Blueberries, corn, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes...

Oooh hooo... the temperatures these days...

The highs oscilate between 35 and 36 degrees....

Scorching.... burning.... brutal...

Each day during the weekends when I do the garden, I need to change my garden clothes three to four times, alternating between two sets of clothes...

Had planted three blueberry seedlings some years ago...

This year, they are fruiting quite substantially...

Each day, we get to harvest a little bit of the fruits...

We take them with our yogurt for breakfast...

Corn is really doing well, despite being attacked by pests...

We love the taste of home-grown corn so much that we decided to buy more seeds...

They are now beginning to germinate and we hope to see some harvest in October....

Planted only one eggplant this season...

They are heavy feeders and they need quite a bit of water....

Next season, I shall add one more seedling as my sweeto haato is beginning to like eggplants...

As with the eggplant, I have only one zucchini plant....

It is just sufficient for the two of us...

Tomatoes are a regular member at our potager...

We can't get enough of them...

My missus sometimes cooks some lovely Ratatouille with the tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant together with some other ingredients...

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...

Winter tomatoes...

Hmm, tomatoes... lovely fruit, isn't it?

Native to South America, where they are grown as perrenials...

Imagine, tomatoes as perennials... how nice it is to be just harvesting and harvesting the fruits year after year without having to grow them anew each spring...

I have tried growing tomatoes from seeds...

This coming season, think I shall just 'cheat' and buy a tomato seedling or two...

I can then try to propagate them by plucking off the ''babies' that develop from the main stem...

Tomatoes are supposed to be very rich in lycopene...

Lycopene? huh? as I mumbled to my missus... 

This is the first time I am seeing such a word, as with the term anthocyanins...

You don't know? She said, looking quite surprised... All Japanese people know this... she joked, and added that she first learned about the lycopene about 30 years ago... 

Yeap, I am still learning... and apparently, lycopene is one of the most powerful natural antioxidants... among the medical effects are that they have anti-cancer properties and they help to improve the skin's ability to protect against harmful UV rays, among others... 

Anyway, harvested the last of the tomatoes during the early part of January just before the frost came in...

The ripe ones were delicious enough, and the green ones, weighing about a kilogram, turned into exquisite chutney at the snap of my missus' fingers...

Cloves, mustard seeds, cinnamon, brown sugar, a tinge of salt... cardamon, dry as well as fresh chillies, and of course how can we leave out the vinegar... hmmm, lovely...

Am linking this post to Harvest Monday...

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...

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...

Gales on the 1st of January 2011

Looking at the picture above, I can't wait for spring to come...

It was taken one morning in the spring (April) of 2010...

Was returning from a morning walk with my missus in the hills...

And was carrying a gunny-sack of dried leaves to mulch the plots...

The sakura trees in the background are 'natural'...

They offer a beautiful view for us each year...

Today was very windy with a low of 2 degrees and a high of 6...

Went down to the slopes to check out my cauliflower plants...

Arrgh...five cabbage worms were feeding on the cauliflower head...

The tomato plants are still going strong...

Wonder why the crows are not eating them... hehehee...

Planted my potatoes late in October last year...

Due to my returning home to Malaysia, I had missed buying the potato seeds...

A neighbor had offered to give me some of the smaller potatoes he had harvested from the spring season...

Although we know that 'spring' potatoes do not grow that well in autumn, I accepted his offer...

Some of the plants were drying up, and I did not want to risk them being eaten by racoons...

So, with nose a-running in the winds, I harvested them today...

Very nice looking indeed...
They weigh about 5.4 kilograms... not too bad...

Tomatoes, daikon, beans, malabar spinach

A friend of my wife sent us some seeds of this Sicilian Rouge tomato...
Tried planting it very late in the season...
Not too bad in that we get to harvest some fruits just before the cold came in...

Planted daikon (radish) for the first time...
Been harvesting them for some time now...
While they are not the biggest daikons around, they are very tender and good to eat...
The leaves, supposedly vitamin-packed, go very well with tofu, sauteed that is...

We like fava beans very much...
So much so that we decided to plant plenty of them this season...
We have about 30 plants, compared to only four last season...
I understand from a blog that the leaves taste good, so we might try to cook some this time around...

Snap peas are crunchy compared to snow peas or silk field peas...
We had all three types last season, but we are planting only snap peas this time...
Reason? Wife's request...

Ceylon or Malabar spinach (not related to the 'normal' spinach) is high in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium.
It is low in calories, but high in protein... just what we need...
Leaves are thick and succulent...
Seeds remind us of the corals in the sea...

Tomatoes... fighting off the crows...

Was eyeing to harvest the first tomato...
But the crows always seem to know what is on the farmer's mind...
One day before the harvest, they took three of the biggest ones...
Ooh... that was painful...

Immediately put on a protective net...
And luckily, could harvest some of the fruits...

The big one weighed about 450 grams...
Quite a feast, actually...

For the last few months, have been enjoying our breakfast with vegetables freshly picked from the potager...
Here, we had tomatoes, dill, cucumber, and nasturtium flowers...