A day at the beach

Went paddling on surfing boards and looked like total geeks doing it.

Hard to keep balance

I managed to stand up and paddle occasionally

It was beautiful but the guy's camera was from 18th century

One would imagine they could afford a real camera but nooo

At the end I was so paddled out I could only lie down

Prepare for autumn

It is still pretty hot and there is still lots of life in the tomatoes and the eggplants so I am keeping those until the last minute I guess. But There are still plenty of beds to prepare for autumn.
I dug up the bed near the chicken run where my carrots had failed and also where the sunflowers used to be. I discovered that the lawn that I had buried under the bed in hope that it would eventually die and turn into compost was alive and well with its roots still intact. Actually it had managed to just get up to the bed surface now and new leafs were coming out like crazy.
So I guess just burying the lawn is not a good idea. I was gonna dig those beds proper and get rid of the bamboo rhizomes anyway, so I did. I dug up lots of rhizomes and also all the lawn roots and now the bed is nice and deep. Then I mixed in some manure and compost and planted asparagus seeds which I got from 100 yen shop. Home center had stopped selling them cause apparently they just went out of season and will start selling again in January. But I figured 100 yen is a low risk investment to save one season, and if I am lucky the new asparagus will get established by nex year. If not, I will plant at right timing again.

This is all gonna be asparagus. In the back: figs. In the middle: mikan

Now I know why the poor carrots didn't take. There was a lawn under them that they could not pierce. Let\s see how the carrots that I planted in the backyard fare.
I just remembered that parts of my big strawberry field also is on top of old lawn, and although I have been diligent in picking weeds and keeping it nice, I have noticed quite a lot of dead strawberry leafs and a whole lot of new thin grass starting to come out. Aw man...
Although I am not gonna re-dig that whole bed, I have to reach in and dig up lawn roots here from time to time. The roots are pretty solid and log so once I get hold of a root I can pull it out along with some of its friends. If I do this enough times carefully hopefully I will remove more grass than strawberries.

Lawn under was also same reason why the corn was so small

I can blame everything on the lawn now, haha. Anyway, what I can do, for the strawberry bed, is to dig deep in the 1/3 that is still kind of empty. That way the strawberries can kind of migrate and get established there while I sort out the rest.
While I was digging up lawn for the asparagus I noticed ants apparently love to build nests and lay their eggs under too, so they were not so happy. Finally I get a bit of revenge.
Next weekend I will clear the peppers as they have stopped growing, and make a nice bed for beets or something low there.
Then I will also straighten the pebble path and get rid of the roundabout part, gaining a bit more land to plant on.
After that, while waiting for the tomatoes and eggplants to say their goodbyes, I will continue digging the north bed along the fence.
For autumn, I have got onion seeds, beans and some other fun stuff.
On a completely different topic, I looked around to see how much pros charge to fix my forest plots (Clear the bamboo, dig up all the roots, put in barriers etc) and the cost is real unreasonable. More than 5 times the cost of buying the land itself.
So if anything is to be done, it has to be done by moi. Clearing the bamboo can be done with a chainsaw and I can just leave it there to decompose. Or I can save time and chop up everything and spread as mulch. To dig up the roots and cut them up I need a small excavator. Depending on how much work it is I will either rent or buy one. Chainsaw and chopper I need to buy. It should not be impossible. And the cost will be much much much lower than letting pros do it. If I am to go through with it I need to first learn to operate a Yumbo. Will have a look around to see if there is anywhere I can get a license.

Garden adjustments

With the first growing season behind me I can start planning small adjustments with the lessons I learned so far.
First, here is my backyard. It is quite tall so I had to take 2 pics to cover it all.

