Migrating from Blogger to Wordpress...

Please click here → Potager Y, a photographic narrative, for my new blog at Wordpress. 
(Update on 19th October 2014)

*****   *****   *****

Dear folks
Have decided to change the host for my blogs...
Am migrating to Wordpress...
Reasons can be found here...
The new address for Potager Y @ Japan is  http://potagery.wordpress.com/
Would be a delight to see you there...

Sakuras 2013 in full bloom...

The 'amateur-farmer' in me had been rather (foolishly, I'd add) unconcerned with the significance of the frost dates in the region...

So it was quite a wake-up call for me as I finally come to my senses, taking note of the frost warning on 19th April... 

Yes, frost on 19th April for a location that falls under USDA Zone 9...

Now, I have to keep this date in mind for my future seed germination plans and planting schedules...

Anyway this year, we are blessed once again, with the sakura blooms in our garden...

The above shot is that of the 'shidare' sakura, my favorite...

Another shot of the 'shidare'....

Ok, I placed the photos in reverse order... this shot shows the 'shidare' as they began to bloom.... their colors are deeper at this beginning stage...

This specimen is the 'somei yoshino', which is used as the 'standard bearer' to denote the blooming dates throughout Japan...

The 'somei yoshino' tree, in portrait style... 

Another angle of the 'somei yoshino'...

The 'somei yoshino' and our house, shot from a distance... 

For more pictures of the sakuras in the neighborhood and the hills, please see here....

Mimosa acacia in full bloom...

The mimosa acacia is native to Australia, especially New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania...

Years ago, when we moved here, I found some seedlings growing in our property...

I picked them up, transplanted them, and wooh, what a surprise...

They bloom in spring over here, and we really like the fluffy, puffy, and fragrant flowers...

I find them to be difficult photo subjects, especially the close-ups, but these few picks are quite decent shots... no?

(P.S. Notice the wild sakuras blooming in the hills at the background.)

Manuka flowers...

Posted once before on this plant (see here)...

We have two such plants and they come under of the care of my suweeto haato...

Native to New Zealand and southeast Australia... 

Scientific name is 'Leptospermum scoparium' and the common name ranges from manuka, manuka myrtle, New Zealand tea-tree, to broom tea-tree...

The Japanese name is 'Gyo-ru bai' and although pronounced similarly, the characters takes four different forms  (1)ギョリュウバイ（2)檉柳梅 (3)魚柳梅 (4)御柳梅... 

A bit confusing isn't it?

The famous manuka honey gets its name from this plant/flower...

Now, if only I can get into bee-keeping...

The leaves can also be used as tea although our plants are still a bit too small for leaf-harvesting...

Carrots, radish, broccoli...

Today is vernal or spring equinox and Japan celebrates it as a national holiday... 

Which means I get to dirty my hands in the potager... 

and also that the weather is warming up for good.... yahoooo....

But hmmm, my carrots this season... rather pathetic...

They are smallish, under-nourished, and somewhat 'un-luscious' looking...no?

Anyway, harvested a bunch of them today...

And into the pot of beef curry for dinner this evening...

Luckily, the taste was quite good...

The other harvest is the radish or daikon as the Japanese folks call it...

Had it with miso soup before the beef curry main course... nice...

I always grow my broccolli and cauliflower in the autumn for harvesting the following spring...

Almost always, the broccoli wins hands down...

The cauliflower is normally measly and ooh... I should be putting in fertilizer for the poor plant....

Anyway, my suweeto haato just boiled the broccoli lightly... tasted extremely fresh and crunchy...

Loquat leaf tea...

We have three loquat trees in our property...

All thanks to the previous owners...

They give very good fruits... sweet, plump, and juicy...

All these, with minimum care...

(See here for photos of loquat fruits from our garden)

Last autumn, decided to trim the plants...

And why not put the leaves into good use, I asked myself...

Such as a herbal tea...

So I had some of them hanging out to dry...

And yes, this is the tea from loquat leaves... 

My missus just put a few of the leaves into a clay pot and let the pot sit for several hours on top of our wood stove each evening...

The taste resembles that of Rooibos tea, I'd say... refreshing and nice...

Apparently, the leaves are a good source of calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium and vitamins A and C.

Loquat tea is supposed to be good for gastrointestinal issues like indigestion and diarrhea.
 

There are claims that loquat tea fights against type 2 diabetes as the leaves contain a compound called tormentic acid, which increases insulin production. 

Furthermore, there are also claims that loquat tea has anti-cancer properties...

Throughout the winter, we have been boiling a pot of loquat tea each evening... 

We use about three quarters of it for our hot bath, and I drink the remaining one quarter the next day...

I like the taste of it and best of all, I like the tea that I can source from my own garden...

Crop rotation and companion planting for Potager Y 2013 season...

Weather is becoming more pleasant these days...
In the mornings, the thermometer dips to about 1 to 2 degrees...
The mercury then shoots up to about 10 degrees on a nice, fine day...

Yes, it is time to start some seeds...
Corn, peanuts, soy beans, bitter gourd, pumpkin, okra, long beans, winged beans, loofa, and cucumber comes to mind...

