Potager Y @ Japan

Red 'ume' and three greens

2012-03-07T21:37:00.000+09:00

Our two white Japanese 'ume' somehow bloom earlier than the red one...

The white is lovely, but hmm, in my humble opinion, the red is perhaps more radiant... no?

Early spring sees the greens from autumn, bolting...

This specimen is the 山東菜 or Shantong Sai, a Chinese green...

I grew quite a lot of 小松菜 Komatsuna last autumn...

This is one of their 'remnants', should I say?

And ターサイ Ta-sai (another Chinese green) too, which is the favorite of my sweeto haato...

Yes, when the greens bolt, we harvest the young buds and treat them as 菜の花 Nanohana...

We just lightly boil them and sprinkle some sesame seeds over them...

Their taste... a little bitter-ish perhaps?

But delicious, in any case...

The lone lemon, potatoes, spinach...

2012-03-04T16:32:00.000+09:00

We bought the lemon tree seedling in April 2006...
Five years later, it gave us the first fruit...
Yes, the one and only precious, precious lemon...
Other than the seeds, we used the whole lemon in our cooking... that is, the flesh and the peel...

Three days ago, I almost let out a howl when my sweeto haato told me that most of our (purple and orange) sweet potatoes had become rotten...
Reason was, I did not bother to cure them after I harvested them last autumn...
I imagined we could finish consuming them before they can even have a chance to rot...
Ooh, that was a painful lesson...
Anyway, the above picture shows one of my favorite foods, cooked by my better-half of course... boiled (purple) sweet potatoes spruced up with onions, garlic, black pepper, olive oil, a little salt, and vinegar...

Didn't have a problem with the other type of potatoes...
The harvest was too little, and it didn't take us long to consume them all...
I love the potato salad with mustard seeds, whipped up by my sweeto haato...

Our spinach is doing not too badly although they are quite 'mini' due to over-crowding...
I am quite hopeless in 'thinning-out' the vegetables as they grow...
Even then, mini as they are, they are delicious just the same...
Picture shows a common home-cooked dish of spinach with sesame seed, sesame oil, a dash of salt, a little brown sugar, and black pepper...

Coral berry or 'Manryo'

2012-02-26T20:08:00.000+09:00

In the gloom of winter, lies this plant called coral berry...

The Japanese have a more colorful name...
Manryo (万両), as in '10,000 Dollars'?

The bright red berries certainly light up the dull of winter...
Other than that, they are a source of food for the birds...

Japanese plum aka 'ume'...

2012-02-19T20:22:00.000+09:00

It snowed yesterday...

Was chopping firewood when the snow came in...

Took time off from wood-chopping to smell the flowers...

And in the midst of winter, it is but the Japanese plum or ume...

This was taken in the early evening when the sun was still quite high...

Experimented with artificial lighting indoors with this shot...

Back to the snow... took this shot of the fields the next morning...

The snow had melted quite a bit...

We are lucky to have the privilege to enjoy such scenes a few times in a year...
(PS: Just came back from an overseas trip to Chiang Mai...)

Pumpkins, the butter scotch type...

2012-02-04T21:24:00.000+09:00

I love pumpkins... both the eating and the growing...

For the last few years, I almost always have my lunch in the university cafeteria...

And boiled pumpkin is always part of my selection for lunch...

The predominant nutrients in pumpkins are the lutein (which is supposedly good for the eyes) and both the alpha and beta carotene, the latter of which generates vitamin A in the body. (Source here)

The butter scotch pumpkin is quite new to me...

We first saw this pumpkin at the local farmers' market...

We liked the taste and decided to keep the seeds...

We last harvested about 4.9 kilograms of the pumpkin...

And we have been enjoying eating them, bit by bit...

This evening, my sweeto haato just wrapped a portion of one pumpkin, and placed it on top of our wood stove...

Wooh, it was really very delicious...

It does not have the chestnut-like taste as in some pumpkins...

Instead, it is very sweet, and has a 'creamy' texture, should I say?

My sweeto haato also tried making pumpkin cake...

Hmmm, just nice for my tea breaks...

And pumpkin soup...

Thick, with a little milk, and spruced up with some parsley from the garden and black pepper...

To close this post, here is a picture of the over-cooked pumpkin in one of our cooking adventures with the wood stove...

We experimented by putting two types of pumpkins (botchan and butter scotch), and two large onions into a dutch oven, and placing the dutch oven inside the wood stove as we retired for the night...

(Mr. H had wanted to see the outcome of this experiment.)

The onions and the botchan pumpkin had somewhat turned into charcoal...

