Strawberries, corn, sakura cherries...

Am getting the hang of growing strawberries... 

Still, grew a bit too many of them this past season...

I am keeping just six baby-plants for next season...

No more over-crowding them...

Anyway, we just enjoyed our last few strawberries for this season... 

Their flesh was firm, and their taste... should I say, 'concentrated', unlike the ones from the stores?

Our corn plants are growing really well this season...

Compared to the strawberries, I think I have more or less learned how to grow corn 'properly'.... 

I derive a lot of pleasure just looking at them... 

The stems are thick, and the plants, 'stocky'...

I almost praised myself for setting up the pole-stakes early enough to prevent them from being blown sideways by the winds...

Still, the pests remain an issue...

They are already drilling holes into the stems and I am quite at a loss as to how to handle them...

Well, let's see how the harvest turns out...

Ok, I started with red, and I shall end with red...

These are sakura-cherry flowers... photographed in early April...

And come June... woah, managed to harvest some beautiful sakura cherries for the first time...

They have a very refreshing, sourish-sweet taste...

Absolutely lovely...

Amaranths, peanuts, malabar spinach, shiso...

Thanks to the frequent rains, things are growing very well at the potager...

And thanks to Diana of Kebun Malay-Kadazan girls for sending the amaranth seeds...

Grew eight patches of these amaranth and had been eating them for a while now... they taste very good...



Meanwhile, the amaranth we had bought some years ago, self-seeded...

Am still keeping the packet, and the label says 'Perfect red'... they don't lose their color even when cooked... and the juice that oozes out of them is pinkish red...

The taste of homegrown peanuts is really 'out-of-this-world'... am I exaggerating?  :-)
Manage to grow about ten plants with seeds save from last season...

And Malabar spinach... ooh, I just love growing and eating them...
I germinated some of them although they do self-seed as well... 

An acquaintance of mine drove over to our house one day just to give us some seedlings...
Japanese shiso or perilla is shown in the picture above... she also gave us myoga ginger, and yellow tomatoes...

Flowers in the rainy season...

We are in the midst of the rainy season...
Incidentally, Typhoon Number 4 is currently scraping over the Japanese archipelago as I blog, bringing with it much rain and strong winds...
Luckily, our place is not along its path...



And yes, rainy season in Japan is the season to enjoy the blooms of Ajisai (hydrangea)...
The first specimen was given to us by a neighbor the other day...

I actually prefer the other type of ajisai that the Japanese folks call gaku-ajisai (gaku = frame, as in picture frame)...

Apparently, the real flowers are those dotty little things in the middle area...

Rather intriguing, don't you think?

My sweeto haato takes care of mainly herbs and flowers (while I do vegetables and fruits)...

Here, I was privileged to capture one of her creations (of roses and English lavender)...

Some years ago, I tried sowing some edible chrysanthemum seeds...
Thereafter, they self-seed and I really do not have to do much except harvesting them...

They are an excellent vegetable to eat...

And after the eating is done, they provide plentiful flowers that are so pretty...

And once again, I was delighted to be able to capture yet another arrangement made by my missus...

Aliums, roots... and the Versatile Blogger award

We prefer red onions to the white ones...

This year's harvest brought us (only) about 2 kilograms of onions... 

Yet another 'indicator' that there is still a lot for this 'farmer' to learn...  

A mini-teeny 2 kilograms really does not deserve much hanging (to dry the onions) as we would probably consume them before they have a chance to get dried up...

These radishes were actually harvested some time ago... 

We like to cook these radishes in oden, which is a broth that includes other ingredients such as potatoes, tofu, fish cakes, burdock, boiled egg, among other stuff...

This other type of roundish radish is also good to eat...

They taste sweet even if simply boiled lightly...

Planted about 10 garlic seedlings in the strawberry patch last October...
Their size was pretty respectable, compared to those of previous seasons...

They apparently make good companions to the strawberries...

And, as a gesture of gratitude, I would like to dedicate this post to Stephenie of Steph's Green Space for graciously nominating me for the Versatile Blogger award... 

Many, many thanks...

And I would like to ask for her 'forgiveness' as I shall be breaking the rules quite a bit... 

I am going to make a special 'Versatile Blogger Award' mention of Robbie's blog Palm Rae Potager...

This is one gardening blog that I really enjoy visiting... 
The photos are superb... the stories, refreshing... and the garden, tastefully maintained...

Do hop over to take a peep at Robbie's beautiful pictures of Swiss chard in the latest post...

Snap peas, greens, potatoes, berries...

Beautiful weather these days in Shikoku, Japan...

It is supposed to be the rainy season, and I am hoping for rain, actually...

We ate the last of the snap peas this season...
My missus prefers to harvest them when they are more 'full-bodied'...
'Crunchy and meaty', she says...

Sowed some mini turnip seeds in April...
Used to sow them in rows, but I am quite hopeless at thinning the little plants after they germinated...
So, tried sowing them in discreet spots, spaced about 30 centimeters apart...
It makes the thinning process easier, and the plants grow better too...
They taste really good, stir-fried with bean curd...

Also sowed some chingen-sai last April...
They are easy to grow and are more resistant to pests compared to komatsu-na...
I normally grow these greens in the autumn season as there are less pests to start with...
Anyway, chingen-sai is also a very delicious vegetable...
I would also like to add, a very 'handsome-looking' one too...

Planted two types of potatoes last October...
Danshaku potato (originated from Irish Cobbler potato) and Kita-akari potato (which is an 'improved' strain of the Danshaku)...
From two kilograms of seed potatoes, I could harvest only seven kilograms of potatoes...
Hmmm... could this be proof of the amateurism of the farmer?

We were very excited to see so many fruits in our two mulberry trees in May...

Come June, to our dismay, the fruits turned whitish and rotted away...
The same thing happened last year, and we had thought it was the continuous rain that brought about the rotting...

Did a check on the net and found out that the tree was suffering from 'popcorn' disease...
The recommended treatment is to 'remove and bury the infected fruit on the trees and any ground debris as it appears during the growing season'... (source)
I went a step further... I burnt them all...
Am hoping that the fruits will not be infected again next year...

Enjoying fava beans in spring 2012...

Planted eight seeds last November..

Six germinated... one died prematurely... leaving five plants...

Early spring of 2012...  they were flowering beautifully...

The pods began to fatten in May... 

And we have been chewing on these lovely beans ever since...