Water channels and pond progress

April and May were very productive in our main garden.First I dug the water channels around the field so the water that used to flood the garden now drain in to the stream near by, unfortunately,  one third of the field is still unusable so after a long talk I decided to dig a pond and turn the water retaining ability into something productive ,growing eatable water plants,creating micro biotope  and home for small fish ,frogs ,crayfish and other amphibians and critters, also use it as the tank for plant irrigation ,I'm almost done with the general shape of the pond,but I would probably need help from my friend that have small shovel car to compact the walls and get some depth in the mid section,I hope that I don't need to use plastic liners except maybe in the deepest part due to more porous rockier bed,but it seems that there is better solution get some clay from our other rice pad and pack it on the top of the bottom.To prevent the pond to become stagnant I'm going to use existing old water irrigation pipe,currently closed and buried, but I managed to found where it is and probably going to excavate it soon,pipe is connected to the small spring from which all neighboring rice fields getting their water,good thing it's for free and constant all year long, in between pipe and pond I plan to put scavenged bath tub that will act as accumulating tank for watering if needed,It's higher than the pond itself so I was hoping to create small water fall if possible for some aeration, this will create small flow thru the pond thus eliminating need for the circulation pump,also there is constant breeze across the field that would help moving the water,on the other end I'll put adjustable drain pipe (Monk) that connects to the water channel and into the stream.   

 problematic soggy part of the field

with fresh water channels

(note that I had to fill back the right 

channel to increase strength of the wall of the pond )

 

front channel

 

whole pond  to be and raised beds from field above

(sorry for the angle)

 

from the back 

(intake side)

 

front side 

(drain side)

     

Wood mulch,Tool porn and Hazama drift

After watching  Back to Eden I've been interested in getting some wood mulch just to find that we have wood recycle center within couple minutes drive, so last couple days I've been howling truckloads of wood chip and at 500 yen per load they gonna see me for a while ,I couldn't go much further to take the pics ,but they sure have some cool machinery,but more than that I was impressed with my truck carrying ability 750 kg plus mine 113, getting of  the mountain was scary ,drifting at 20 km/h on a gravel road ,brakes didn't have much meaning...best adrenalin rush in a while.

Daikon

Nice proportion....wish mine were similar

Mason Bee block

It's been raining today, so to make my day worth something  i decided to build an Mason Bee block,I had this piece of  I think "Hinoki" wood for some time and I didn't really know what to do with it beside the having large door stopper.Couple days ago I stumble upon the post  from Ken Elwood , CLJ forum master,  he was offering two blocks for trade, and at the time I didn't have a clue what they are so I follow the provided link on what are mason bees are,It seemed interesting, beneficial and easy enough,so I gave it a try ,after a research on what kind of blocks are available and how to make them finally opting  for the simplest design.I mark a hole every 2 cm length and sideways and then drill them with 8.2 mm drill bit to about  8cm deep.I have some plastic straws that are 8mm in diameter,which should fit nicely and act as a liner so in the autumn bee cocoons could be extracted without damage.Also I'm going to place the block inside the larger wooden box for aesthetic reasons as well for the protection against the rain and wind.I post updates on this sometimes this week. 

Hugel beds

 I hate getting old , 3 days late muscle fever, it's just too painful, so after double dose of Loxonin hot shower and bunch of medical grade "Salonpas" patches, around 10 am I was finally able to get on my feet and start the day. Weather was perfect for outside work so i decide to tackle the bunch of logs and made some hugel beds,well... now I know why permaculturalists always come in bunch,on any video showing you how to build one  there is at least eight people doing it or use heavy machinery like Sepp Holtz,reason... It's too damn hard,Logs we have are from the large shed  we had on the property, but it was demolished  last may due to street enlargement, so the firefighting vehicle could have access in case it's needed.Each piece of wood weight from 60 to 100kg.You should see my wife's expression and that comment"You want me... to move these ....are you serious?!!" unforgettable.first 30 minutes we were piling wood ,here is word of advice start with pile that is farthest from you so you don't have to jump over already piled ones.next event was  two hours of shoveling dirt to cover everything properly and adding mix of soil and composted manure on top.that was first day due to another obligations.Another advice between first and second layer add either wet card board or wet news paper to prevent weed growth and to keep the core wet. I think that weed and grass that is getting out now is from the dirt layer,after couple of days we add lime and waited for the rain to dilute it ,put the wood chip on and transplant the zucchini's ,melons and other crawling plants.We still have a lot of wood left but not much of the soil for covering so I need to either get it somewhere else or find the another use for the wood,but that won't be hard my dad is going to make an rocket mass heater in our old weekend house in Shirakawa-cho.I hope to get that documented.