The butter scotch pumpkin was a little burnt, and I ate it...

Looks like the heat was still too strong for cooking inside the wood stove...

Winter tomatoes...

2012-01-27T20:30:00.000+09:00

Hmm, tomatoes... lovely fruit, isn't it?

Native to South America, where they are grown as perrenials...

Imagine, tomatoes as perennials... how nice it is to be just harvesting and harvesting the fruits year after year without having to grow them anew each spring...

I have tried growing tomatoes from seeds...

This coming season, think I shall just 'cheat' and buy a tomato seedling or two...

I can then try to propagate them by plucking off the ''babies' that develop from the main stem...

Tomatoes are supposed to be very rich in lycopene...

Lycopene? huh? as I mumbled to my missus...

This is the first time I am seeing such a word, as with the term anthocyanins...

You don't know? She said, looking quite surprised... All Japanese people know this... she joked, and added that she first learned about the lycopene about 30 years ago...

Yeap, I am still learning... and apparently, lycopene is one of the most powerful natural antioxidants... among the medical effects are that they have anti-cancer properties and they help to improve the skin's ability to protect against harmful UV rays, among others...

Anyway, harvested the last of the tomatoes during the early part of January just before the frost came in...

The ripe ones were delicious enough, and the green ones, weighing about a kilogram, turned into exquisite chutney at the snap of my missus' fingers...

Cloves, mustard seeds, cinnamon, brown sugar, a tinge of salt... cardamon, dry as well as fresh chillies, and of course how can we leave out the vinegar... hmmm, lovely...

Am linking this post to Harvest Monday...

Clearing granite stones from the garden Part 2

2012-01-22T19:24:00.000+09:00

This is actually the second part of a post I did here...

Our property is partially situated along a gradual slope...

When the developers opened up this place more than three decades ago, they probably brought in loads of granite to construct walls to level and hold the soil as well as to prevent land slides...

The excess granite stones were probably too heavy to remove and I presume the developers took the easy way out and just buried the stones here and there...

The granite stones are huge, according to my standards... many are in the 200 to 300 kilogram range...

When I was digging the potager to make the beds three years ago, I had to take out many, many stones of different sizes...

So, finally, you can imagine how glad I am to have them removed from our property...

According to my stone-mason friend who came to assist me, this biggie probably weighed about a ton or so...

And so was this one...

He had this rather small looking transporter that could squeeze its way through our Japanese garden...

The transporter had a width of merely 60 centimeters and I could never have imagined that such a small machine could move such a huge boulder...

He brought four machines... the spider-crane... the transporter as shown in the top two photos... the truck-crane which is shown in the following pictures, lifting the big stones up into the air onto the dump truck...

He came on three occasions, each working half a day... and on each occasion, I worked as his assistant, carrying chains and gadgets at his prompt...

These pictures were taken on the third occasion when the sky was really clear and crisp...

For the smaller stones, he had this metal container...

I was to pick up all the stones that I could manually lift, and drop them into the container...

Each time the container was filled up, he used the truck-crane to lift it up...

The stones from the container were then emptied into the dump truck...

And when the dump truck got filled up, it was time to transport the stones to his workshop...

All in all, we made three trips, and my friend estimated that each truck load weighed about two tons, which means six tons in total weight...

Pheew... now that more space is opened up in our garden, I am planning to plant the delicious raspberries while my sweeto haato... more flowers, perhaps?

The powers of purple corn...

2012-01-09T20:19:00.000+09:00

Harvested about 7 ears of purple corn a few days ago...

Yes, seven teeny weeny corns...

It is a big achievement for me as the previous crop was destroyed by a typhoon...

These plants were grown from the last of the seeds given to me by a former student from Peru...

If I had failed, there would be no more seeds left for me to try... phew...

Being the curious me, I did a search on the net and found some interesting information from this site.

There are apparently few purple plants found in nature, and purple corn is one of them.

How many can you name?

Blueberries, mulberries, purple eggplant, purple sweet potatoes, prunes?
The purple corn is considered a Peruvian crop which is grown in the highlands of Peru.

The exciting thing about the purple corn is that they are packed with 'phytonutrients'.

This include large amounts of 'phenolics' and 'anthocyanins'...

Hmm, pretty bombastic terminology for me, I must say... :)

Anyway, crops having high phenolic and anthocyanin elements are deemed to have high antioxidant activity.

And purple corn is believed to have higher antioxidant properties than blueberries...

I am drying the corn now and planning to consume it bit by bit...

My missus had tried putting a few kernels into the rice pot to cook with the rice, and what beautiful colors the cooked rice turned out to be...

