Harvesting onions and potatoes

 I mentioned about less rain this rainy season and it may affect the growth of my summer vegetables but sunny days brought me the precious opportunity for harvesting onions and potatoes. It's good to harvest them in a sunny and dry day since rain can perish harvested potatoes and onions. Today I harvested all of purple onions and potatoes.

 The onions leaves falling down to the ground show it's the time to harvest and they are not bolted. They are healthy and in a good shape with shiny purple color. I'll sliced a new purple onion to cook salad with cabbages.

 I'm not satisfied with potatoes since they were smaller than I expected. I think the planting ridge was not wider than the last season so it didn't much space for growing them.

Harvesting all potatoes

  It took 4 months since I and my daughter planted seed potatoes and today all of them have been harvested successfully. It's difficult for me to see an opportunity to harvest them in the mid of a rainy season but I managed to harvest them while the sunshine was seen, which was only about a hour.

 I'm very satisfied with the size of those potatoes which was much bigger than the last year's ones.

Today's harvest:
3 cucumbers
100 potatoes

Harvesting potatoes in a rainy season

 Some leaves of my potatoes have become yellow, which shows it is the time to harvest potatoes. But most of the leaves are still green and I wonder when I should harvest all of them since a rainy season (梅雨/Tsuyu) will start in a few days in my place. We should harvest potatoes in a sunny and dry day because wet mud on potatoes have to be dried.

 Today was not fine with many crowd and no shower so I decided to select mature potatoes and harvest them.

 I found potato trees with yellowish leaves and dug them out. I found from 5 to 8 potatoes per tree and 2 or 3 of them were big, which shows this year's result of my potatoes is better than that of last year.

 Eventually, I harvested about 70 potatoes till scattered shower interfered me. About two-thirds of my potatoes are still in soil. I have less chance to harvest during the rainy season so I'll have to watch weather reports carefully to see when I should harvest them.

Today's dinner: Deep-fried potatoes

Butter and say-sauce are added on the potato.
Just try it! I make sure you will be satisfied with the taste!

Pulling out potatoes' buds.

 Nipping out extra buds of potatoes is well-known technique in Japan. Too many buds or sprouts might suck up nutrition which should be distributed to potatoes and then we might end up with only smaller potatoes. Today I pulled out some of my potatoes' buds. The yellow-circled bud was smaller than others and it was the one to be nipped out.

 You can see 2 bigger buds are left in the photo shown below.

Nipped-out buds.

 I remember I was surprised with the fact that none of my blogging friends in overseas didn't know the technique when I introduced the technique last year on my blog.


--from iPad

Spring has come after a storm.

 We in Japan call a spring storm "春一番/ Haru-Ichiban", which shows spring is brought to Japan by a seasonal storm generated by warm sea water in the Eastern China sea. But the storm of yesterday was so strong that many people were injured and serious damages to all traffic schedules have been reported. One of those damages I could see today in our gardening plots are here. Other gardener's insect screens were blown by strong wind.

 Fortunately, no damage was found in my plot and what I and my daughter found there is my potato's germination! I've been waiting for their germination for 2 months after planting them! The colder temperature could delay their growth, I believe.

 After I found their germination, my gardening ridges for the potatoes should be expanded for securing more space for the growing potatoes. I bought some packs of gardening soil and added to the ridges.

Before adding soil.

After

 The storm has brought not only damage to us but spring with warm temperature and vegetables know it. They are growing faster as the temperature is getting warm.

spinach

cabbages

pak-chois

 My daughter is also waiting for a warm spring and she gets so enthusiastic for going to my garden  and watching the growth of vegetables in a warm day. She is also excited with the potato's germination.

Planting potatoes with my daughter.

 Today I planted seed potatoes with my daughter, who loves potatoes so much. It's still cold in Osaka but I learned from my experience of growing potatoes last year that I should plant them earlier. Because my last potatoes, which were planted at the mid of March,  should have been grown in soil for longer time. I strongly hope my potatoes should be bigger than last ones.

 As I mentioned in my last blog of potatoes, I prepared potatoes in a popular way in Japan before planting them. Cutting into a half and Covering the surface of potatoes with ash powder.

 Cutting the potatoes and putting ash powder on them was my daughter's assignment.  She was so curious about the way of the potato's preparation asking me many times "Why do I use ash?" .

 After I told her where the potatoes should be planted, I left planting them to her. She remembered how she planted potatoes with me last year.

 My daughter was so reliable that I guess you might think "What did her father do? Didn't he exploit her, did he ?" Well, I'd better show you how I worked today! I wrapped the planting beds with bunches of straws for keeping them warm and moist. Because the air in Osaka during winter is so dry and cold and frost is also expected till the beginning of March.

