Sign of spring

 When I went to the daycare to pick up my daughter I found Japanese plum were blooming with fuming its sweet fragrance. Although it is cold in Osaka, the flower reminds me of spring coming to us slowly but steadily.

Today's harvest

 Today I've harvested all of Chinese cabbages and I feel so satisfied with successfully growing Chinese cabbages starting at last September.

 Raising Chinese cabbage required a lot of workload and chores such as setting up insect screen

and picking up bugs. But thanks to those chores I could deserve a good harvest and my family could enjoy delicious dishes.

 My family are looking forward to raising Chinese cabbages.

-- from iPad

Early bird getting worms

 Wild birds are sensitive to search for their foods in the mid winter.
 Whenever I cultivate soil wild birds fly to my garden since they know small worms are dug up to the surface with cultivating. A bird shown below were so cautious but when I pretended to ignore it the bird landed on the cultivated soil and starting picking worms up.










-- from iPad

How warm or cold?

 We are facing colder winter than average but how cold is it for vegetables? I bought a temperature indicator and set it inside one of my vinyl tunnels where spinaches are planted. I saw the indicator showing the temperature inside the tunnel 10C while 7C outside. That shows the tunnels are effective to warm the air inside but at the same time shows this winter is severely cold. Even if the temperature inside is warmer, the vegetables seed inside the tunnels will  not germinate for a while till the temperature would be at least 13C. I think seeding in the mid winter might be challenging but might be a good opportunity to create and test new method such as the vinyl tunnels.

-- from iPad

Recipe collection vol.2 ( Kiwi fruit jam )

 How would you deal with extra ripen fruits after you've enjoyed them?As I introduced ripen kiwi fruits harvested last year, we have preserved extra kiwi fruits even after our family ate a lot of them. They can't be preserved any more and my wife made kiwi fruits jam using all of them.
-Ingredients-
1. Ripen kiwi fruits 240grams2. Sugar 120grams
-Recipes-
1. Peel the skin off.2. Mash the kiwi fruits in a bowl3. Add sugar to the mashed fruits. You can change the amount of sugar to your taste. My favorite proportion of sugar and kiwi fruits is 2 (kiwi) :1(sugar)4. Microwave it for around 4 minutes.5. Preserve it in a fridge after bottling it up. 
-- from iPad

Seedng komatunas, spinaches and Qing gen cai (pak choi)

 Today I seeded spinaches, Qing gen cai ( 青梗菜 or pak choi ) and komatunas on our new planting beds. They are the first memorial vegetables for the new beds and I hope they would grow well and give us good harvests around the head of March. 

Left: Pak choi   /   Right: Spinach (Kurouma [black horse] 2

 Protection against cold temperature must be required for growing vegetables in the mid winter so4 more vinyl tunnels have been set up for the vegetables you can see water vaporized inside the tunnels and that shows the temperature inside is getting warmer. I know how effective the tunnel is to put ahead the vegetable growth. Even in colder winter than average like this season I believe the tunnels can keep the air inside warmer and help the vegetables to grow.

Far side: Spinaches in 2 tunnels / Center: Pak choi
Near side: Komatuna

 I don't have a good sense of art and I always pay less attention to appearance. But I have to admit that the tunnel for komatuna ended up with such miserable, and less artistic look. That happened due to shortage of vinyl sheet for tunnel and unfortunately a local home center was closed today. I had to seek something to seal up "a hole " in another side of the tunnel.Can you guess what? That is a vinyl bag for rice husk whose size is barely suitable for the hole. I will not leave the situation and tomorrow find new sheet and repair it.
-- from iPad

New planting beds have been completed!!

 Thanks to the big help by my family, the new planting bed have been completed.I am thinking what kinds of vegetables can be planted there the option must be limited due to the cold winter. Anyway I feel excited and thrilled when I imagine more green, yellow, red,,,colorful vegetables will grow on the new bed and my garden will be filled with more vegetables.

My daughter digs up and gather soil for moving the location of soil beds.

My daughter is flattening the surface of new beds.
My wife is putting daikon's leaves on the bed for fertilizing.

Our new planting bed

Length: 6meters + 2meters = 8 meters

Width  : 30cm

Planting space : 2.4sqm

-- from iPad

Today's harvest

 Today my family visited my parents with bringing some harvests like Chinese cabbages (hakusai), daikon radishes and cabbages to them. The planting bed where those vegetables were planted should be moved laterally about 30cm for creating space for new planting beds along plastic panel and we had to pick out all of the vegetables.  The hakusais look good-shaped but I'm not satisfied with the cabbages and daikons since they are so small and some deformed daikons ( split-roots ) were found.  It was luckily warmer today and my wife and daughter came out to my garden to help me.My wife praised me for creating new planting beds and she looks forward to planting more vegetables. I wonder what kinds of vegetables can be planted in the mid cold winter but komatunas and spinaches are most prospective.

