow as only 1 meter. I don't think it would be a good idea to plant a tree in that section. Maybe a shrub or a nitrogen fixer or something. I even though back about putting a couple of beehives there, but I think it would be too much hassle.

I use my superior drawing skills again

Anyway I will skip planting trees in the section where it gets real narrow, so in the first row I should get 6 or 7 trees only. I also bought some cover seeds, like vetch and wheat which I plan to put on there as soon as it feels like there won't be any more frost. In between the fruit trees I shall plant nitrogen fixing trees , what sort I still have not decided.

Row 1 on the right side

While waiting for winter to end, I will finish row 2 and its tatami path as well.

Under construction

I got a bit lazy and instead of pulling out the big dead bamboo butt I just left it there and dug around it, making sure there are no surviving roots. I can balance a tatami mat on top of it. 

Making tree rows

So... finally it is time to make the first row, and then start actually planting things. What a long wait it has been.

While making the row, and any additional soil I need I will take from the little hill I made after digging with the backhoe.

This hill

I thought I should have a "before" picture

After a day and a half of moving dirt, I had finished more than half the length. Of course, I will make some final adjustments and tidying up once the whole row is done. After that I will start making tree row nr 2, as well as drive row nr 2, and start digging into tree row nr 3 while waiting for winter to fade out so that I can do some planting.

Halfway done

Persistent and deep roots

My tatami row finally neared the other end of the plot. Back when I dug out all the bamboo roots, on that side I didn't go all the way to the very edge and had left a meter wide strip untouched. Now was the time to take care of that too since the tatami needed to go over it.

So I marked the border with a plastic string tied between a couple of perfectly positioned trees and started digging and removing roots. I had forgotten how big and hardy those roots are. Anyway, it took some hard digging and now I have a nice and clean border to west as well. I don't have any plastic root barriers to put there though, so I decided to just put a couple of logs which hopefully will serve as barriers.

Is that a root I see?

dig a bit more to see where it's heading

hacked out some of it...

Anyway, it took some heavy lifting and the logs were in position.

Yes, some of the "Art" had to go in there too

Now I figure my "hills" where saplings are planted will be as wide as a tatami length, and it just so happens that my tatami path between the hills reach almost exactly to the "barrier" logs I just put there.

And since all the tatami rows are supposed to be connected, I will make a tatami path alongside the west border, by connecting my tatami rows together using an additional tatami mat between each couple of rows. So basically seen from above my 3 first tatami rows will form an "E" shape.

The purple string hangs exactly where my plot's border is

It feels a bit wasteful to dump good soil under the tatami where I am supposed to walk, so I backfill as much as I can with logs and bamboo chips before I top it with dirt. You can start to see where my paths will be by looking at how the logs are positioned. A bit more digging and hauling, and I had my first "left turn" defined.

I am so tired at this point

Now back when I dug out these parts with the backhoe, I dumped a lot of the soil in tiny hills further toward the middle of the plot. After I have finished placing the tatamis on top of the logs, I will be returning the soil from those hills back where it belongs, to both sides of my tatami rows.

I want to put back soil starting from east to west, so that I will not be trampling it too much where the saplings are supposed to go. Therefore, I will need to be able to go back and forth with my wheelbarrow around the west corner which is shown in the above picture.

But as it is now, the wheelbarrow cannot really climb there, so I will make a tiny dirt path around that corner to make the moving of the soil smoother.

First, it needs to be backfilled with bamboo chips...

Something like this... 

Next I will just need to dump some clay on top of that and my wheelbarrow will be able to run over it. 

Cleaning up a bit

The last tree I fell has been lying there for many many months, and now that I have ran out of logs to put under my path, it is time to take out the chainsaw and chop the tree up into manageable bits.

Before

I don't have an "after" picture it seems, but I took a picture of some art I made using the bits I had after sawing the tree into smaller pieces.

Art

The leaning tree

So I keep backfilling the path and topping it off with tatami. 2-3 mats a day keeps the doctor away.