I ran out of soil in the end so the upper right wall is still a bit uncovered

I have put in some potatoes in the upper row to keep the weeds at bay. And after getting rid of the melon remains and the weeds I planted various seeds in the second and third row. Things like cauliflower, carrots, salads, broccoli, beets etc. The bugs that eat the tiny newly sprouted leafs are worms that hatch in the soil so no point putting tunnels up. But I may be wrong of course.

lower part of the backyard

I have put in strawberries in the forth row, which I will tunnel when it starts getting cold. Under it at the bottom there is the Yuzu twins on the left, with the ever expanding jasmine behind it. None of them have bloomed. I have put in a bit of fertilizer to get the chemical levels balanced. Let's see if next year we get flowers. Yuzu leafs smell like heaven though. To their right, there is a bed with nothing in it but weeds. It was garlic but they failed. Further to the right we have the 3 passion fruit saplings that grow like crazy. I took the picture from the balcony, so they have already reached its floor and climbing up the rope. They were planted on top of my home made compost but even there I have added fertilizers afterwards. The accidental tomatoes are also there somewhere. And to the right of everything we have the big patch of  marigolds covering Chubby's grave.
OK, on to the main garden and what I am thinking of changing...

Right...

The blue tarp showing is because that particular area is a slope and if I pour rocks on top of the tarp it will just roll down and fall off... I think to remedy that I will just cut off the rock path just above the first bed. So the tarp to the right and left of the bed I will remove and replace with soil and basically extend the bed, which will serve as a delimiter. The blue tarp at the bottom I can then cover with tiles. I can imaging it getting really slippery in the winter which is dangerous. Maybe I even widen the bed to make the lower tarp/tile path a bit narrower. That way I can make an effort and level that path so it is not leaning downward and is safer even if it gets icy.
Expanding the bed to the left will mean that the hanamizu tree (the little that remains of it) will have to go completely, root and all. I have cut it down gradually any way, and it doesn't contribute with much.

The hanamizu tree is also disturbing the nut saplings

I think the bed can be expanded all the way just to where the hanamizu tree is without being in the way of the walnuts. I read that only a few vegetables grow ok near walnuts, such as nighshades so tomatoes and eggplants should be OK.
The area between the pond and the backyard I will leave for now cause I use it to access the backyard. Then we have a couple of saplings there so I cannot make beds there anyway.

Will have to change

The left side of the main garden is sloped and so far I have dared to put saplings there mainly. But where it gets level, to the left of the rock path is good for planting veggies. This year I planted sunflowers and carrots and also started asparagus. The carrots were a big failure, probably cause the soil was too shallow with lawn still decomposing under it, and birds or bugs eating off the tiny carrot leafs. Sunflowers were a big success but I think I can put them somewhere more out of the way next time.. maybe next to the fence which I opened up by cutting branches to create a bed, on the right side. The asparagus look like they really like it. And thanks to their big roots they keep the weeds away. That bed is kind of small and is interrupted as saplings are sticking out here and there. So I want to put more asparagus in that whole area.
Oh, yeah. There is this area where the path widens like a roundabout with a mikan sapling sticking out in the middle. Not sure what I was thinking but that whole area needs to be replaced with soil and veggies. Just a normal path should do fine.
Next we have 4 beds, above the big strawberry field. First one is peanuts, real thick and nice. Second one is mini-tomatoes and cucumber. Third is eggplants and forth is peppers. The eggplant and pepper beds are just under the blueberry, so next time I have to plant something of lower stature. Also I should train and prune the blueberry to stop leaning over the rest of the garden.
I still have to dig and make a bed and path behind the blueberry along with the net fence as well.
I will do as much as I have time with, let's see what it evolves into.
I even thought I could put a couple of beehives on the south sloped side of the garden where no one goes. But still thinking. The area I am thinking of is along the wire fence, starting from where the chicken run ends.  