Tonight, I have requested my missus to make me some purple corn drink...

I understand that this purple corn drink is called Chicha Morada in Peru, and that it is their 'national softdrink'...

For sure, there will be more 'experiments' with purple corns in the potager in the future...

This post is linked to Monday Harvest...

Last harvest for 2011

2011-12-31T22:13:00.002+09:00

Am not sure what this plant is...

Shall have to look the references up one day...

I supposed the fruits must be quite tasty as the birds do come for them...

Update: Thanks to Debra for suggesting that this could be 'bittersweet'. Did a search on the net and indeed, this plant belongs to the bittersweet family. The bittersweet in Debra's write-out looks like a climber but not this one in our garden. I think this plant we have is called Japanese Spindle. It is not a climber but an ever green shrub with shiny leaves.

Harvested some round daikons today for my suweeto haato to make a new year dish with carrots...

Also harvested the butter scotch pumpkins...

All six of them, including the one that was harvested some time ago...

In total, they weighed about 4.9 kilograms...

As we retire for the night, my missus is about to put one pumpkin into a dutch oven and placing the dutch oven inside our wood-stove...

We are experimenting to see if the pumpkin gets cooked with the remaining heat from the wood-stove...

Plus, harvested the last of the sweet potatoes...

The purple-flesh murasaki sweet potatoes were the most productive of the four types...

All in all, they weighed in at about 15.2 kilograms...

Very good by my standards...

Our favorite sweet potato however, is the orange-flesh An-no...

They are super sweet, almost like honey...

Rather unfortunately, productivity was low...

We could manage only about 2.9 kilograms of this delicious sweet potato...

And to close the 2011 chapter is this little camellia...

Ok folks, looking forward to the new year when we get up next morning...

Seemania... the Liebster award...

2011-12-25T13:05:00.000+09:00

Returned home today after spending two weeks in Malaysia...

The temperature there was about 30 degrees, and here, about 2 degrees... wheeaaa...

Prior to leaving, my missus had brought back a pot of orange-colored eye catching flowers...

'Seemania', she blurted out to an ignorant me...

From the net, found out that 'this is a small genus of herbaceous plants native to South America. The family, Gesneriaceae, is a large plant family of herbaceous perennials and shrubs. It is native to the tropics mostly, in Africa, Asia, North America and South America'.

Also found out its other name, 'Bolivian sunset', and that it is a 'low-growing herbaceous perennial that spreads rapidly by rhizomes' and that it has 'showy orange flowers in winter'. The plant apparently grows well in shady, moist sites.

Hmm, good... shall try to plant them at the slopes and hope that they may spread all over... fat hopes? :)

Ok, this is just a one-photo post and I must express my thanks to Tanya of Lovely Greens...

About two weeks ago, she had graciously recommended my blog for the 'Liebster Award'.

Am very honored with this gesture from Tanya...

But then, I was just about to leave Japan for Penang for about two weeks, hence this belated response to the award...

It was the first time that I saw this word 'Liebster', so I did a check on it...

Apparently, it is a German word meaning 'favorite' or 'dearest'.

And to paraphrase Tanya... 'A Liebster Award is given out by bloggers to other blogs that they enjoy reading'.

The rules are... 'once you receive it you must pass it on to five other blogs that you enjoy and also give a mention to the person who awarded you in the first place'.

Tanya, 'rediscovering' her roots as a country girl, blogs on a wide range of topics from the Isle of Man... I particularly enjoy reading about her hand in making soap, wine, and the cute looking crafts, etc... drop by her blog and check it out...

The five blogs I am passing on to are (not in any particular order):

Matron: An intimate account of a passionate veggie grower...

Andrea in this lifetime: Nature photography, plants and ornamental species and other interesting animal encounters from travels... Andrea actually had done a post on the seemania way back in 2009...

Life in Kawagoe: offers an interesting window into a Japanese family life from the eyes of the father of the house...

Desert Colors: I am often surprised by the beauty of the photos shown in this blog...

Kebun Malay-Kadazan girls: a good blog to look up on the adventures in chemical free veggie gardening...

Merry Christmas to y'all...

Greens, beans, roots, etc...

2011-12-03T07:41:00.001+09:00

Am very happy with the goings-on at the potager...

We have a lot of spinach this season...

and they are flourishing... we harvest and eat them whole, roots included...

Planted this sole celery in April...

Didn't get to eat much of it...
with the cold coming in, it is growing really well...

Tried to germinate fava beans from seeds...
From eight seeds, six germinated successfully...

