May 28, 2012

Vegetable Gardening Spring 2012/菜園作り、2012年春

On April 21, I went to see how my rented field looked like.  Just as I had expected, it was still buried in snow due to the very heavy snowfall in the winter.
4月21日、借りている畑の様子を見に行きました。思った通り、冬に降った大雪のせいで、まだ雪に埋もれていました。


I had to put off vegetable gardening this spring until the snow disappeared.
今年の春は、雪がなくなるまで菜園作りを延期せざるを得ませんでした。

I finally tilled the soil on May 7.
5月7日にやっと畑を耕しました。


This photo was taken on May 9.
My rented field is the one at the center.  You may think it's small (approx. 6 x 5 m), but it's the right size for me.  With a larger field, I would definitely need a rotary tiller.
写真は5月9日に撮ったものです。
借りてる畑は中央にある畑です。小さい(約6x5m)と思うかも知れませんが、私にはちょうどいい大きさです。これ以上大きければ、耕運機が欲しくなります。

I made four ridges on May 14, and I laid mulch on May 20.
5月14日に畝を四つ作り、5月20日にマルチを敷きました。


On May 27, I finally got around to planting seedlings.
5月27日、やっと苗を植えました。


Nine different varieties of tomato and cherry tomato, 30 seedlings in total; 8 tsurumurasaki (Malabar spinach) seedlings; 6 okra seedlings; and 6 Mulukhiyah seedlings
9種類のトマト、ミニトマト、全部で30苗、ツルムラサキの苗八つ、オクラの苗六つ、モロヘイヤの苗六つです。

After planting tomato and cherry tomato seedlings, you will need supports called "ibo dake" and hemp yarn.
トマトとミニトマトの苗を植えた後は、「イボ竹」という支柱と麻糸が必要です。









The planting season will soon be over, and I was lucky to have been able to buy tomato and cherry tomato seedlings very cheap, some of which were only 50 yen.
They were also very tall and some of them already had some small tomatoes/cherry tomatoes.
植え付けの時期はそろそろ終わりで、私は運良く、トマトとミニトマトの苗をすごく安く買えました。たった50円のもあります。
それに背が高く、すでに小さなトマト、ミニトマトを付けた苗もありました。


5 comments:

Sissi said...

Good luck with this year's harvest! I have greatly enjoyed you last year's gardening adventures. I would love to be able to rent a small field too (in Switzerland it exists too, but it's very difficult to obtain, it's not cheap and at least in my region I would be afraid of thieves... I have heard it happens more and more often)

Hiroyuki said...

Sissi: I haven't heard of thieves here in my small sleepy city, but my father once told me about golfers doing nasty things to vegetable and crops in fields near golf courses. (There are many golf courses in Chiba, where my parents live.)

Oh, I remember. Here in Niigata, there are thieves who steal harvested and stored rice.

Sissi said...

You live in the country with probably the lowest criminality rate in the democratic world, so I'm surprised anyone steals anything! Here even sparrows steal my parsley from the balcony (just joking! but they do steal it).

muskratbyte said...

It looks like you are off to a great start!

Hiroyuki said...

muskratbyte: Thanks! Now I have to go to the field every other day or every two days to remove any suckers from tomato plants and give additional fertilizer. The rest is up to the weather!