She seems to love watering even in a cold winter saying, "Dad, please let me do it!"
I believe her efforts can contribute to the bumper harvest!

Harvesting in a rainy day

 I had a plan to harvest all of my potatoes today but seasonal rain (梅雨/Tsuyu) didn't allow me to do that and I had to wrap up today's work in my garden with harvesting just 5 cucumbers.
 I get worried about my potatoes in soil because if they are left in soil with a lot of water, they can be easily rotten or infected with disease.


 I believe the best way to enjoy taste of fresh vegetables is eating sliced or cut ones with simple seasoning like "cucumber-sticks" with mayonnaise. Now I'm drinking highball and the cucumber-sticks go well with sparkling alcohol....





-- from iPod touch

Digging out potatoes for test

 How can we see when we should harvest potatoes? I've been wondering when I should but today I found some leaves of potatoes have turned into yellow and fallen on to the ground, which is a sign for harvesting potatoes many gardeners say. So I dug out some potatoes for a test and see if I can harvest or not. 
 Before digging out, I thought it was still early to harvest them but my assumption has changed into my hope! I dug the smallest potato sprout but 5 or 6 middle size potatoes were found in the soil!! A half of all leaves of my bigger potatoes are yellowish so in a few days I can harvest most of my potatoes!
 The point I worry is the size of potatoes. The early start of a rainy season might shorten the time for potatoes to getting ripe.


-- from iPad

Nipping smaller buds of my potatoes

 Today I nipped smaller buds of my potatoes, which is similar to thinning out smaller sprouts of brassicas. As you know a seed potato has 5 or more buds and they will grow soon with sucking up water and nutrition of the seed potato. The more buds on a seed potato means less nutrition to other potatoes to be harvested in the future. That's why we should nip younger and smaller buds.

You can see 5 or 6 buds on a seed potato before nipping.

 When we nip them out, we have to be careful for not pulling them out too strongly or a seed potato would be popped out of the soil.

A nipped bud

The appearance before nipping-out.

After nipping-out, 2 or 3 buds are left in a seed potato.

Bunch of nipped buds.

-- from iPad

The Growth of my potatoes

 Potatoes are one of most important vegetables for me ( for you, I believe ) because they are so multi-purpose that we can use them in various dishes. Seeing the growth of my potatoes shown below, I believe my family, especially my wife, will be happy to imagine that she would not need to buy any potato during this summer. Well, I also feel responsibility for growing and harvesting my potatoes. Judging from my potato's growth, I think they are so healthy so far.





-- from iPad

My potatoes have germinated!

 I found some of my potatoes have germinated. I wonder how many potatoes I would
harvest this summer!

-- from iPad

Planting potatoes

 Today I bought 1kg of potatoes (Danshaku) and planted in one of my planting beds after some preparation.

 Usually a potato has many buds or eyes around it but each seed potatoes should one or two buds on it so I cut them into a half before planting them.

 Cutting surface of the seed potatoes should be covered with ash powder, which can avoid disease infection.






 My son helped planting the seed potatoes in a bed.


 In the mid of June they will be grown with many potatoes, I believe.


-- from iPad

Today's harvest2

Today's harvest list

1: 2baskets of potatoes
/2: 20 carrots
/3: 25 burdock roots
/4: 2bunch of shiso (Japanese green perilla)

It's very lucky to find that some grenn perilla have grown wild beside ridges of potatoes.
We use chopped perilla leaves for condiment,which can go well with Sushi, Tenpura and other Japannese dishes.
I believe you can add them to a salad and fish cuisines in your country,if they are available.

Traditional dish of potatoes.

 I think Japanese dishes may reminds you of Sushi and Miso-soup.

But I like to introduce a traditional home-style dish in Japan.

 The dish shown above is called "Nikujaga".

That is a potatoes stewed with sliced beef and onion with soy sauce based soup.

If you have Japanese friends around you, I believe he or she knows it and can miss the taste.

I and my family sweated in harvesting potatoes,carrots,and burdock roots in a hot and humid weather.

Don't rain on my parade!

 In the mid of rainy season, it was so clear sky today in Nara where is an old city in Japan and my 2nd farming garden is located that I and my family could not miss the opportunity to harvest potatoes,carrots and burdock roots.

 I planted them 3 months ago the garden and I expected planting potatoes is a good idea since climate this year has been so unusual ( cooler,and much rain) that potatoes output in Japan could be so low  and the retail price could be so high. And Yes it is!! Just 1 potato is about $1 in our local market.


 Carrots and burdock roots is still not mature but I pick up a few of them for a test.And I'm happy to see them well-grown.