Our lettuce self-seeded...
We have about a dozen of them, thriving...
They are a constant part of our breakfast fare...

Bought three broccoli seedlings from the store...
All are doing well...

Sowed two types of radish seeds last September...
The round and long type...
They taste really good either fresh or cooked...

We love our carrots a lot...
Sowed the seeds in two plots...
Harvested the first carrot this morning for breakfast...
Wooh, heavenly...

Strawberries... just about everybody's favorite...
Seedlings were all sourced from the mother plants...
Looking forward to the fruits next spring...

Am growing this green just for my suweeto haato...
The ta-sai is one of her favorite leafy greens... have been harvesting them for a while now... we mostly stir-fried them with black beans...

Bought two seedlings of parsley...
Had them planted as companions to the strawberry patch... we harvest them a little at time to use as garnish for our breakfast pizza-toasts...

And finally, while still far away from harvesting, red onions, another 'must-have' order from my missus...
Sowed the seeds last October and they are still rather tiny...
Need to let the seedlings grow up to the size of chopsticks before I can transplant them for good...

Note: While this post is not really totally about harvesting, I am taking the liberty to link this post to Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne... hope she doesn't mind...

Butter scotch pumpkin, Hawk's claws chillies, etc...

2011-11-27T21:24:00.000+09:00

Was trying to dig out an azalea plant to make space for the 'Southern Cross'...

Slipped, fell over and hit my head on the concrete steps...

Next thing I knew was the sound of my own heavy breathing...

My missus came over to look me up...

Lucky thing, it was only a minor cut on the right side of the head...

Lesson learned: be careful and wear the safety helmet while working...

(I often do so, actually, and today was one of the few instances that I didn't...)

Anyway, am happy to be able to do some harvesting...
My missus bought a butter scotch pumpkin last year from the farmers' market...
We like the taste of it and kept some seeds...
Am delighted that the plants produced 6 large pumpkins...
This one weighs about 900 grams... not too bad...

Similarly, we kept some seeds from the winter melon that we bought from the farmers' market last year...
We manage only one fruit, however... 1.7 kilograms...

The first time I ever planted potatoes years ago, we harvested over 11 kilograms from one kilogram of seeds...

Subsequent plantings were rather measly...

This time, only 3 kilograms from one kilogram of seeds...

Reason? I did not fully dry the cut-up seeds before I planted them, so most of them rotted...

Chillies this season... not too bad although it could be better...

These finger-sized ones are called 'Taka no tsume', aka 'Hawk's claws'...

They are spicy and they taste good...

I got some okra seeds from my younger brother in Malaysia last year...

And I must say that they have adapted very well to our potager...

These are the last of the harvests for this season...

Compared to the Japanese okras, these are gigantic...

Some of them were about 30 centimeters long...

And they were tender, super delicious and combine very well with curries...

Will certainly grow them again next spring...

The Autumn Giraffe, among others...

2011-11-13T19:54:00.001+09:00

Autumn days at Shikoku have been super pleasant...
Cool, dry, and simply heavenly to be outdoors...

Took a shot of our potager today...
The marigolds are still blooming, as are the zinnias...

This dwarf of a flower is called 'wild chrysamthemum'　（野菊）in Japanese...
They grow so well in our garden, without any attention from us...

The Japanese folks call this flower 'Hototogizu' (ホトトギス）, which is the name of a bird belonging to the cuckoo family... Apparently, the spots of this lily-family flower is similar to the spots on the chest of the bird...

Think this is called Larkdaisy or Porcupine flower.
The Japanese name is Murasaki Rushan （ムラサキルーシャン） or Ringo Azami（リンゴアザミ）...
Leaves emit apple-like smell when rubbed...

This chrysanthemum is endemic to the island of Honshu in Japan...

It's scientific name is Chrysanthemum pacificum Nakai but I prefer the common name Isogiku (イソギク) meaning, Rocky Shore Chrysanthemum...

We enjoy looking at this wild flower in our morning walks...

Took back home a specimen of this 'Aki no kirin so' （秋の麒麟草）, literally, Autumn Giraffe flower...

Am linking this post to GBBD, which is hosted by May Dreams Gardens...

Berries from the Inumaki/Kusamaki tree...

2011-11-12T21:20:00.001+09:00

Was visiting the University of Victoria at Vancouver Island, Canada, a couple of years ago when I first witnessed birds eating these berries...

I actually went over to the trees and tried one...

Sweet, it was...

Years down the road, was really happy to discover that we have those Inumaki or Kusamaki trees (native to China and Southern Japan) in our property...