Cleaning up

The backyard digging is finally finished, and I can look forward to fixing and digging in the main area from now on.
But first, apropos of nothing, the kittens show extreme interest in the little sink above the toilet seat. Of course it is because whenever I flush water runs through that pipe into the sink first like a tiny waterfall and then fills the tank, giving them opportunity to play with water. Good or bad, they are not afraid of water at all, but really love it. When they do something bad and I spray them with water they take it as a reward... so I am not sure how to deter them from doing bad things. Even Tora who used to be terrified of water has started to look at the kitchen sink with different eyes, albeit still carefully. The kittens wait outside of the toilet or bathroom to rush in whenever they get a chance. They even take naps on top of the tank waiting for the next flush. Needless to say, every time I open the kitchen faucet they come running and try to touch and drink the water. Really annoying in the long run when you want something done...

Of all the weird places to fall asleep

Oh it's so much fun

Anyway, back on topic. A couple of dead trees on my neighbor's forest has long annoyed me. The reason is that they are just next to the border and their branches are in my garden. When I drew my net fence I had to leave gaps for the branches in the net, kind of wrapping the net around them. I was not sure if the trees were dead or not, and didn't want to cut a big living branch which didn't belong to me. The net is fine, just looks complicated around the intruding branches. The trees are near each other so this problem is concentrated only to one area.
So...during the last year I have observed the trees and nothing has grown on them. Actually one of them has grown tiny leafs but the other two are very dead. The branches break easily with almost no force, and they are dry all the way inside.

Not a huge problem but it demotivates me from planting anything under the branches

Last weekend I went ahead and cut down the middle tree from its base (it is rooted right on the border so ownership is on both sides I guess, but it completely leaned inside my garden). I also cut down a big dead branch that stuck through my net, and patched the net so it looks normal. The still alive branch I left as it is. Hopefully it will grow bigger leafs and get back to life.

The still alive branch with a few new leafs sticking out from it.

I have already had a couple of trees acting all dead but suddenly springing to life. The biggest example is the walnut sapling. And then there was the lilac at the entrance. Most recent example is my cherry sapling that started growing all new leafs from low part of its trunk.

There's a lot of weeds but cherry leafs are clearly visible

So even when a tree looks dead I have learned to give it a chance as it may just be asleep. But waiting a year and no growth, plus totally dry trunk and branches must mean there is no hope.

comparison. Foreground: living branch. Background: dead branch.

Now that area is cleaned up and the net is patched. The dead branches are gone and I can start expanding my beds there if I want to grow something.

After. Now I only need to cut all the weed and shape a bed.

Something big this way comes

We are supposed to have a strong typhoon hitting Chiba head on in a day or two. Whoops.

Geez, I guess I have to cover whatever is precious in the garden. Strawberries need tunnel, the asparagus too. The rest can do without. Hopefully the stakes and trellis will hold. Passion fruit will have a big shake. And as usual all the saplings are in the danger zone. Maybe I tie them up a bit.
Oh, and need to bury the backyard top row sheet walls completely.

Double Trouble

Not much happening in the garden right now. Just a lot of digging and fixing the soil mainly in the top row of the backyard. So let me just put up a couple of kitty pictures.

Well I guess they are twins after all

Oh hi tongue!

This kind of mess is usually what I come home to.

When they are not messing up the place or ganging up on poor Tora

Oreo's white belly where his name originated

Blue or Red?

The pond is attracting more and more dragonflies. I have "planted" a couple of dead sticks in the pond cause I think dragonflies like to sit on vertical plants....
Yesterday I saw this big blue one sitting on top of one of the sticks. The other day I saw another one while it was laying eggs in the pond. Very interesting dance.
Here is the blue one from yesterday taken with my sony phone.

Sony pictures are huge, like 10 Mb...

Right when I was taking the picture I saw this other beautiful red dragonfly approaching so I hurried in and got my trusty Pentax which has zoom cause I didn't want to scare it away.

Pentax pictures are just as detailed or more but much smaller in size. Like 2 Mb 

Hope they stay and eat all the mosquitoes. Oh, Tora has started a new habit of pooping in our strawberry bed every day. Not good.... So far I just cover it with soil hoping it doesn't attract too many flies. But I heard cat poop is too strong as manure.

Poop picture also taken with Pentax