The appearance of bitter gourd and okura - July 19 update

This week’s highlights are a plentiful harvest of green peppers and eggplants (brinjal), and the appearance of the first okura and bitter gourd. First, here’s an overall view of the veggie patch.

I’m pleased with the growth of the eggplant and okura - last year, the okura plants were unsuccessful. The neem that I used to ward off pests also seems to have played its part. All plants are generally healthy, with leaves showing no sign of attack from pests.

 

Here is the first of the okuras - the yellow flower is bright and beautiful. Unfortunately, I’m leaving for the US for the month and won’t be able to taste my okuras this time :(.  Hoping they are still active when I return after a month.

 

Here’s an overall view of the patch along the wall.

In another fortnight, the bitter gourd and cucumber should cover the entire netting and provide a natural shade for a cool summer house within.

 

Here are the mini tomatoes slowly starting to ripen.

 

Here are the green peppers - probably the best harvest among all the plants this year until now.

 

The eggplants are doing great too, and have been harvesting some every day. Here is a snap of the eggplants.

 

Finally, a snap of a welcome visitor to my garden and some flowers below.

 

Have a great week!

Technorati Tags: Okura,bitter gourd,green pepper

 

First cucumbers and eggplants harvested - July 13 update

Tidings of joy! Veggies growing in full strength.  A couple of overall views first.

Cucumber and mini tomatoes have shot up straight and tall! You can see the first cucumber and the yellow flowers in the foreground, with mini tomatoes behind. Zucchini and tomatoes (green yet) also coming up fast.

The okura plants are finally showing signs of growth. Eggplants doing well, with the first eggplants of the season already making their way to our dinner plates. Fresh and delicious! I am glad I planted them.

Here is my first cucumber. Delicious!

And here are the first eggplants of this season.

And here are the tomatoes - doing great!

Finally, I leave you with a snap of some flowers in my garden.

Mukuge - Rose of Sharon

Technorati Tags: Veggie patch,cucumber,zucchini,eggplant,Rose of Sharon

Until the next post, have a great week!

 

My first zucchini and cucumber - July 2 update

My first zucchini from a single zucchini plant is up for grabs. I had thought of hand pollinating the flowers, but each time a male flower bloomed, the female one was nowhere in sight. :(  I let nature take its course, and have my first zucchini - you can see it in all its glory together with insect life!

 

I also made some changes to my small vegetable patch moving out the two experimental strawberry plants and planting a row of eggplants (called “brinjal” in India). So I have four eggplants of one kind and one given by a friend - they are growing well! Here is a snap taken on the 28th of last month.

 

Also thrilled to see the first of my cucumbers in the patch along the wall. Seeing cucumber flowers blooming regularly, I expect a fairly good harvest this year.

 

I removed the horse beans in the last row (I intend planting these through winter to spring when insects don’t flourish), and planted a row of bell peppers in the last row beyond the green peppers.

Here’s an overall view of the cucumber, mini tomato, bitter gourd, zucchini, tomato and eggplants along the wall.

 

Finally, a view of hydrangea from my garden.

And, if you have just cut a carrot, don’t throw away the stub. Stick it in a small vessel containing some water and see what you get!

 

Until the next post, have a great day!

 

June 21 update

Technorati Tags: zucchini,green pepper,cucumber,orchids

Today it rained throughout. But before it did, I got hold of my first green peppers from my veggie patch and fried them in butter together with some mushrooms (called “shitake” here in Japan) after sprinkling some sea salt and fresh ground pepper. The green peppers were unbelievably delicious! Take a look at the photo below.

Edit

The cucumber plants have grown rapidly - fresh green leaves and climbing straight and tall on the nets. I’m sure to enjoy cucumber this season! Here’s today’s photo of the cucumber plants.

I received a single zucchini plant from a friend and planted it too for the first time. I found large yellow flowers coming up quite quickly and dropping off quite quickly too and no sign of any zucchini. I wonder whether a single plant will ever yield zucchinis! I need to read up. Here is a snap of the same.

Finally, I couldn’t resist these pretty flowers in full bloom in my garden. Here they are!

And until the next post - have a great weekend!

 

Mid-June update on vegetable patch

I am pleased to report excellent growth of the tomato plants. On the other hand, the Okura plants (second row from the front) are a bit of a worry; they have not been growing as well as I expected. I possibly need to change the organic fertilizer.

Here is a photo showing the overall view of the main veggie patch. Compare with the photo in the previous post. The plants growing adjacent to the wall have shown generally satisfactory growth. Today, I removed weeds and added organic fertilizer to all the plants. This will likely spur the growth. Also removed the new side-growth of branches in tomato plants so that growth is directed vertically.

I laid newspapers all around to prevent growth of weeds adjacent to the stone fencing. Also made holes in a plastic sheet and laid it from the top of the two strawberry plants so that the fruits don’t touch the soil. The experimental strawberry plants are a success - I hope to grow rows of them next year and plant them earlier — some time in February rather than in April.

The green peppers (shishito) have already started appearing. Within a week I hope to harvest the first of the green peppers. I have found that they taste great when you fry them lightly in butter, together with salt and pepper. Here is the first green pepper of the season.

The horse beans have also started appearing after initially being taken over by insects. The bean points skyward and hence it is named “soramame” in Japanese (sora meaning sky, mame meaning bean). I intend to plant this earlier and use the organic pest killer at when the plants are small. Since this was the first time I planted horse beans, a very good learning experience for me.

I’m very pleased with the growth of the tomato plants (mini-tomato). They have shot up straight and tall within a fortnight and the first tomatoes are already visible. I hope to have a good harvest this year. Since the branches should get entangled with the netting, the tomato plants do not need additional stake supports. Here is a photo of the tomato plants.