Five of them are females, and I managed to harvest 1.3 kilos of these delicious berries from them...
The round, green portion is apparently inedible, and there is a small seed inside the berries...

The Inumaki trees and the Mountain Peach tree had been 'over-growing' in our garden for a while...
They were blocking the sun from our goldfish pond...
And my suweeto haato had been urging me to trim them down...

Finally got to doing it today...

And, whoaa, what an amateurish a job it turned out to be, I said to myself...

Well, at least we got the sun in, and the view of the mountains from our house improved markedly...

China root berries, strawberries, pineapple sage, etc...

2011-11-06T21:09:00.000+09:00

There has been just so much rain this year...

Not to say that I am complaining...

It is just marvelous for the plants, in fact...

This is a picture of the berries of a climber plant called 'China root'...

They grow wildly in our property...

The young shoots can be eaten as a vegetable (pictures next spring?)...

Some folks use the berries to make wine but apparently they do not taste good...

For the time being, we just plan to enjoy their beauty...

I bought two types of raspberry plants from the store some years ago...

And they do give very good fruits...

Only thing I really have to do is to fertilize them more...

I had thought that this specie fruits only in spring but we found it fruiting this season...

Hmmm, lovely, of course...

We had taken the liberty to name this beauty 'Princess Pink'...

My suweeto haato found it growing semi-wild in the hills...

We took back some cuttings and this beauty of a rose has been thriving very well in our potager...

This white chrysanthemum is also grown by my missus...

As with the above mentioned rose, this cutie has adapted very well to our environment...

And finally, the pineapple sage...

Apparently, the name comes from the pineapple-like fragrance that the ~~flowers~~ leaves emit when crushed...

Purple corn... purple eggplant...

2011-10-31T21:13:00.000+09:00

Hosted a student from Peru who kindly brought some purple corn for me all the way from the hinterland of Lake Titicaca...
He has since left for home but his kindness lingers on at our potager...
Edgar, thank you very much, if you are reading this...

Tried planting some seeds last summer...
The corn plants have this purple 'veins' in the stems and leaves...
Cute... I thought to myself...

They grew and grew... stopping at about almost 3 meters?
Happy and happy I was...
But, happiness was short-lived as the typhoons came by...
All the plants broke into two... except one...
And this is the lone, precious-precious fruit from the 'harvest'...

Luckily, I had saved some seeds for a second round of planting, which I did last July...
I had always believed that plants, like humans, have some kind of 'thinking' mechanism in them...

This second batch of purple corn plants 'decided' to start flowering at about 2 meters or less...
A response to the upcoming cold season, perhaps?
Happiness returns... as the ears begin to appear...

My suweeto haato had not been very fond of eggplants...
Until one day, she came home with a bunch of long and lanky eggplants after visiting her youngest sister in Kyushu...
Somehow, her taste buds changed from then on... and eggplant dishes began to show up on my dinner plates...

Meanwhile, I had only grown eggplant once before and I was not very successful with it...
Why, for they are heavy feeders...
And I am not a very good feeder of fertilizers to my plants...

Now, late last summer, I accompanied my suweeto haato on one of her daily (well, almost) walks in the hills...

There is this plot of land midway up the hill, that is being used as a landfill for some construction firm...
We often see a medium sized truck hauling all sorts of debris up there to be dumped as landfill...

The unobstructed view of the Japan Inland Sea from there is really beautiful...
We imagine that after a certain amount of landfill, some big shot company president will come over and build his fifth summer holiday villa or something like that...

Anyway, while walking pass the landfill, a little plant caught my eye...
And I knew it was an eggplant seedling, growing 'wild' amongst the debris...
I dug it up and just then, I discovered a second seedling...
Took them home, knowing that it was a little too late to start planting eggplants...

Three months or so passed... and woah... it is harvest time for purple eggplants...

Ok, please allow me to dedicate this post to Connie Nakamura...
She has just moved to Japan from Saipan and is planning to try her hand at vegetable gardening...

I am much humbled to be at the receiving end of what she had to say of me (or my potager blog?)... and it is indeed an honor to be requested by her to act as her 'mentor'...

For a 'student' of gardening, I still am...

Yet, it will be my pleasure to be part of this exciting adventure in life...

May your garden blooms a thousand blooms....
And fruits, a thousand fruits... :)

Bountiful peanut harvest...

2011-10-23T21:53:00.000+09:00

Had been fooling around growing peanuts in the potager for about three years...

The last two years had seen harvests that were, hmmm, pitiful... to say the least...

Today, the leaves showed some signs of yellowing...