 

plenty of wood

covered with soil and composted cow manure

first one wood chip mulch added and veggies transplanted

both finished  and still lot of wood left

Coughing ,Sugar addiction and Spring festival ...

Sorry for not posting in a while ,Thanks to the sudden weather changes, For the past two and half weeks  I was sick as the dog,two trips to the doctors and I still cough till I almost faint.That and usual side effects of the medications are not putting me in a really creative mood.But on the bright side I lost almost 4 kg during this time. I know its mostly water and muscle mass and not really good way to lose weight,but it gave me will power boost, to try something I thought it's impossible to achieve and that is Quitting Sugar,beside my Narcolepsy and lack of Orexin, sugar is probably one of biggest  reasons why I'm obese,my daily intake was around 1000 calories of sodas,coffee and deserts, today is 10 days since I start, and to tell you the truth being Addict I was expecting more sweet cravings,anxiety and being irritated  in general,something I experienced while quitting Smokes some six years ago.Worst thing was getting used to drink unsweetened Coffee,but after three days of trying I realize it's drinkable and now it's enjoyable,instead of deserts I found that Fruits are tasting great.My only problem now is to find the right food that doesn't contain any of sugars or surrogates, and here in Japan that is quiet difficult task since it's one of the main ingredients in the traditional cuisine as well as most products on the shelf, so now I'm learning to read the labels and to my surprise there is more than 75 ways to say sugar,so it seems that best idea is to stay away from anything that is being processed and also means much more cooking for me and my wife.

*this was unpublished draft from about a week ago since that time i got much better and I still follow the no sugar path with no problems,I was really busy last week with all the postponed work plus preparations for the Inuyama City,Spring Matsuri,that was held last Saturday and Sunday April 7th & 8th ,my wife had a small taqueria set up in front of our shop and sold more than 600 of our "famous" burritos (before we got our first kid we used to run cafe bar here and this was one of best selling products). I'm involved in festivities as an member of ShimoHonMachi Crew,Pushing and lifting the 4 ton float (locally called Yama) throughout the city,this is the last year video of our float doing Don-Den Gaeshi,I hope someone will post this year video specially the Sunday night since we did some serious distance on two wheels.

 

   

Snow,weed and compost tea

 Snow covered Hasama

 

Truck load of composted crap

  

Do not take my picture

 

Danshaku potatoes

   

finishing potato beds

weeding garlic

 

Compost Tea Cow manure+ worm poop

 

Adding water

 Dekiagari

well deserved lunch

Weather here seems ridiculous, it was 18 degrees Celsius as I was coming back from work on Sunday,and I woke up next day in snow covered Hasama,nice and romantic unless you plan to work in your garden,So during the morning hours we went shopping for composted cow manure and calcium additive.We buy our manure from the local farm which cut our cost drastically truck load is mere 1000 yen and  that is  about 300-320 kg of it.Around 11am all the snow was already melted so we went to our garlic and onion field that we planted last Autumn about 700 plants each ,where we still have about four rows of already prepared unplanted soil ,so since we still waiting for the rice straw to arrive to add it to the field that we worked on last week ,on which we planned to plant potatoes isn't ready yet,it seemed like good idea to use this unused space first ,also since last year I'm trying to plant everything according to phases of the moon and moon signs ,and yesterday was Scorpio in third phase,optimal for the root plants so i didn't won't to miss the opportunity.Sure some will laugh at this,my wife did ,but it turned out that my peppers last year were superior to hers, same type of seed same soil,planted next to each other,couple days apart,it might be just pure coincident,but we'll only know if we keep doing it .We pulled all the weed from the beds I added some 30 wheel-cart loads of compost to the soil and use the tiller to mix it,not really ecological approach,but it does saves my back,after watering and making nice looking beds,we focus on weeds that grow together with the onion and garlic,and it's surely tedious choir.Last year we used  perforated vinyl  mulch sheet that we got for free from the lady that stop gardening due to the illness.It turns to be,not really user friendly unless somebody tell you what to do first,we learn it hard way.First thing is the wind,half of the field was parallel to the wind flow other half of the beds were against the it,and even though we secure the sheets with the pins which aren't cheap,Wind did lift the them ruining about 1/4 of the transplanted onions.Second problem is that the size of the pre-cut planting holes are too large and allow different weed seed to start growing in same space as your crop.This year i found that one friend of mine is tatami maker and could provide us with used rice straw ,we could shred and make it into mulch.My only consideration is  house mites that usually live in tatami,i need to research to see if i should worry.Yesterday after planting the potatoes ,I made some compost tea out of worm and cow manure and it's still steeping,I have some time tomorrow morning so I'll use it to add some nutrients to garlic and onions.Later...

