Tomatoes, cucumber, perilla, red shiso, rocoto, Japanese yam...

The rains continue to come...
Yesterday, we witnessed another session of blistering thunderstorms...

And yes, it is the season for tomatoes...
'Momotaro' is the strain...

And of course, cucumbers too...

Been chewing on these crunchies for some time now...

The Korean perilla has taken a really good hold on our potager... they are all over and the leaves are huge...
The 'ama-gaeru' (literally, rain-frogs) are also very comfortable in our garden...

My apologies to Green Dragonette for the long pause in responding to query on what we do with the red shiso...
The only two things we do with the red shiso are to use them as a coloring and preservative (together with salt) for our Japanese ume plums, and to make juice... 
The juice making is very simple indeed...

Ingredients:
red shiso 200 gm
sugar 600 gm
apple vinegar 1 cup

Wash red shiso well, use only the leaves
Put 6 cups of water and shiso into pot and boil for 20 mins.
Remove shiso leaves, squeeze the leaves and dispose
Add sugar and apple vinegar and boil for another 20 mins in low heat
Cool and store in clean flask or bottle in room temperature
Dilute accordingly, add ice or syrup, and enjoy

Grew rocoto chillies for the first time last year, with seeds given to me by a former student from Peru...

They are beginning to produce now...
The flowers are really pretty... the branches and leaves, hairy...

Am growing the Japanese yam again this year...
The root is a versatile and a lovely vegetable to eat... And the seeds ('mukago' in Japanese) that dangle off the vines also make good eating... we boil them together with rice...

The harvest continues...

Was thrilled to have a week off from the university...

In this 'o-bon' (all souls?) season, the Japanese folks take time off from work to pay respects to their deceased ancestors...

For me, this presents an excellent opportunity for me to spend time in the potager...

Still, the heat is a bit too stifling...   

Which need not necessarily be a bad thing...

For I can sweat it out in the mornings when it is still rather tolerable...

And after my tea break at 10:00 am, I get into a change of gear and head out to the sea...

For the first time since we moved here years ago, I am truly beginning to cherish the joys of  frolicking at the sea...

Each day, thankfully, we have something to harvest...

Pumpkin, which weighed about 1.9 kilograms...

Cucumbers so crunchy and fresh...

Tomatoes so sweet and juicy...

We dug out our potatoes some time ago...

The harvest was not the best we had...

No complains though, as the scales tipped at a little over 3 kilograms...

And my sweeto haato turned the potatoes into this...

A mixture of several ingredients...

Urmmm... simple yet heavenly it was...

Was never successful with water melons, so to say...

But this season, not too bad... 

This one was about 1.6 kilograms...

Just nice for the two of us, for two fruit-courses after lunch...

The bitter gourds are turning out pretty well... 

And as the label implies, they are truly bitter although we should say that 'bitter' stuff is not one of our weak areas...

The watermelon as it was...

Juicy, sweet, and sooo refreshing when consumed in the heat of summer...

Gardening in the heat of summer

Hmmm, must say to you folks that I am more of a (student) 'gardener' rather than a 'blogger'...

I take my hat off to some of you folks who can update your blogs so often...

Anyway, been enjoying dirtying my hands in the potager as usual...

But with this heat... ooh, the mercury hits 33 degrees today...

The heat had my tongue dangling, and my body oozing out sweat literally in the liters...

I must be quite mad to be out in the potager in this heat...

The last time I sweated like this was probably when I worked in the construction firm more than 30 years ago...

My sweeto haato continues to walk the hills in the mornings...
And she found these gorgeous looking wild Dianthus aka carnation or pink....

A check on the net reveals that the word Dianthus is derived from the Greek words dios (god) and anthos (flower)...

And that bug, what's its name? 

I know that bug had been chewing on the young leaves of my cucumbers and pumpkins...   

Everyday, while my better half prepares breakfast, I go out to the potager to pluck off some goodies... Here, we had some (male) pumpkin flowers and a nasturtium flower... 

We eat them together with our breakfasts.....

Those edible flowers, plus of course the tomatoes of the Sicilian Rouge type, cucumbers, sweet basil, dill, parsley...

All freshly picked just minutes before consumption...

