Powerful typhoon approaching to our place

A powerful typhoon is coming to our place with causing flood, closure of traffics and power outage in affected area in the Southeastern Asia and the Okinawa according to weather reports.

The typhoon is coming along with a persistent seasonal rain system which you can see easily both of them in the weather map shown below. 

I'll try to take actions tomorrow for protection of my vegetable against strong wind and rain caused by the typhoon.....

Fresh bamboo shoots

 Bamboo shoots are used so often in Japanese dishes and now it's a good season to enjoy fresh bamboo shoots. My colleague in my office have a bamboo forest in the backyard of his house and brought fresh bamboo shoots for me.

 Bamboo shoots have some amount of tannin which is bitter taste so we usually boil bamboo shoots to get rid of the tannin after peeling them off.

After boiling them and throwing out boiled water, my wife added fish broth, soy-sauce and scraped dried bonito to the boiled bamboo shoots and boiled them together for a while.
It's my best favorite way to enjoy bamboo shoots.


-- from iPod touch

Flowers and sprouts of my summer vegetables

Flowers give me hope and prospect for future's good harvests.Today I found some flowers of my egg-plants, tomatoes and buds of my black chili.





I saw buds of black chili for the first time. I wish those buds could lead me to the joy of a good harvest,,,.



"紫蘇/Shiso or Green perilla (Perilla frutescens var. crispa)", a kind of herbs, have germinated in my soil bed. Shiso is used so often for summer dishes in Japan like a sauce for cold Somen-noodle ( Japanese wheat noodle) as condiment. I hope they will have grown by summer when we can enjoy the Siso-flavored dishes.

My little red riding hood hoed my planting beds ..

-- from iPad

Bad bugs and Good bugs

 As I found holes on my vegetable leaves have been increasing, I have to pay more attention to bad bugs like young worms of cabbage butterflies shown below and have to stick to my " F.P.K" method to ward them off. Today I found 3 young worms on my cucumbers so I smashed them to death. Oh,,,,sorry for poor bugs.



 While many bad bugs are found, I'm very happy to see good bugs or beneficial bugs like a black and yellow ladybug (Propylea japonica) who feed aphids. The bug may give me hope for less usage of pesticide.



-- from iPad

Garden in the air

 Today I and my wife visited a new shopping spot in Osaka, Osaka Station City, which is a  complex of major department stores adjacent to Osaka station and opened a few weeks ago.The complex has gathered many shoppers and tourists from the Osaka area and even in a weekday like today, we had to wait in a long queue for ordering my lunch and paying for my purchase.

 I and my wife recognized the signboard saying "天空の農園/Tenku no Noen or Garden in the air" is located in the top floor of the north wing of the complex. The garden drew our attention and interest so we headed to the top floor.


 When we got there, we were surprised with a open space with windmills and soler panels for electric generation and small sized vineyard and vegetable garden are set up there. We didn't expect that such green garden would appear there surrounded with many reinforced concrete high-rises.


 In the vegetable garden, many kinds of vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, egg-plants and even herbs are planted. The soil in the garden is artificial soil made from volcanic ash and fertilizers.
All vegetables are still young but we can see a green community of vegetables with fruits there in a few mouths.






 Many windmills and solar panels there can produce most of electricity used in the garden.


The production of electricity is shown in the counters below. Now we are facing the fact that we have to save use of electricity since the nuclear power plants were damaged by the last massive earthquakes which may cause the shortage of electricity or sudden black-out. We wish we would have more solar panels which can help us saving electricity but they are still expensive for us.



-- from iPod touch

Bug's attack has started.

 Today I was shocked to find some leaves of my black chilies had been eaten showing miserable holes. I can imagine what should be blamed for the holes. I believe the leaves were eaten by young worms of European corn-borer. Despite my insect screen, those leaves were eaten, which means the bugs can habit in soil. The young worms are nocturnal and come out of soil to feed leaves.
 I dug out soil around the black chillies but no worm could not be found. I'll be in my garden in early morning tomorrow and try to hunt them.









-- from iPod touch

Straw-blankets for my summer vegetables.

 According to weather reports issued by the Japan Meteorological Bureau, this summer will be hotter than average and at worst hotter than the last summer when we were suffered from stand-dead of my vegetables caused by the heatwave. And even in the mid of May, the temperature is already higher so I have to get prepared for the up-coming hot summer in some ways. Today I put bundles of straws, which my wife's aunt had gave me, beside my cucumbers, egg-plants, tomatoes and black chilies. The straws work as a blanket, which can keep moisture in the soil by interfering sunlight.  

 Straws are so light that they can be blown easily by wind as you see in "Three Little Pigs". I pegged down the straws to hold them tightly as you can see in the photo shown below.
Now I finished the preparation for the hot summer but I'll have to take actions against bugs, not against a wolf.


-- from iPod touch

Planting summer vegetables with my daughter

 Today I and my daughter planted sprouts of summer vegetables presented by my wife's aunt.
List of summer vegetables:
1 mini-tomatoes2 tomatoes5 peas4 black chills2 egg-plants1 okra

5 sprouts of peas supported with plastic poles.

3 tomato sprouts

A sprout of a black chili.
You can see the trunk and leaf veins are purple.

My daughter were watering the newcomers to my garden

hoping a good harvest this summer.

-- from iPod touch

Getting good and healthy sprouts of summer vegetables

 Today I visited my wife's aunt, who are very kind to give sprouts of kinds of summer vegetables like mini-tomatoes, peas, and black chilies. They are on my list of summer vegetables this year and I'm very happy to get those good and healthy sprouts from her aunt who are a master of vegetable farming.

 I, my wife's aunt and her friends, who always help her farming, enjoyed talking about the weather in our local area, tips on growing good vegetables and so on.


 They were preparing to packing small onions and komatunas. I was very shocked with the color of their harvests! Their leaves were truly dark but bright green while my leaves are pale and faint. They gave me an advice that I should add more organic fertilizers like cow manure and oil cakes.

 Finally, I got 5 sprouts of peas, 3 of mini tomatoes and 4 of black chilies.







 The black chilies are so rare that we can't find the seed and sprout in our local home centers and even seed shops since they are not distributed to markets in Japan. They are an indigenous chili in Nara which were developed there about 100 years ago.
 I had been wanting to grow the chili since I saw them in her vegetable plot so I'm very excited!


-- from iPod touch