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