Wonderful autumn days...

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...

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...

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

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

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...