Lot 57, when purchased...

When we purchased Lot 57 (as it is officially called), it was simply loaded with various types of grasses and trees... some of which, unsurprisingly, were taller than me.

View of Lot 57... house is on top left, and Japan Inland Sea is on the right...


Just beyond the grasses lies the slope where we are planting fruits trees now (more later)... the hill on the right side is a protected forest, so, no neighbors... woohooo...

That ceder tree on the left... we chopped it off because it was blocking the sun and the views of the hills from our house... plus, I am allergic to its pollens... arrrchhung!! 

Almost immediately, I went to the local DIY and got myself a Honda grass cutter... it is a 4-cycle machine and does not emit that much noise as other brands... after cutting the grass and the trees, I let the field fallow for a few weeks...

We renovated our house and kept quite a lot the materials that were no longer useful. Out came 14 tatami mats from the two Japanese styled rooms in our second floor.  

Each one of them weighed 36 kilograms. I had a really tough time carrying them to the field, one by one... almost had hernia from this exercise...

I used the tatami mats to cover the soil where I was going to make raised beds. I placed some cardboards and newspapers before laying them down. The idea was to attract earthworms and other creatures to come under the mats to help breakdown the soil for me.

This pictures was taken a few weeks after the tatami mats were laid. See that smile? No more hernia!

I then left the field as it was for about a year before I began to work on them again... this time, digging or rather 'double digging' the beds as some gardeners would say...