It's like making a long sandwich of wood and dirt

It is now more noticeable that the path, which once started seemingly below the surface is now slightly above the ground and rising. I am however not worried because I have measured it twice and it is all level. It is the surroundings that are sloping and make the path not look level.

Nevertheless I need to fill underneath the path with thicker and thicker logs to keep it in place.

Some are more hollow than others

I am not worrying too much about the air and gaps inside the fillings under the path. I figure in a few years it will all rot and even out. Or not. If not, then I will have to even it manually or something.

What I am worrying about a little is the nasty leaning tree north of the corner of the plot. I was going to cut it down to avoid it later on falling over a fruit tree on its own and break it. But it is leaning a lot and I think it is very scary to challenge it with my chainsaw. I looked up ways to fell leaning trees and one term kept coming up over and over again with big red blinking warning labels: Barber chair.

Nah, I will let the typhoon take it

I am thinking now more in lines of "it is just in the corner, and it is leaning outside my plot, so why don't I plant something like a nitrogen fixer in that corner and let nature take its course.."

Yeah, when I think about it, it is not really that much of a bother.

It's just ugly

Farming, Japanese style

One morning it just hit me out of the blue. Why don't I just get a whole bunch of old tatami mats that no one wants and line them up to make the path? They surely will prevent anything to grow underneath them, right?

Said and done, I called a couple of places and found a guy who was happy to give them away. So we agreed that I would go and pick up 15 mats the day after. After the call I headed out to the plot to dig/fill more path and prepare for the tatami, and fate had it that my neighbor a couple houses away was having their tatami room refurbished. What a coincidence I thought and started talking to the worker, and asked what he planned to do with the old tatami he was carrying out. He said he was gonna throw them away, so I asked him to give them to me. The 5 mats I got from him would keep me occupied for the day at least, and also serve as proof of concept.

Nice eh?

After I had dumped them on top of my path, it looked like it might work. The next day I took my mini truck to the other guy and got 17 (!) mats from him. Turned out it was just about the weight limit of my kei-truck and I drove it veeery veeery slowly. There is a nasty slope on the road just below my plot where I wasn't sure if I could drive all 17 at once without capsizing. So I put half of the mats neatly in an empty space next to a parking lot just below the slope and took 2 trips up.

While I was putting the mats in the parking lot, a nosy old lady came by and just before she had time to wonder what I was doing, I excused myself, explained my dilemma to her and ask that she has patience 5-10 minutes with my mats being there. Not that it was her parking or anything, but I thought explaining would be the least troubling thing to do, otherwise she might either take them, call the cops or some other stupid thing. She said oh ok, and went her way, then came back 1 minute later (really, 1 minute) and said "you're not gonna just leave them there right?" I realized that I was dealing with an especially bright old lady so I smiled my nicest smile and said Ah no of course I would never do such thing. So she went away again, and came back in a minute, saying "I mean don't throw garbage in other people's land without telling them. You will be back and take those?" I sighed and said yes, and it is not garbage and just in case she was gonna come back again in a minute, I told her 2 more time the same thing, hoping that it might stick somewhere in her brilliant brain. As if I was gonna dump trash in a parking lot I would do it in bright daylight.

Amazingly I managed to get all the mats to the jungle without my truck getting stuck anywhere.

She is tiny and weak

And even managed to line up a couple more mats in the path.

At least it is more or less straight

Water Level

I marked the position of the path using a whole lot of blue pins. After that, using a hose and some water I was able to measure and mark same level points on the pins, in order to avoid a sloping orchard.

Each pin now has a black mark

I used strings between the pins before, but the day after a couple of them had been chewed off. Maybe some animal got caught in them and needed to escape. So I use black marks now instead. The path should be just above those marks.

view from west side

I also noticed that there is maybe 20-30 cm height difference between Mr. K's land and Mr. O's land, so in order to make a level orchard, my path starts below Mr. K to the east, and ends above Mr. O to the west.