So, decided to do some harvesting...

Was thrilled to see the scales tipping at 3.3 kilograms...

Immediately called my third sis in Malaysia...

Advised me to put the peanuts out to dry...

The roots too, she suggested to dry...

And make peanut root chicken soup later on...

While harvesting the peanuts, discovered a radish root 'hiding' within...

Topping off the rainy and cloudy weekend, a neighbor brought over some 'yuzu' citrus for us... nice...

Cosmos from a friendly neighbor...

2011-10-15T20:27:00.002+09:00

Saturday today started off cloudy...
The potager was wet from the heavy rain yesterday...

Could not really work on the wet soil...

So, filed the teeth of the chain saw to get ready for the upcoming wood collecting season for our wood stove...

And changed the rotor-blade of the grass cutter machine...
Many of the blades were chipped due to inadvertent hits on rocks and pebbles while cutting the grass...

Later part of the morning, began to work on the slopes...
Am using wood recycled from the stone masons to make 'terraces' along the slopes...

Was pleasantly surprised to receive some cosmos flowers from a neighbor the other day...
Along with the chrysanthemum, the cosmos is probably the most representative of flowers in Japan for the month of October...

Am linking this post to the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for the first time...

Wonderful autumn days...

2011-10-10T21:48:00.000+09:00

It is days like these that I wish would last forever...

The temperature throughout the weekend was a pleasant mid-twenties...

No rain, no wind... heavenly it was...

And the moon at night... wooh, so bright and lovely...

Spent the weekend doing a wide range of activities in the garden...

Last year, raccoons came by to rob us of our sweet potatoes...

Luckily this year, there was still no sign of them coming...

Anyway, harvested some of the sweet potatoes in our potager...

We had four types: Anno (left), which has orange flesh and is really delicious... Naruto Kintoki (right top), which is the main type sold in the stores around here... and Murasaki imo (right bottom) which literally means purple sweet potatoes... have yet to harvest the fourth type, Beni-azuma...

Read about the rose hips in Tanya's Lovely Greens blog...

Then asked my missus to harvest the rose hips from the wild roses in our property...

The hips are tiny, less than one centimeter or so...

They taste sourish and we shall be having them as tea, eventually...

Tried growing some hyacinth beans this year...

They have flowers that resemble those of wisterias...

Apparently, they make good curries...

Will certainly request my missus to give it a shot...

Lantanas have taken a liking to our garden...

My missus bought only one pot some years ago but it seems that they since self seeded...

We can find them in numerous places in our garden...

The Evening Primrose, among other things...

2011-09-27T21:21:00.000+09:00

The evening primrose flower is actually quite charming....

The petal texture reminds me a little bit of the washi aka Japanese paper...

As previously mentioned, I shall be looking for ways to make use of this 'miraculous' medicine plant...

A rather large portion of our property is actually slopes...

The gradient is perhaps 15 to 20 degrees?

Some years ago, had made these steps out of recycled wood which we kept aside when we renovated our house...

But we need more such steps to move around the slopes...

And it took me many many more moons to put together a 'walkable staircase'...

So, spent a good portion of my last weekend cracking my head on how to do just that...

After some prolonged contemplation, decided to carve these steps at a spot below our sakura tree...

Was very pleased to be praised by my missus who came by to inspect...

In between the breaks from carving the slopes, grabbed my camera to shoot some pictures in the garden...

This is the flower of a bonafide grass... I have yet to identify its name...

More so than the evening primrose, this 'weed' is really all over our property...

Lucky thing is, they are not so difficult to pull out...

and I must say that I am quite attracted by that shade of blue... pretty exquisite, don't you think?.

The humble zinnia... as with the evening primrose and the grass with the blue flowers, zinnias have really adapted so well to our potager...
The interesting thing is, although they come in shades of pink, their shapes and petals vary considerably...
The above specimen is the single layer petal...

The Thai basil is one of several vegetables that remind me of my mother...

She used to tend a vegetable garden in the village and at times, I assisted her...

The Thai basil is growing so well this season...

Its fragrance goes very well with our breakfast pizza toasts and also our evening meals...

The parting shot is a bloom (accompanied by a mini spider) from our Jerusalem artichoke patch...

It is amazing that we do not really care for this plant and yet, they grow so well...

Its edible tubers are not that palatable for us...

But their flowers make up for their bland taste...

I think the Jerusalem artichoke flower is better suited to our potager compared to the over-sized sunflower...

The Jerusalem artichoke flowers make great cut-flowers as they do not dry out that fast...

