Year-end greeting to our gardening teacher.

Today our family visited my wife's aunt to express our appreciation to her support for us.
And we found something interesting there.

The vegetables shown above are bunches of mustard greens which were harvested and were waiting for being packed. They will be distributed to local stores.



The most attractive thing there was a big daikon radish with about 20cm diameter!! My wife's aunt said that daikon has bolted but the size shows how nutritious and fertile the soil in her garden is.




We got some presents from her. The first one is turnips. I and my wife are wondering how we'll cook them but I prefer turnips boiled in fish broth.




The second one is 2 packs of fermented cow manure. I am considering reorganization of my garden and making the soil fertile is on my list. I'll put the manure into the soil and let the soil rest for a while.


-- from iPod touch

Happy merry X'mas!

We are not Christians and most of Japanese see X'mas as an opportunity to buy, give presents to someone, or to hold parties, to drink and eat so much, not as a religious event.
My kids also think X'mas as some the day when Santa claus would come to my home with their presents. (my son has already known " who Santa claus is " but my daughter is so adorable that Santa claus really exist.)

Hoping they can deserve great X'mas presents, my kids decorated a X'mas tree with ornaments.
While decorating I asked my daughter what Xmas present she hope and she said " It's a secret. I will meet Santa claus tonight and ask him for my present! "
"Her Santa claus" has already known what she wants and bought it!


-- from iPad

Today's harvest

I'm very happy to harvest a white radish with straight and thick root for the first time. Since I picked up a split-root radish as I mentioned on the last blog I wonder if most of my white radish were deformed.

-- from iPad

My new gadget for my blog

Today I bought a new iPod-Touch G4 today.

The new one has 2 cameras so when I go to my garden I will bring it with me and take photos of vegetables and I can upload the photos onto my blog through the iPod.

And "FaceTime", a video phone application has been installed on it so if some gardeners following my blog have iPhone G4 or iPod-touch G4, we can talk seeing our faces and exchange ideas on gardening for free!

If you are interested with talking with me about gardening, cultures of Japan and so on, please send a message to my plot on www.botanical.com!
I wll send my FaceTime phone number through the replying massage.


-- from iPad

Today's dinner

If we can get Chinese cabbages in winter, most of us in Japan usually enjoy Nabe ( a dish cooked in a pot ) adding the cabbages , meet, fish and other vegetables. I have been having a dream of cooking a Nabe dish using Chinese cabbages we harvested and today the dream has come true!



Today's nabe was boiled with chicken stock. But we added our home-made Hot chili oil as a condiment to the dish. The oil can make the taste so hot ,spicy and delicious that we could warm ourselves warm.



Beside the Nabe, we enjoyed " Daikon steak ".
My wife grilled thick sliced white radishes with butter. Salty butter go well with daikon's taste.






After enjoying Nabe, we usually cook porridge in the same pot.
The soup with tastes coming out of pork and chinese cabbages can be absorb by rice.


Our hot chili oil took a important role in the porridge, too.



-- from iPad

Harvesting Chinese cabbages and white radishes

Overcoming many problems like bugs attacks, bad weather, we can at last harvest Chinese cabbages and a white radish (Daikon radish) today!



The first white radish has split-roots but it doesn't affect the taste.
I wish other radishes have long and straight roots.




I'm very happy to harvest a big Chinese cabbage!




The vegetables will be cooked and served on a tonight's dinner table.
I will post the dishes on my blog later....!

-- from iPad

Growth report

My komatunas in a vinyl tunnel are growing much faster than my first komatunas which ended last weekend and we can expect to harvest them sooner than I think. As I mentioned sometimes, the effectiveness of the vinyl tunnel has been proved with the much germination and growth of the komatunas. If you seed or plant vegetables outside in winter season, I recommend you consider the method as your option.



My white radishes (Daikon radish) are also glowing and some of them have been ready for being harvested. I don't know how long and big they are till I will harvest them but judging from the white and green roots appearing on the soil I believe they have thick and long roots.




My cabbages have rolled their leaves inside shaping "cabbage-like appearance" beautifully. And fortunately few holes by bags are seen on them.


My Chinese cabbages (Hakusai), which have been suffering bugs attacks, are shaping their appearance and I expect to harvest them before the Christmas.



All of my 100 onions are very healthy showing us their leaves shooting upward, which shows water and nutritions can be sucked up successfully by the onions. I am looking forward to seeing ripen onions next spring.

-- from iPad