Mud play

                                                 Our little helper Anja

 

 My Better Half Mayumi

 

Stuck in Mud

 

Shitake Mushrooms

It was raining for the last tree days and my plans to start doing some field work on my days off yesterday and today, end up with nothing much due to the ground condition, this morning weather finally got better so we tried to do some preparation on one of the fields that we didn't used so much in the past since it's bit far from the house, my brother in law did harvest some potatoes last year so we thought to continue that.Whole field with exception of one part that was used previously was  knee deep mud puddle,It seemed that field was used for cultivation of Taro (Satoimo) in the past and that rice paddy soil structure was optimal for it.Since the field is very large for the Japanese standards we been thinking of dividing it in to the two parts leaving half as it is for taro and other water loving plants.(my wife was thinking of ginger and Renkon but I'm not sure if that is possible,well see )and other half to try to add some large amount of composted soil, fertilized cow manure, old rice straw and peat moss to improve soil condition and on top of it to make high raised cultivation beds (hugelculture) for better water circulation like Masahiro (my brother in law) did with the part he used with potatoes ,today we hauled two truckloads  of compost and manure to the field but it soil was to wet to mix it, mini rototiller wouldn't budge so we hope to continue that next week if weather permits as we add shredded straw and peat moss. After that we went to check our shitake mushroom logs we inoculate last year just to try to see if we're able to raise them and it turns that they been quiet productive this year,only problem is you have to check them daily since they grow very fast and we had a bunch of overgrown ones that we couldn't use,but one we harvested were delicious with pork shabu-shabu salad we had for dinner tonight.Later...      

This year plan

It's already march and my state of hibernating is slowly wearing off,just to find myself in position i don't want to be, not really knowing where to start.Over the winter I did a lot of research of what could be done in area where we live in and with the space we have right now,  about 0.3 acres or 400 tsubos (Japanese measure of land)of space that is next to the household or close to it,about same acreage that is within 2km, plus couple of rice paddies that are scattered within the village(right now these we rent to the neighbor but from the next year they'll be back to us) also we have some of wooded area (mostly bamboo) which is not to far from the house. possibilities seemed  to be endless,but after weeding thru cons and pros that "endless" come to be couple of  possible solutions due to the position,practicality,cost and other reasons.So after family meeting we made couple of decisions for this season, first is to partially convert a large garden in to an orchard and this seem to be quiet large project since the garden used to be rice paddy until 10 years ago when some of the ground was excavated and new soil with less water retention was added but still more than 70% of the garden is heavy clay and we need to re-dig the water channel so doesn't obstruct the flow to the neighbors rice field ,we still figuring what kind of trees and shrubs we would like to have .Next is building a green house that we would use for year round herb production with the surplus that could be sold thru small green grocery store that village own or to couple of  restaurants and cafe that are owned by my friends(lets hope that we do come to this level of production). I'm planing to add aquaponic system to it as the finances allow.Third project is already ongoing four fruit and vegetable gardens that we started some 5 years ago when we first moved here.two smaller ones are next to the house and are used for the more care needed annual plants and two larger are quiet distance from zero zone,these are laid with the crop that needs less attention and could be harvested in one session,like potatoes,garlic,soybeans etc.. Wish projects would be small apiary if I'm lucky enough to find somebody in my area to learn from ,Chicken pen for eggs and maybe small rabbitry  for some meat and fertilizer but it all depends, still need to calculate feed cost and way to protect the animals since there is no fence on the property. Well list could go on and on but we'll start one thing at the time

Here we go

Our adventures of living in small village of Hasama.