My wife is cutting hakusai's roots.

-- from iPad

Recipe collection vol.1 ( Komatuna saute with hams )

 I know some followers are curious about our dishes and recipes. Therefore I decided to start the series of my recipe collection on my blog. In the collection I'll introduce dishes made by my wife and I (mainly by her) using our vegetables, the recipes and delicious foods I eat on a travel. I put a tag named "Recipes" on each post in the collection to let you access to it easily. I hope the collection posts would be the place where you can gather your own recipes and respond to them after you've actually made the dishes.
 Today I would like to start the first memorial post with "Komatuna saute with hams". The dish is so simple that everyone can cook it swiftly while you can enjoy komatuna making the best use of it and salty hams.
-Ingredients-
1. Komatunas2. Ham ( Beef or pork is also OK.)3. Salt and pepper

-Recipes-
1. Wash komatunas with a plenty of water to get rid of soil.2. Cut the komatunas and hams ( you can use beef or pork ) into bite-size (3～4cm)3. Heat a pan and add cooking oil.4. Grill the komatunas and hams for 1min.5. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. 
-- from iPad

Adding extra soil in a chilly day

As I mentioned in the previous post on changing the layout of planting beds, much extra soil was needed for making new beds wider.
Today I bought 4 packs of soil mixed with various nutritions and fertilizers and added them to the beds and I could make a part of the beds bigger (about 30cm wide) enough to seed in 3 or 4 lines. I used only 2 packs of them because it was so severely cold and chilly today that I had to quit the job in the middle and to go home!
Tomorrow's weather is also forecasted to be colder than today so I wonder if my vegetables would get frost.
This cold winter reminds me of the theory that severely cold winter might follow so often severely hot summer. Although I don't know well the mechanism, I think the theory is true.
Anyway, the series of the odd weather which I experienced recently might shows how unordinary the global climate has been....




-- from iPad

Blooming in the mid winter

I found many camellia flowers are blooming in my neighbor.
I don't like cold winter since I feel the cold easily and everything might looks grey and dark even in daylight. But the flowers can make me feel warm.






-- from iPad

Setting up a plastic wall for creating new planting beds

 As you know I had mentioned changing layout of planting beds in my garden, which is the biggest plan in my garden this year, today I will show you my plan. Look at the picture shown below. That is not painted by my kids but I drew the new layout with "Blackboard" application on my iPad. Actually I feel it so embarrassing to show my "work" since it looks so childish!! Anyway, yellow areas show planting beds and blue line shows plastic waved panel which works as a wall to bear and bolster soil. Could you see the plastic panel create extra planting beds? Today's mission is to set up the panel.
 Today I bought a roll of a 20meter-plastic waved panel and 15pegs with some hooks at a local home center. The panel costs $10 and pegs $8.00



 The peg is so functional for the price that you can see the hook can hold the panel and it can avoid waving and winding on the panel.



 I cut grooves 20cm deep and 10m long with my scoop to insert the panel. That was a tough job in a cold winter...



 After inserting the panel into the groove I pegged down the panel to bolster the panel with the pegs and that can secure the new planting bed.

Complition of setting up the panel

the panel from above

 I tried to create new beds along with the panel adding fertilizer, cow manure, rice bran.

But the amount of soil for new beds is less than I thought so I will have to add much soil.

 The new bed is narrow due to the shortage of soil.
But I'll remove soil from other beds for the new one and I believe I can deal with that.
Creating new soil bed with digging and removing soil in a cold temperature is so hard that I have backache!



-- from iPad

Harvesting all komatunas and cooking them

While my radishes ended up with poor result I and my daughter enjoyed harvesting all of my komatunas and cabbages.




Since I found some snails on komatunas and I am planning to change layout of planting beds, I decided all komatunas should be harvested soon.
We harvested plenty of komatunas today and we have to consume them before our fridge will be filled with vegetables. How could we can cook the amount of komatunas? My wife answered the question by today's dinner.




You see most space of the pot occupied by vegetables!
My wife knows steaming in a pot is a good way to decrease volume of vegetables.




Look at the layers of vegetables! Our stomachs have been filled with komatunas and cabbages!

-- from iPad

Poor result of my 2G radishes

Sometimes I have to admit poor result and less productivity of my vegetables.

My 2nd generation radishes have ended up with their thin and poor roots.





I seeded my 2nd ones just after I harvested my 1st radishes so this poor result could be caused by injury by continues cropping.
I should have add lime powder for avoiding the injury.

