Receding hairline

In order to clean up all the fallen bamboo and make the "flooring", every now and then I take my saws and spend a couple of hours in the forest cutting branches and moving them and laying them in parallel lines, while listening to some audio book. It's pretty zen.
Everyday just before going back home I take a picture of the plot and little by little one can see that it's getting cleaner. It almost looks like my forehead and how it gets clearer and looks wider and flatter year after year as my hair is recedin.
So anyway here are my latest end-of-day shots...

Just started in the corner

Sloooowly cleaning inwards

Stretched the flattened area along one side

Still there's a lot to go...

I can't wait till I've flattened the whole thing. That is when I can start felling the sugi. I counted them and there are 24 in the plot (25 if I count one in the back/north)
Have still not moved the incorrect corner post. I have talked a lot about it, and also knocked doors and talked to the 90 something year old owners of the land nearby to find out if he remembers where the old path goes, but of course he didn't remember. So I measured and set up markers according to the map instead and it looks sensible. Next I need to get the surveyor to come by and give his blessings while we all are present, and move the post for us.
In the meantime, I am busy busy doing forest cleaning.
Oh, and I ordered some seeds for the farm plot I am borrowing. Corn, squash, melon, watermelon... this kind of thing.

I can see clearly now

Finally, a couple more days and I have now removed ALL the bamboo from my lot.

Day 9

With the bamboo gone, I can see all the way to the lot next to mine from the other side. Next I have to get rid of the sugi trees. I shall start with the thinnest one and fell it, to get a feeling of how easy or hard it is. If it proves to be difficult, I will ask a professional...

Day 10

The ground is covered with fallen bamboos in all random directions crossing and lying on top of each other, so it is a high heap. My next step before getting to the sugi trees is to tidy up the ground. I don't have a chipper, and even if I had one I could only chip the green freshly cut bamboos, not the brown hardened ones. So what I will do is to cut all the fallen bamboo into 2-4 meter long pipes, and lay them all down in the same direction so they cover the ground properly. Like bamboo flooring...

Final Day

In the final day picture one can see all the sugi trees that are standing. Not so many. But tougher to cut down...
On the north side (right in the picture) is the shared slope with something like 100 unknown owners. I can't leave those bamboos as they are because they all lean over my lot, and one by one will fall over my saplings or whatever I have. So after I am done with the bamboo flooring I need to cut those back too as far as I can, and not let new shoots pop up.
On the south, there are no big trees leaning over my land but a few (maybe 40-50?) bamboos. I have to find the owner of that lot and ask if she allows me to clean up the bamboo in her land. That way I will get more sun too. When all that is done, then I can start with the sugis. And after that I can start putting things in the lot.
So, to summarize my todo list:
1- tidy up the ground, flatten the "flooring" and block the sun
2- cut back bamboos in north and add those to the ground cover
3- clean up the south side forest
4- keep new shoots to come up in all those areas
5- cut down sugis
6- plant young trees. I am thinking cut holes in the "flooring" where I want to put in a sapling and dig a hole only there. That way I will keep the natural ground cover longer, and bio life will hopefully take care of the dying and rotting bamboo roots beneath.

Final day, taken from other side

The north bamboo wall is clearer visible in the last picture from the other side. Also the messy ground can be seen better.
Oh, and I have a chance to maybe get back those 4-5 meters that I was missing on the border when we dug in concrete posts. I mentioned the miscalculation for Mr. K and he said he doesn't mind if we dig up the post and put it in the right place, but he wanted us to check with Mr. O too.
We checked and all agreed that the border line looks weird the way it is, and that it doesn't match the actual map, and as a result my land is more than 50 sqm smaller than it should be. So it should be corrected. But they said it is best to do it properly, and check with the owners around the area if any of them remembers where the old road used to go. The reason they want to find that out is that on the map the old road happens to intersect with the current visible road exactly at the border between my land and Mr. K's so if we know that road, we are sure to know the almost exact point where the post should go.

Visual aid for the confusing description above

Post new year 2019

Phew... I am spent! cutting and cutting and cutting. I am posting here the day by day progress pictures of the forest plot. First off, here is me in my gear.

Helmet is really needed

I was real glad to have worn the helmet. Already the first day I got two big bamboos falling and hitting me right in the head. The mask also is a must because not only does it stop me from getting all the sawdust in my lungs, it also blocks the white, black and other color fungus spores that seem to live in this plot.

Day 2

Spending so much time in the plot, I saw that my neighboring owners, let's call them Mr K and Mr. O, also come by once in a while. Mr. K came by almost every day with a truckload of burnable (including plastic) trash and made a nice fire on his lot and burned it. One day he gave me a baked sweet potato which he had made in that same fire. Hot hot hot and yummy. They are both nice guys and seem to want to help. Mr. O already set me up with another Mr. O who I already mentioned lent me his field.

