April 16, 2013

Vegetable Gardening, Spring 2013/野菜作り、2013年春

First of all, my lunch today:
最初に、今日の昼食:
Leftover tempura batter, pan-fried that night, and kept in the fridge.
天ぷらの衣の残りをフライパンで当日焼いて、冷蔵庫に入れておきました。
 
It turned into a tasty okonomiyaki in an instant.
すぐにおいしいお好み焼きに変身しました。 
I bought six bags of bark compost, one bag of chemical fertilizer, and one bag of organic lime.
バーク堆肥を6袋、化学肥料を1袋、有機石灰を1袋買いました。
I decided to plant the asparagus, fukinoto, and myoga roots in these spots.
アスパラガス、フキノトウ、ミョウガの根をここに植えることにしました。
Not the right places to plant them, though.
最適な場所ではないですが。

I will plant some sweet potato seedlings here.
ここにはサツマイモの苗をいくつか植えます。
I planted the shiso and other seeds in planter boxes, so I can move them to where I want them later.
シソの種などはプランターに植えました。後で好きな所に動かせるように、です。

6 comments:

  1. Excellent idea to use leftover tempura batter (I always have some and don't want to make the greasy small deep-fried bits so I have to throw it away).
    I'm looking forward to seeing your plants growing (at distance!).

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  2. Sissi: A stingy person like me is very unwilling to throw anything away (laugh)! I used two paper towels to absorb as much oil as I could from the pan-fried batter.

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  3. Did you plant some specific asian asparagus as in small and very lean Thai asparagus? I am not quite sure wether to plant some in future. It takes over 2 years for a first harvest. You could plant some strawberries around the asparagus - they like each other and you still have some nice berry harvest until the first asparagus is ready.
    Concerning stingy: I planned to built new raised beds for the leaf vegetables using a funky method: planting in gabion baskets. Now I found out each gabion may cost 50+ Euro. So not gonna happen. I will buy some wood and skrews and do it the old fashioned way.

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  4. Kiki: I have no idea. The label simply says, "Asparagus". I hear that it takes three years to get a harvest. I don't care because I'm doing this for fun.

    Gabion baskets? Do you know of anyone who uses such a method? What are the advantages of it, besides the fact that it looks "funky"? (laugh)

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  5. The main reasons why I would like to build raised beds with gabions:
    1. They don't rott. The gabions have a long lasting lifecycle and keep the bed in shape for many years, you just have to refill with the layers of branches from pruning, manure, leaves, grass, compost, soil.

    2. Plants can be planted in more dimensions: on top of the bed and at the sides too. For exampe you can put pumpkin or strawberry seedlings right in between the mashs of the sides of the gabion baskets and plant salad, spring onions, beans, cabbage, herbs and so on top.

    And they provide the common good characteristics of a raised bed too:
    - Better and healthy soil for the plants - you work with organic material only
    - warm micro climate
    - not so easy for rabbits to get some snacks
    - weeding and harvesting is easy because raised beds are friendly to your back
    - More harvest (up to 3 times) as in common beds, especially good for small gardens.
    Here is an "how to" but it is in german - just look at the 12 pictures/steps (hope you got an ad bocker running)
    http://www.expli.de/anleitung/hochbeet-selber-bauen-3500/
    Filling is:
    Chopped tree branches from pruning, grass sods, half rotten manure, compost, garden soil.

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  6. Kiki: Thanks for your detailed description and the link.
    It should be a great way to grow vegegetables, and it's not costly except for the initial cost for gabions.

    Raised beds remind me of square foot gardening. I once followed the method, but gave it up after a few years of trials. SFG sounds attractive, but didn't work for me as mentioned in the book (ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING).

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