My missus fancies these flowers very much, so I suppose they will remain a permanent feature for many moons ('moon' again?) to come... ;)

A fling with the evening primrose...

2011-09-19T21:38:00.002+09:00

Hmmm... another big typhoon is heading our way...

This time, it is Typhoon Number 15...

Anyway, in between the intermittent rains and winds, had been keeping busy at the potager...

Pulled out some 'weeds' yesterday, knowing quite well that the 'weed' is the evening primrose...

Had read about the primrose being a 'miracle' plant yet to be fully discovered...

And today, decided to check up the plant a little bit more...

Found very, very little information on how to cook the stuff...
One blog, 'Wild Blessings' stood out...

And it says, Evening Primrose is a magnificent gift from God. The whole plant is edible and medicinal. This is one of those prime examples of “Letting food be your medicine and medicine be your food”....

Sounds very inviting...

So I thought to myself... hmmm, would like to have soup with it... perhaps cream-based?

But the chief cook (my 'suweeto-haaato', of course) vetoed and decided to boil the thing for me...

Took some bites... tough meat... feels somewhat 'sappy'...

A little bit like moroheya but not quite...

Would not say that it tastes good...

Wifey also tried to stir-fry it...

Still, no cigar...

Ok, so our taste buds are not very agreeable with this 'wild, miracle' vegetable...

Very well then... taking a leaf from a Japanese homepage, we shall try to dry the leaves and make tea out of it instead...

Why not, as the evening primrose is all over our property...

They have very pretty flowers... yellow and pink...

Two of them, the 'straight' type and the 'creeping' type are tall and they have yellow flowers...
The third type is very short and they have very beautiful pink flowers...

Photos? Ok, the yellow ones in a while but the pinks ones will have to wait for next season...

Anyway, will definitely try to make tea out of them...

Been enjoying our harvests continuously... meaning to say, everyday...

The fruits are the usual suspects...

Okra, peppers, moroheya, amaranth, Malabar spinach, bitter gourd, long beans, winged beans, basil, korean perilla, water spinach, Japanese yam, tomatoes... etc...

So, no repeat of 'boring' pictures... :)

Except perhaps this pumpkin with its 'whiskers' might be an exception...

The loofahs are coming on rather late for us this year...

Blame it on the farmer for the late and slow germination of the seeds...

While the angled loofahs are popping out quite well, giving abundant fruits of 30 centimeters long, the Egyptian loofahs are not doing as well...

And like (well, almost) all things, while the man of the house prefers this type, the lady of the house opts for the other...

So, you can assume that I shall be channeling more energy on growing the Egyptian type next season... yeepeee...
And yes, I love this gourd...

Of late, we have been putting it in curries and noodles, besides stir-frying them...

Typhoon Number 12 rips through Shikoku

2011-09-03T15:41:00.000+09:00

This is quite a record, to have a second, massive, vicious typhoon ripping through the Japanese archipelago within such a short span of time...

The eye of the typhoon had cut across Kochi Prefecture in the south and through Kagawa Prefecture, and is now slowly creeping towards Okayama Prefecture...

After experiencing blistering winds and rains for hours, it was surreal to witness a momentary calm as the eye dawned upon where we live...

I changed into my rain-gear and made a quick inspection of the potager...

Oooh, how heart-wrenching it was to see damage inflicted...
the okra plants, twisted...
the purple corn plants, contorted with some stems broken in the middle...

the moroheya bush, mutilated...
the Fuji-mame (hyacinth bean) vines, badly torn... and the pumpkin plants, brutally beaten...
Oh well, this is god's way of doing things...
Luckily, other 'low-lying' plants like sweet potatoes, chillies, malabar spinach did not suffer much damage...
The rains and winds began to resume...
I promptly harvested some okra, amaranth, long beans, and chillies...
and made a quick dash back into the house...

Anyway, two days ago before cycling off to work, I recorded this Hime-hasu, literally Princess Lotus...

This is a gift from an elderly gentleman whom I have known since 1997...

It is actually a mini lotus, rather small compared to the 'normal' large ones...

This was the only lotus flower we had this season...

I had requested my sweeto haato to cut the flower and bring it into the house...

The following day, to our pleasure, it bloomed beautifully...

I was quite intrigued with how tiny the seed pod is...

The seeds do not develop into the roundish seeds we see in larger specimens...

Now, our pear trees are pretty pathetic...

Or rather, their fruits are...

They are so 'teeny-weeny'...

In the words of my missus, 'the size of ping-pong balls'...

Harvested a few days ago this Kodama Suika aka Mini Watermelon...

Their skin is exceptionally thin when compared to the 'normal' watermelons...

