I meant it all along

Yep, I didn't dig too deep. There was a plan aaall along. Well at least I can always pretend it was the case.

See, I went in to back fill the hole to be a bit shallower, and I was thinking that it was a bit sad because afterwards I will have to keep cutting the wild, deep-rooted weeds in the rows between the trees all the time. Plus where am I now gonna find all the dirt to mound up my tree rows?

Then the big pile of logs and old bamboo pieces nearby caught my eyes. Aha!

How about I fill the hole with old trees and stuff, and put a few centimeters of dirt on top where I can sow some weed of my own choosing? For example oat, wheat or something like that.

Said and done. Ehmm.... I mean said and started. I hauled over a couple of logs and threw in the hole, and it looks like it will work out fine.

Burying the evidence

After hauling a couple of logs and lots of dirt and bamboos and stuff back and forth all this time, I am starting to feel that I need to get me a wheelbarrow. Maybe a little late but there is still a lot of hauling to be done. Also, I need to get a laser level to make sure my rows are not extremely unequal...

Add a bit of bamboo

Believe it or not, that small amount of bamboo took me 3 trips to the pile of logs on the other side. So yes, definitely need a wheelbarrow.

So now the plan is to keep digging all the way to the end, and put in logs and stuff but not cover with dirt yet until I can make sure it is level and I have something to sow. Otherwise just more weed will come out.

Digging on...

I figured if I dig a couple of meters every day when it is nice and sunny, I may have my 2 first rows ready just after the last frost, so that I can plant saplings. Unless of course I break my toe again.

Too deep?

Spent a couple of hours digging out beginning of a swale... then it hit me, maybe I am approaching this wrong. It seems to get too deep a distance between the bottom of the swale and tops of the rows if I dig out and use the dirt to backfill the rows. It is almost 1.2 meters...

Started digging

A bit over a meter of swale done (well kind of)

Too deep, right?

So, I suppose I just dig a little bit to shape the swale, like 20 cm or so, and then backfill the rows like 30 cm. And if the dirt from swale digging is not enough, I will just get it from somewhere else. That way the top and bottoms will be half a meter apart.

I am not sure. I will try it out and see what it looks like...

Root barrier

Next step was to finally put in the 20 meter long root barrier sheet in the border to east. It wasn't that hard.

Unfold the sheet

Put it in place

Cover it up before the rain comes

You may have noticed in the last picture the ditch that is forming in the middle of the plot. Here it is from a different angle

First row...?

That ditch marks the base of the first swale, i.e. the mid-line between the two northmost rows. My next thing to do is to start digging out and making that wider and my rows higher and narrower. Then I shall cover each row with 2 mulch sheets which meet on top of the row, so that I can plant on top of the row just between the sheets (huh huh)

To make sure the distance between the rows are same, I am going to use a plank or something, as wide as the path between the rows.

Spot the difference

 After my foot had healed, I went and started cleaning out the north neighbor's bamboos. That was the only day when I forgot to wear a helmet, and what do you know.... I was hit on the head by a falling bamboo. It was a pretty thick and heavy one that had broken and hung on other branches, and when I started clearing those branches, it got its chance to fall and hit me right on the head. 

It took 2 trips to the hospital and over 3 weeks to get over the injuries, pain and constant dizziness. Still I was very lucky I suppose. After that, I did not forget my helmet. Plus every time I push or pull a bamboo or a tree's branch I check first what may be hanging on it. Also I reevaluated my plan to cut down that leaning tree on the north west side. It's not really that bothering, and the risk of it breaking off because of its extreme lean and hitting me while I am cutting it is simply not worth it.

Anyway, after a few weeks I was back and spent a few days to clean the north side. I think I am done with those bamboos now. The remainder are leaning away from my plot and even if the fall they won't bother me.

Here is before and after pictures. Can you spot the difference? Hint: The difference is about 50 bamboos between the pics.

Before

After

In the "after" pic, there are still a few dry, broken bamboos tangled and hanging on the left side. I cleared those out too.

Broken toe

 It's been a long while, the forest plot and the garden have both become invaded with lots and lots of weeds.

Shot from afar, the usual place

Close up of the area where I de-rooted

South-west corner. Bamboo stacks can barely be seen

West side bordering Mr. O's plot

 I think it has been almost 4 months... and the reason is that I have not been able to go out and do anything. Not because of the Corona stay home thingy, but because I managed to kick the foot of the table at home real hard which broke my middle toe.