I have been fooling around with the garden for about 6 or 7 years now...
Each year, I have tried my hand in crop rotation and companion planting...
Lots of failures, some successes, but always lots of fun...

Through fooling around with the plants, I have sort of, arrived at a nice combination of plants to rotate... 

First, a little explanation on the physical attributes of the potager...
The size of the whole plot is about 260 square meters...
The left side is sloping, and is filled with fruit trees... 
The right side is flat, and this forms the main part of the vegetable garden...

If you'd click on the image above (not to scale, of course, considering the amateur in me), you can see that our potager is divided into 4 sections...
The orientation is that, the far end is the south...

For practical purposes, we label the sections South-West (purple), South-East (red), North-East (green), and North-West (orange)...
Between the East (left side) sections and the West (right side) sections, we have a wide walk path whereby a wheelbarrow can easily pass through...

Each section has 6 vegetable beds (or its equivalent, size-wise)...
Between the vegetable beds, we have a path to walk on while working on the plants...
Each vegetable bed is about one meter by two meters...
And, all of them manually dug up by yours truly...

The two western sections are very nicely sliced up, with 6 beds each...
The NE section has 5 beds, and the size is approximately equivalent to that of the 6 beds...
The SE section has 3 beds, each about one meter by four meters...

In the center of the potager lies the permanent bed...
We plant asparagus, Chinese chives, myoga ginger, saffron, and wild strawberries....
These plants are not rotated... 

The arrangement above provides the foundation to 'double' rotate the crops on a 3 or 5-year cycle, depending on the type of crops...
Specifically, asters and mustard greens run on a 3-year rotation while the rest, 5 years.
And 'double' rotation in the sense that, crops rotate along the 4 sections, and within each section, we rotate the crops amongst the vegetable beds...
Quite a bit like the earth rotating around the sun, and at the same time, the moon rotating around the earth?

I have grouped and combined the crops as follows, roughly based on their 'families'...

SW section: Beans (Peanut, soy bean, snap pea, fava bean) and Asters (Spinach, swiss chard, 'makchoy', lettuce, chrysanthemum)

SE section:  Nightshades (Tomato, eggplant, potato, chilli) and Greens (Komatsu-na, shangtung-sai, mamba, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, chingen-sai)

NW section: Grass (Corn), Gourds (Cucumber, loofa, pumpkin, zucchini), and Greens (Kale, rocket, vitamin-na, aku-sai, ta-sai, radish)

NE section: Roots (Onion, carrot, garlic), and 'mixed', for crops that belong to different families (Amaranth, basil, kangkong, moroeya, malabar spinach, okra)

Along with these plants, we have cosmos, marigold, zinnia, borage, Korean perrilla, red and green shiso everywhere, coming in as companions and magnets for beneficial insects.
All of these plants self-seed, except the cosmos, which I hope will do likewise soon...

Each year, the plants are rotated anti-clockwise...
And within each section, I rotate the plants as I see fit (potatoes and beans are good examples)...

Up until now, I have planned the crops on the basis of two planting seasons (spring and autumn)...
After a few tries, I realize that the autumn crops have too little time to gain sufficient size to withstand the cold...
So, this year, I am going to plant as if we have only one planting season (spring, that is)...

In another part of the property, which is not in the picture, we plant long beans, winged beans, watermelon, Japanese yam, sweet potatoes, and more of tomatoes, eggplants, pumpkins, bitter gourd, and loofa.... 
 
And the fruits... perhaps on another post?

Flowers for the Lunar New Year...

Today, 9th February 2013, Saturday, was a beautiful day... 

Skies were blue... cloudless... windless... so cool and pleasant...

Yes, the white plums are beginning to bloom... 

And this one is dedicated to Autumn Belle... 

These 'Sen-ryo' (Sarcandra glabra) are not from my garden... 

Got them as leftovers from an Ikebana class...

Yes, this freshly picked 'sudachi' (Citrus sudachi) is from our garden... 

We normally use them green, in our cooking...

This chrysanthemum is also part of the leftovers from the Ikebana class...

And my suweeto haato picked this Narcissus up from the hills in one of her walks recently... 

Ooh, its fragrance.... so sweet... 

Happy Lunar New Year to those of you who celebrate the event...

Potatoes and sweet potatoes harvest, 'tasai', and wild boars...

It snowed today... and for the first time this season, there was some accumulation...

Harvested our potatoes this afternoon...

They were killed by the frost... first time to experience this with potatoes...

Am very happy with the produce that tipped at 5 kilograms... 

These, from seeds weighing 1 kilogram... 

And for dinner, my suweeto haato made chicken curry with the potatoes..

Hmmm, super tasty...

Among the greens we have now, the 'ta-sai' is probably one of the most resistant to the cold weather...

And it tastes very good too...

Our sweet potatoes did not do that well this season...

Harvest was rather measly.... 

A notable development this season, however, is that, wild boars have finally 'discovered' our potager... 

Three days ago, they came for the third time... stepping all over our garden...

It is not a pretty scene... yet, there is nothing much for them to eat in our field...

One of their favorites is the sweet potatoes...

Luckily, there is space within a fenced area nearer to our house...

Anyway, made a blockade (with recycled wood) on their approach route...

Hope this blockade is sufficient to make them give up coming...