The eggplants by the side of the wall are doing well too. I need to find a way to keep of small black insects that make small holes in the leaves. I did spray an organic fluid, but it did not prove to be very effective.

Generally, pleased with the progress of the patch, though disappointed with the growth of the Okura. More next week.

Happy gardening and have a great day!

 

All plants in place for the summer!

Technorati Tags: Eggplant,okura,green pepper,horse beans,tomato

I have finally planted all the veggies I wanted to in my garden patch. Here’s a photo showing all the plants in place in my small patch.

The first row has nearest to the viewer has two strawberry plants (on the left hand side) that I planted for the first time to see how they would shape up. Although planted quite late (in April), they are now bearing fruit. The plant on the extreme left has several fruits in a bunch (about 5 to 6) that should ripen in about 10 days. The next three on the right hand side in the same row are eggplants.

The second row above the row just described contains four Okura plants. This time I used the slender variety called the Okinawa variety of Okura. Last year I did not have much success with the thicker variety. Let’s see how these turn out.

The third row contains 4 green pepper plants (called shishito in Japanese). I have always had success with these; the only exception was last year when some of them turned out to be extremely hot - they were green chillies rather than sweet green pepper!

I planted horse beans (called sora mame in Japanese) about a month ago. At first they were taken over by small green insects that did not allow the flowers to grow. After using an organic pest repellant, I finally got rid of the insects and the plants have started growing afresh! The first horse beans are already on the stems pointing toward the sky (sora - sky; mame - beans). You can see the horse beans just beyond the green pepper in the photo above.

Also planted plants that will yield large tomatoes in my second patch along the wall. Here is a photo showing the same.

More on the progress of these veggies in the next post!

Have a great day!

 

New plants in the Veggie Patch

Today, the sun shone brightly after two days of rain. The ground was soft and was easy to dig and prepare the soil. Here’s a photo of the site dug to a depth of about 0.6 m after de-weeding and removing stones. This site is right under the window. I prepared to accept plants that would grow creep upward on nets.

I have already strung the nets above the window (see other photos) so that they drop down in front of the plants at a slant angle. I added organic fertilizer (two varieties) and neem, mixed them with the soil and filled up the hole.

The neem is supposed to keep away pests; it is a natural substance and does no harm to the plants. Neem is also an important component of the modern-day toothpaste, I believe. It keeps teeth healthy.

To get rid of weeds growing around the plants, I decided to lay newspapers lengthwise along the dugout. The idea is that weeds under the newspapers are likely to die because of lack of sunlight. Let me see how this works.

Next, here is a photo showing the dug-out part filled up after mixing soil, fertiilizers and neem. I laid newspapers all all along to prevent weeds from growing.

The next photo shows cucumber, mini-tomato, bitter gourd and zucchini planted in the prepared soil, and the nets in place.

There’s still place for a few more tomato plants at the end of the row. Photos in the next post.

Have a great day!

 

What you can grow in a small vegetable patch

Pictures say a lot more than words! I give you a lot of them in this post to convince you to start a garden on your own. You’ll hear many around you say you need good sunlight and good soil to grow vegetables - don’t you believe it all. I dug up my garden and found it full of stones and cement. I threw out as much as I could, dumped a few bags of black soil mixed with regular soil, and started growing tomatoes and cucumber. You can see the results.

Here’s my small patch measuring about 2 m by 2.5 m (the first photo on the left below). The next one shows 4 varieties of saplings planted in this patch. The next two photos on the left and right show a full grown tomato plant ready for harvest, and cucumber plants that I planted along the side windows climbing up along a slanting net.

The photo with showing a basket of vegetables is a day’s harvest. You pick the vegetables and eat them immediately without storing them in the refrigerator - the taste is wonderful! The last photo shows strawberries that are green and will become ripe when red — I planted just two plants this year to find out whether they would grow and give strawberries, and they did! I just plucked and ate a couple of fairly delicious strawberries from one of the plants two days ago.

This year I started planting early and experimented with vegetables I had never grown before. These included cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, strawberry and horse beans. More about these in the next post.

Happy gardening!

 

Hello world! Welcome to my Japanese Garden blog!

Hello all! The name “Japanese Garden” is a bit of a misnomer; for want of a better title I used it. It should have been “an amateur gardener’s vegetable garden in Japan” but that’s too long.

I intend to post articles and photographs of vegetables that I grow in my small vegetable patch in my garden in Kisarazu city, Japan. I am a freelance technical translator by profession and in my spare time, I grow an assortment of vegetables during the warm weather in Japan. These include tomato, cucumber, okura, beans, bitter gourd, eggplant (brinjal is the name in India), brocolli, cabbage, sunny lettuce and so on.

I learned to grow vegetables during my two-year stay in the beautiful countryside, in a small village called Hisakata, about 20 km off Chichibu, in Saitama Prefecture; a wonderful place surrounded my mountains and a clean gurgling stream just near my house. The villagers were surprised to see a foreigner turn up in their midst, but welcomed me with great love and affection, and taught me how to prepare the soil, grow seedlings, maintain the plants and harvest vegetables. After I moved out of this heavenly place to Kisarazu City in Chiba Prefecture, I continued to grow vegetables but in a small garden patch. This blog is meant to give amateur or would-be gardeners some information on growing vegetables in a garden patch.

The joy and pleasure that I have derived in growing, harvesting and consuming fresh, organically grown vegetables have no bounds. I do hope that this blog will encourage at least some people to try out their hands at growing vegetables and experience a little bit of the pleasure that I have gained.

Happy gardening!