Day 3

It was nice to have someone to chat to when I felt out of breath and took a break. And I could gradually get some background information about the area, like long time ago how water used to be lead over our plots in order to reach the rice paddies further down west. (Before those rice paddies became golf courses). I would stop my cutting, get a sip or two of drink and have a five minute chat while wiping my glasses. Yes, the glasses fogged up all the time thanks to the mask and my heavy breathing, so I was cutting half blind.

Day 4

In the day to day pictures it is not so easy to see how much I have been cutting due to the thick bamboo grove still remaining in the background. So I add a picture from the side just to show better.

Day 4 from side

I started by just felling the bamboos and letting them lie there randomly but quickly realized that they pile up real bad. So I spent the 5th and 6th day cleaning up the mess from the beginning, and starting from day 5 I actually took care which way the fallen bamboos would lie so they would not take too much space.

Day 5

You can see that the border between my plot and Mr. K's becomes cleaner and cleaner. I wanted to chip down all that bamboo and spread it over the plot, but I don't have a wood chipper. I think if I chop down the bamboos in decent enough size and arrange them properly, they would work as mulch blocking the sun from reaching the soil and stopping more bamboos from popping up. Also they would disintegrate naturally over a couple of years and add to the soil anyway. So that is what I will do.

Day 5 from side

Once Mr. O came by and showed me a really old map of the area and told me a little about the history of the place. He was also accompanied with the owner of one of the plots farther south. We were talking about how there are 2 paths in the south and that no one knows whose the plots directly to the south of the path belong to, and how the city never maintains that path so it has become overgrown with trees. Actually Mr. O thinks that the paths are where the woods are, and that the clear land that looks like a path and currently being used is part of our plots. Anyway, we all would like to remove as much trees from south as possible to allow for sun to reach the lands.

The old-ass map, with my plots marked with red crosses

I don't think the expression "not being able to see the forest for all the trees" applies here, but something like that is what I get to experience first hand. Not being able to see the forest plot because of all the bamboos. The more bamboos I cut, I discover more of what the plot has growing in it. The most obvious is the several tall sugi trees which I kind of could see even before cutting down any bamboos, but now I get to see how many more there actually is. All of sugi trees I really want to cut down as they cast big shadow and take up land with their roots and are generally in the way. Plus I have a bit of allergy. Also their falling branches and leafs are a big nuisance according to Mr. O who agrees with me wanting to cut them down. Except he asked me to let one sugi remain. If I understood him correctly he wants it to serve as a marker for where the path goes south of my land. It is the biggest sugi tree around, and it is right in the south part of my plot so I want it gone. But I don't have the power or time yet to cut it down so I just said sure, for now. Of course since the tree is on my land I get to decide to cut it.

Me and a couple of the sugis. These are biiig

Cutting down bamboos is one thing but the sugis are large powerful beasts that I think not me alone with my chainsaw can kill. I will attempt of course on the smallest of them and see how realistic it is. But still thinking about it is scary. The tallest non-bamboo tree I ever fell was the one next to the house, which was a midget in comparison. And that one was a pain in the ass to cut down. I think if I ask nicely the other owners that Mr. O knows can help out...

Day 6

Except for the sugi trees, what grows in that plot is 4-5 types of "weed" trees and bushes almost all with running roots. Thanks to the thickness of the bamboos, those are still tiny and I can pull them out with my hand, so it should not be a big deal.

Day 6 from side

It is nice to see the sun shine on the middle of the plot where it didn't reach before. And it is nice to walk and step on old rotting branches and bamboos and hear them crack crack. Once I have cleared all of the bamboos, I will cut them into shorter logs and arrange them on the ground to cover everything. After that I will cut down as much bamboo as I can from the north side because they all kind of lean over my plot and just fall over once in a while. If a bamboo falls on a sapling, it is finished for sure. Then I want to also go into the south plot on the other side of the path and cut down bamboos there too. I am sure the owner doesn't mind me cleaning up.

Sugi trees emerging slowly from their hiding

After that, I want to fell down all the sugis, and then rent an excavator to dig up roots and stuff. After that I can put in saplings. If I work really hard, maybe by summer I can do it but it would be the most optimistic case.

Day 7

After the 7th day I had cleaned up along the border between my land and Mr. K's, but he said he didn't mind if I mess up on his land cause he is not planning to do anything on it anyway.

Straight and clean along the border

After 8 days of hard work, it was time to go back to work (office), but I am glad I have cleared more than half of the plot. I will cut more on weekends and hope to finish it within this month...