They tasted just as good and we have kept the seeds for next season...

And like the Hime-hasu, seems like the Japanese folks are doing a great job creating mini versions of such plants...

In addition, there is also a Bochan Kabocha, mini pumpkin so to say...

Will definitely try to grow them as well, from seeds next season...

Harvesting on a hot August weekend in 2011

2011-08-28T22:04:00.000+09:00

Our tomatoes are doing pretty well this year...

And for reasons quite unclear to me, the crows did not come for them this time...

When I am working in the potager, I love to pop these goodies into my mouth, just like that...

We had jalapenos before, from seedlings bought locally...

These are from seeds bought from LA last March...

They seem to be more spicy that those we had before...

Bought two seedlings of sweet peppers (shishito) in April...

Why not, as they were on sale...

They are very productive, giving us lots of pods almost every day...

The bell peppers are really tiny this time...

Guess they need more fertilizers...

I really like to eat moroheya...

Am so happy that we have a big bush of moroheyas this year...

Apparently, their seeds are poisonous... no?

Seriously tried to grow Japanese mountain yam this year...Tried two species: the nagaimo (long type) and the jinenjo (wild mountain type)...Harvested some today...Wooh, had to dig and dig... deep... Yet, could not reach the bottom of some of them, especially the long type...Anyway my sweeto haato made this dish, mixing the moroheya and the yam...The taste was very smooth and very good...

Had tried to grow winged beans thrice with seeds brought from Malaysia...

Each time they began to flower, the cold came in and they perished...

This time, bought some seeds from an online shop...

And imagine how happy we are to see the flowers...

We are starting to chew on the beans now...

Long beans have been a regular feature in our potager for years...

Unlike the wing beans, the seeds which I brought from my village in Malaysia, adapted very well to the climate here...

Still, the beans are rather skinny...

Along with long beans, Chinese chives are also a regular feature in our potager...

I put them in the perennial plot together with asparagus and black eye susans...

We just cut and cut while they grow and grow...

Tonight, my missus make one of my favorite dishes...

Pancake, Korean style aka chijimi, with ingredients being Chinese chives, jalapenos, dried shrimps...

Those jalapenos... they have a nice flagrance and they are not overly spicy...

Taken with grounded black sesame and vinegar sauce, wooh, the chijimi is heavenly...

The sweet smell of autumn...

2011-08-20T21:48:00.000+09:00

Ah, the days appear to be cooling off...

The autumn smell is, but in the air...

From the potager, ladies fingers...

Long, slender, beautiful...

Alongside... dried, over-ripe corn kernels that escaped the harvester's eye...

Thin, somewhat 'undernourished' kangkong greens...

Yet, delicious when stir fried with black beans and garlic...

Same goes with the zucchinis...

Merely finger-sized, when harvested...

Beyond that, they shrunk and turned bad...

'The Pride of India' stands tall in this season...

Blooms so pink, radiant even in the rains...

And to Diana, this post is dedicated to...

Many, many thanks for the seeds...

of zinnia, sunflower, basil, hollyhock...

and of luffa, amaranth, capsicum, carnation...

The harvest continues...

2011-08-17T15:33:00.001+09:00

Was thrilled to have a week off from the university...

In this 'o-bon' (all souls?) season, the Japanese folks take time off from work to pay respects to their deceased ancestors...

For me, this presents an excellent opportunity for me to spend time in the potager...

Still, the heat is a bit too stifling...

Which need not necessarily be a bad thing...

For I can sweat it out in the mornings when it is still rather tolerable...

And after my tea break at 10:00 am, I get into a change of gear and head out to the sea...

For the first time since we moved here years ago, I am truly beginning to cherish the joys of frolicking at the sea...

Each day, thankfully, we have something to harvest...

Pumpkin, which weighed about 1.9 kilograms...

Cucumbers so crunchy and fresh...

Tomatoes so sweet and juicy...

We dug out our potatoes some time ago...

The harvest was not the best we had...

No complains though, as the scales tipped at a little over 3 kilograms...

And my sweeto haato turned the potatoes into this...

A mixture of several ingredients...

Urmmm... simple yet heavenly it was...

Was never successful with water melons, so to say...

But this season, not too bad...

This one was about 1.6 kilograms...

Just nice for the two of us, for two fruit-courses after lunch...

The bitter gourds are turning out pretty well...

And as the label implies, they are truly bitter although we should say that 'bitter' stuff is not one of our weak areas...

The watermelon as it was...

Juicy, sweet, and sooo refreshing when consumed in the heat of summer...