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