Day 8

I think I can see a slight difference even now, compared with the "Before" picture  

Christmas updates

Now finally the forest plots' boundaries have been marked, albeit not so very officially. As I mentioned the surveyor didn't actually measure anything but just asked all the owners if they were OK with putting the boundary posts here and here. Also the boundaries are not registered with the city office. We have made a document signed and stamped by me and the other owners that says we are OK with these posts but the actual official map still overrides all that. The surveyor made a map of where the posts are put, and when I compare that map with the actual map the shapes of the plots are not exactly same, for example a couple of borders that are supposed to be parallel according to the official map are only almost parallel according to the posts. So the plot sizes are different (in my case I think one of my plots is like 80 sqm smaller than it should be)
Overall it is not a huge difference. If I plant trees in my plot it means a 5-6 less trees, so instead of planting say 150 trees, I will have 145 trees. I can still add those 5 missing trees if I plant them right at the border where I think the correct map shape is but really who cares.

One of the new concrete posts

Another post. They are red and cute and cost me 10000 yen

So with the boundaries defined, I can no longer blame anything to block my progress. I have a square shape of over 1000 sqm full of bamboos to tidy up and get into shape. Armed with my new chainsaw I went into the plot thinking it would take 1 or 2 days tops to cut down all the weed...

The before image...

...and the rest of it

A day of cutting down bamboos and laying them along the border later, the plot was still full of bamboos. In fact no change seem to have occurred.

Oh boy! This is gonna take a while isn't it?

Looks like just a couple of days won't be enough. So I decided to spend all my free time during the new year holidays to cut and cut and cut....
On our way back I also took a picture of the farm plot I have borrowed nearby.

I am thinking melons, garlic, corn and some more stuff

In the garden at home, not much goes on except for freezing. The little pond is completely frozen.

Let it go, let it goooo...

And frozen is also the passion fruit. The huge thing started to drop its leafs and I thought it is going to sleep for the winter, until I looked closer and saw that it had actually frozen.

Wait what?

Not only frozen but the water in the branches has exploded with ice. Man. I guess they are dead unless the roots have some magic left in them. Oh well, learned the hard way. Passion fruits are not gonna grow here.

Close up of the exploded passion ice

Bush rotation

Haha, well now it is official. The daikon radish were a failure. I picked the 2 biggest ones, and they are no bigger than my carrots.

Actually they are smaller

I think the reason is that the soil has very poor quality plus I started them too late so they didn't get enough sun.
Had a week off and nothing to do in the garden, so I did the only thing I could come up with: clean up the peppers, eggplants and tomatoes. Yes, although they did their best to keep on going, they finally gave in to the frost, which to be honest was not very severe. So their place will be unused until spring.
Lesson learned: pull up the vegetables much earlier even if they start re-blooming cause the harvest will be minimum and the place can instead be reused for winter crops earlier.
After the beds were cleaned I noticed how much the blueberry branches occupy, and decided to do something...

This is what it looked like before

Of course before doing anything I had to clean up the weeds and mini bamboo grass jungle that had formed around the bushes, to even be able to access the blueberry itself.

from the side. The branches pretty much cover the beds 

It took a while but I cut all the grass. I think the mini bamboo are starting to weaken after me cutting them down so many times... Could it be the roots will die in a few years if I keep on repeating this?

Without the weeds, you can see the blueberry bushes more clearly

The leftmost bush, the biggest of them all, is right next to the cherry tree. So I cannot pull it out with its roots as they pretty much share the same spot with the tree's roots. All I could do there was to tie the branches up with a rope and pull them up as hard as I could, bend them backwards and over to the cherry tree trunk's other side. So now they are not hanging over the beds anymore, and are pulled back with a rope, and are also supported backwards by the cherry trunk. Maybe in a couple of years those branches harden and take this new form...
The middle bush has its own spot, and I took the bold step and pulled it out with its roots (not all its roots but hopefully the major parts) and rotated it 180 degrees so now it is hanging upwards. Just hope the roots take hold again. We'll see next year if I managed to kill it or not.
The rightmost bush was not as much nuisance so I just tied up a couple of its branches and pulled upward.

tied up and rotated. Blueberry roots are wide and shallow

So now the beds underneath the bushes are more open and seem bigger. Hopefully I can use them better next year.

from the side. So clean.

We met up with the surveyor by the way, for putting in the border posts. There was not much to measure... he looked around for natural indicators of the boundaries, such as big trees or different growth, and with the two other owners in place it was easy to come up with spots that we all agreed.
One of the owners kind of knew which tree was part of which plot, so that helped too. Neither of us really minded that much to get as much margins as possible, and no one was interested in pushing the boundaries to gain a couple of extra centimeters so I think this method was fair. Finally the spots were defined and wooden posts put in place. They more or less ended up in the same spots as the selling real estate agent had marked, actually a bit farther away so now my plots are bigger than I thought.

One of the wooden posts. 