I had no idea that a tiny bone in the middle of the foot can be so important in moving around. In the beginning couple of weeks I didn't know it was broken so I limped around and did all the normal stuff I do. It was a bit swollen for 2 days and then it just hurt a little especially if I leaned onto my foot, but no big deal. So I assumed it was just the extra hard bump into the table, and that it was fine now.

After it continued hurting past the second week, and I also got stabbing sharp pains when walking, that I got worried and went to the doctor. He took X-ray and said my middle toe is broken. The broken bone is right in the middle of the foot so there is no way to reach it though. No surgery, just let it heal by itself. It will take a few months though he warned.

He cast the whole front of the foot, using the surrounding toes as support for the middle one. Thus started my sitting at home days. I could still walk, but very slowly and with great difficulty. I pretty much just sit in front of the computer and watched my belly get bigger and bigger every day.

I went to the doctor for intermediate checks every few weeks, and just recently I finally got to take the cast off, and start using my foot like normal again. So I will slowly and gradually go back to reclaim my land from the wild that has overtaken it.

Here are the X-rays in the order I took them. The broken bone is the third bone of my middle toe (I think it's called Proximal Phalange), so it is inside the foot itself, not the toe. The broken part is where the phalange connects to the metatarsal.

First one, 3 weeks after being broken

Second one, 1,5 months. Something seems to grow in there

2,5 months. Definitely healing back. Amazing

3,5 months. Not completely ok, but almost

Wild Orgy in the Woods

I keep digging out roots and flattening the forest plot, turning it into something less of a forest. Just a few days more, and I will have done 25% of the whole plot.

Only a little bit left

After that part is all flat, before turning the soil into rows and let it recover and heal, I will have to do something about the remaining bamboo in the north. We don't want them to fall on our precious now do we? All those bamboo that have half fallen or will fall during the next typhoon, I will cut down.
By the way, I encountered a cluster of insects having wild passionate sex on a weed when I was heading back home...

The orgy from the title

Back home, things are kind of growing on their own in the garden, weeds and vegetables and fruits alike. It is not a fair competition cause the weeds have established themselves years ago, so once in a while I give the non-weeds a bit of help by pulling/cutting the weeds.

The entrance berries just started to turn color

The figs just started to turn color

The 2-3 plums just started to turn color

The tomatoes just started to turn color

The tomato is not pruned. Well not that much. In the beginning I kept nipping the tiny armpit leafs that came out but that was it. I stopped doing that after a couple of weeks. It is just one tomato plant but keeps growing like crazy and branching out. And all I do is to stake up the new branches to keep them off the ground, and as soon as I do, new tomatoes pop out and then new branches to stake up. It has become a monster of plant.
The eggplants and the pepper are dwarfed in comparison. Poor things. It is a miracle they even managed to produce anything at all.

Zoom out a bit to show the eggplant too

The eggplant already had turned color from the get go.

Shovel buster

Not much going on except me digging away at the forest plot.... well that is not entirely true because in the garden everything continues to grow on their own. Especially the weeds.
A couple of days I forgot to close the chicken coop's door at night, and in the morning when I go to feed them, there are no eggs waiting for me.
Every other day when I close their door at night, there are 2-3 eggs in the morning in their nests. I think it might be a civet that takes the opportunity and picks the eggs during the night. It is nice enough at least to not try and eat the chickens.
The tomato and eggplant and pepper plants are doing real well. I just hope the civet won"t pick them when the big and juicy tomatoes turn red.
The fig trees' fruit look real nice too, and have started to ripen. At the same time a second wave of fruits are coming out from its branches. I had no idea figs came in waves.
Not sure if I mentioned it but the cherry tree next to the chicken run kept producing these really bitter and horrible fruits and it took so much space, so I decided to cut it down. Now the blueberries have more space to breath.
Back to the forest... I passed the half-length spot, meaning that I have turned about 12% of the whole plot into flat mud land without so much as a single bamboo root in it.

pretty...

One day later, I dug even further, so now I am at 2/3 of the length. But right when I finished 2/3, the shovel broke in half.
I am no titan... so it must be the Japanese made tools which I buy that are of low quality...

2/3 and a broken shovel

Once I buy a new shovel and am done with the whole length, before I turn the area into 2-3 rows I need to cut ALL the remaining bamboo in the north that threaten to fall over it.
Then I make the rows, put in root barrier in the east side, and then plant lots and lots of tiny nitrogen fixers to improve the soil as well as outnumber the weeds. After that comes the long term nitrogen fixers and fruit trees. And while they grow I can expand southward, line by line.
I now also have so much chippable and mulchable wood on my hands that I am thinking about maybe repairing the dead shredder and use it.