We had quite a bit of Japanese plums this season...

Not the 'ume' but the 'sumomo' type (literally 'sour peach')...

We turned them into preserves and we are enjoying it a little at a time with our yogurt... 

Summer is the season of cicadas...

These creatures apparently live most of their lives underground...

We were lucky to see this particular specimen molting right in front of our eyes...

The process took hours, giving me a good opportunity to observe and photograph it...

And finally, I'd like to show a picture of a horsefly...

Like the cicadas, they make their appearance in the heat of summer...

When yours truly is sweating like a waterfall in the potager, the horsefly beckons and bites...

Sheesh, I mean, ouch! 

Often there'd be like 10 of these little monsters buzzing around my legs...

And they bite through the clothes...

I thought mosquito was bad, but the horsefly takes the cake...

Like the mosquito, it is the female that needs to draw blood...

Apparently they need the blood to help them in their reproduction process...

Funny thing is, my wife does not really get attacked by these flies...

Is it because they prefer the 'juice' (blood) of the human male?

Or is it because, as my wife suspects, they find my bodily scent too sexy to resist?

Massive, vicious Typhoon Number 6 hits Shikoku

Massive, vicious Typhoon Number 6 made a straight hit at Shikoku on 19th July...

We had just returned on the 18th, after spending a short break at Malaysia... 

Our plants began fluttering in the winds...

Oh oh, I knew we had to do some harvesting or else...

Quickly grabbed some amaranth, red and green...

Some tomatoes, and an ear of a baby corn...

The Malabar spinach, red and green... 

such a handsome looking vegetable...

The green ones are really fleshy and chewy...

Had purchased some Burpee cucumber seeds on our trip to Los Angeles in March...

When we returned on the 18th, the cucumbers were dangling all over the plants...

All in all, we harvested 19 cucumbers, weighing about 5 kilograms...

My missus could not wait to pickle them...

Urmmm, I love pickled cucumbers...

Prior to leaving for Malaysia, had harvested the 'mountain peaches'...

Made fresh juice out of them... 

The blood-red color... 

that is original... absolutely no additives whatsoever...

They tasted sooo fresh and gooood...

Oooh, can't wait for next season to harvest them again...

Beets and cucumbers...

Harvested quite a bit of beets this season...
They belong to the 'goose-foot' family, as does the spinach...
My missus slices them and have them cooked lightly in vinegar...
Lovely vegetable, I must say...

Here is a sample of the cucumbers we harvested last summer...
I normally harvest them early in the morning and bring them straight to the breakfast table...
They are super crisp, and very good to chew on...
Whatever that we could not eat that day, we pickled them for a later day...

Success with Cucumbers

Had been trying to grow cucumbers for the last two seasons...
Thought this season would be equally bad...
But luckily, they are growing very well...

Tried the 'two' (rather than three) sisters method wth corn...
The corn is actually now overwhelmed by the climbers...

Was a bit too late in putting up the supports....
So, this one was just sitting on the ground, waiting for the harvest...


See that one leaf sticking out from the body?

Flowers to chew on...

This pic shows a salad mix prepared by my suweeto-haato...
The usual stuff like peas, red turnips, onions, cucumbers...
Plus, edible flowers like the blue borage, the red nasturtium, the sinewy, beige (?) rocket, the pink geranium... and the yellow chrysanthemum...
All these (except peas and onions) were from the garden...
Tossed in olive oil, they were quite a delight for the senses...


Ages ago when I first landed in Tokyo as an airline crew, I had my first taste of 'hiya yakko'...
Cold tofu, that is... and so, a summer dish...
It shocked me, actually, to feel the cold of the curd...
But you get used to it...
Here, combined with that green stuff freshly plucked from the garden, and spruced up with sesame seeds and soy sauce... hmmm... oishikatta...


Am blessed, thinking that I can enjoy home-made bread each morning...
This one, pizza-toast, should I say?
Onions, bell peppers, shredded cheeze on wholesome bread...
Topped up with dashes of tomato sauce...
And toasted to perfection... (well, almost...)


And, one of my all time favorites...
Tomato-based spaghetti... preferably combined with seafood...
This one was meat, though... but still with some sweet basil leaves thrown in...
Wooh, equally yummy...