Next the surveyor will measure the distance between the posts and calculate roughly the areas, and get our hanko on agreement that these posts are OK. And then he will replace the wooden posts with concrete markers.
After that I can get to work. Finally.
Oh while we were there following the surveyor around I got to chat with the owner of a farm plot nearby, and it turned out he was not using his plot so he agreed to lend it to me for free so I can grow something on it. He said it is 1 tan which I think equals 1000 sqm. Yeay! A real flat farm plot with good soil and sun. Have to plan what to grow there by end of winter....
I have got an electric chainsaw now. After the forest boundaries are defined, I will start by cutting down all the bamboo, and put them sideways in the north side among the existing bamboo to keep them from rolling down. Then I shall rent a small excavator and dig out the roots. And then cover the whole area with sheets of carton to keep weeds and new bamboo from growing. After that it should be easy to keep the bamboo controlled.
Still haven't figured out a way to stop the roots from spreading into my plot again from north and south. Maybe dig a deep trench and fill with concrete?
After I have cleaned the plot, I will be planting fruit saplings while keeping the cardboard mulch between them. And I am also thinking of honey bees.... 

Winter is coming

The potatoes in the backyard took their time to pop out and develop a few leafs and for a while it seemed they were big and strong enough to make it. But we had a couple of sudden frost nights in a row and I guess the top row of the backyard is the coldest (lesson learned) cause now they all look pretty dead... better luck next time I guess. I will plant potatoes up there in summer instead, and more hardy vegs in winter. The other veggies on the lower rows and under the nets are still fine.

Good to know what survives the cold

In a week or so I am going to start pruning the bushes and trees. Just waiting for the final leafs to fall too. Also I am supposed to widen the holes of the roof netting of the chicken run, so that snow doesn't pile up and collapses the whole run like it did last winter, and still not too wide holes so that chickens can fly out...
It is getting real cold now, and I am not going out more than necessary, which means only to feed the chickens, early in the morning when it is the coldest. Brrr, get out of warm and cozy bed and straight out into the cold.
The cats feel the cold too cause they more often than before set their differences aside and cuddle together to keep warm.

They fight a lot, but deep inside they are all friends

Oh, after 1,5 years, finally I came up how to make borders for the forest plots. After talking to the owners of the neighboring plots and a couple of surveyors, I picked the cheapest solution which means getting the neighbors' agreement and hanko on a measurement by the surveyor. The measurement will not be registered with the city, but is still official as there is a written agreement between us. The surveyor will basically define 4 lines using 8 concrete posts. These lines will be the borders between my 2 plots and their surrounding ones to the east and west. North and south borders are not going to be well defined. South border is a dirt path belonging to the city, which is so-so defined as its shape can be seen, kind of, without having to measure. North border is a narrow and very steep strip of forest which is share-owned by over 100 people, many of them I assume are not even alive. It is not really used.
Anyway, having the west and east boundaries defined, I can do what I want within my land as long as I don't try to push to north or south too much. I will just leave a meter or so just to be safe.     
I am not interested in planting anything in the south path, and neither in the steep north strip.
First measurements are supposed to be done next week.

Garden snoozing

Gradually it has gotten colder, and although the delayed cold at first confused some the trees so much that they started blooming and even fruiting (the lilac started budding anew, and yep, I found 1 big berry on the little mulberry tree), now they are all finally going to sleep.
Some of the veggies still thrive. Surprisingly the mini tomatoes, the peppers and the eggplants have not sang their last songs...

still going strong

and I can still go out and grab a handful of fresh tomatoes from the freezing cold garden any day.

Still sweet, and still the kittens like to watch

The carrots are now shaping and I already picked up 3-4 so so sized ones. Very very delicious.

Although one had this weird shape.

The round tiny one in the picture, even though on the surface it looked bigger, its roots somehow had not developed as much...
The daikon patch is not exactly successful... but one or two have started to look like daikon.

Not sure when to pull it out though

I'm gonna let it be there a long while to see how big it gets. The broccoli are now blooming, tiny tiny green flowers are forming.

still lots of leafs

Oh, here is a picture of the walnuts losing their leafs and going to sleep. Almost invisible again.

the salad leafs decided to grow out now

The "main" bean patch doesn't look so main. Most of the broad beans rotted before even germinating, and the green peas are not climbing as they should for some reason, maybe it's too windy cause they tend to cling together in clumps...

At least the garlic seem to like it

This morning we had the first frost. The soil was white and crystals had shaped. I suppose officially everything not winter should go to sleep or die now.

frosty

But of course I still have all the year-round veggies and winter stuff, plus some netted stuff

The green peas in the backyard are "main" now

I was gonna harvest the last of the peanuts too, but it looks they are still small... I will wait until there are no leafs

almost there...