-- from iPad

Today's dinner

The Menus of today's dinner are

1. Cabbage, daikon, carrot and sausages boiled with consommé soup
Soup coming out of the vegetables are so delicious than you don't need
to add any salt.
2. Salad of shredded cabbage
That is the best way to enjoy fresh and crispy cabbages, I believe.











-- from iPad

Leaves for compost

How do you deal with outer leaves of your vegetables? In my case all of them are buried in soil for composting.
Daikon's and chinese cabbage's outer leaves which I cut off can be good compost in a soil in a few month and the process can make the soil fertile.
Daikon's leaves can be pickled with salt and delicious but the soil in my garden is still less nutritious so there is worth "investing" the leaves.











You can see difference in colors of Daikon's leaves which had been buried a few month ago and new leaves. The old ones have turned yellow in a soil.

-- from iPad

Today's harvest

I'm planning change the layout of planting beds for spring-summer vegetables so I have to end up my daikons, cabbages, Chinese cabbages and komatunas in this month.
Luckily most of them can be harvested in a week but they are too much for us to eat up and if daikons are left in soil for long time, they will bolt.
I and my wife decided to share our vegetables with our neighbors.
In Japan price of vegetables in stores is higher than usual due to odd weather last year and I know "our products" will be welcome.




-- from iPad

Where are my photos!?

Now you are seeing all of my photos on my blog have gone saying 404 errors.
I was shocked so much when I found this situation and I apology for your inconvenience.

I use an application called "blogpress" on my iPad when I write comments on my blog and I found all photos which had been uploaded through the app have gone.
Now I seek help sending mail to blogpress and if you have the same problem with me and any solution, I would like you to share it with me.

The first harvest of 2011

Before my family visit my father in law for the new year greeting I went to my garden and harvested a cabbage, daikon radish, komatunas and Chinese cabbage. I brought all of them to him as the new year present.



The cabbage is smaller than I thought but in a beautiful shape since I saw less bugs attack against the cabbages than my Chinese cabbages. I have other 8 cabbages to be harvested in a few weeks so I hope they will become bigger. That is the first cabbage I've harvested so I feel it auspicious to harvest it during the new year holidays!







-- iPadから送信

Osechi - New year feasts in lacquered boxes

Many Japanese prepare Osechi-dishes, which contain various kinds of dishes in lacquered boxes which are designed for the Osechi. My wife cooked 2 boxes of Osechi and Zoni, which is a miso soup with baked mochi and vegetables.


Osechi consists of dishes which is shown below which have auspicious meanings and we celebrate the new year's day by eating the dishes.

from above left
1 chestnut boiled with syrup. The golden color of the chestnut is associated with economic fortune.
2 black soy beans, which represents wish for health.
3 bamboo-shoots boiled with broth. Growth of bamboo-shoots upward to the sky is associated with well growth in many fields like business.
4 carrots boiled with bamboo shoots in broth. Red color of carrots is seen as auspicious color.
5 boiled arrowheads. The sprouts coming out of them is associated with growth.
6 vinegar-pickled renkons or lotus roots. Renkons have many holes which you can "see through" the other side, which literarily means seeing or predict what will happen in the future.
7 sardines cooked in say sauce. In ancient days in Japan sardine was used as a fertilizer for rice so the fish are associated with a good harvest.
8 giant butterburs boiled in say sauce and broth. Butterburs in Japanese is homonym of wealth or good fortune in Japanese.


While preparing miso soup for zoni we baked mochis with an oven toaster.
Mochi get sticky and bigger when cooked so we sometimes have a trouble in picking them up if mochis combine with others as you see in a photo shown below.


It's interesting to know that different kinds of zoni soup are preferred in different districts in Japan. In Osaka white miso soup is preferred, which is sweet and mild taste while in Tokyo fish broth.


-- iPad

謹賀新年 - Happy new year

Happy new year, everyone! I hope the year of 2011 will be great to all of you.
I would like to start the first blog of this year by introducing how our family spending the new year holidays in Japan.

The first photos shows "Shimekazari" or a new year day's ornament to be displayed on an entrance door.



Mochi or a rice cake is one of important foods for new year holidays. We enjoy not only eating Mochi but also displaying it for celebration of a happy new year. The second photo shows " Kagami-Mochi " , one of important ornaments for the new year's day. But that mochi looks odd doesn't it? Do you think that is real?



The answer is that is a NOT real Mochi but a plastic-molded Mochi!
We used to display real mochi during new years holidays but easily get moldy so one of Mochi manufacture invented that plastic mochi and that contains smaller vacuum-packed mochis which we can deal with.

-- iPadから送信