Heat stroke alert in June!

　It’s June 12, yet it’s hot and it hasn’t rained for 10 days!
　(Ten days ago, we needed a wood-burning stove.)
　Thinking that last year’s heat wave and 40 days without rain are back, we are getting discouraged from growing vegetables, and the number of rows that are not planted is increasing. We have stopped mulching the rows with black mulch and are switching to weed mulch and no-till rows.
　Inspired by the recent natural cultivation, I am going to try no-till cultivation. (I’m really bored, so maybe I just want to do something different again.)

Preparation for no-till cultivation

Dig a trench in the center of the rows and put in rotting branches, fallen leaves, and rice bran as food for microorganisms, then cover with soil to make rows. Weed mulch is then applied on top. I am preparing to try planting shrub figs and blueberry cuttings during the rainy season and mixing them with vegetables.
　I am trying to grow naturally, but I feel that it will be a battle against weeds and more labor intensive rather than less labor intensive.

Bamboo hedge making

The harvest of fava beans and peas is over, onions and garlic must be harvested, and I bought a new light chainsaw for bamboo forest maintenance on impulse, so I created a bamboo fence (20 meters) as a distraction. The work goes smoothly with the new weapons, a bamboo splitter and finish nailer.
The work is completed by tightening up the half-split bamboo horizontal joints called “do-rim” with a palm rope.

White flowers are in full bloom now.

The white flowers of soba noodles and pak choi are in full bloom and very beautiful. Both buckwheat noodles and pak choi are rooted from last year’s spilt seeds.
In this row, I sowed turnips and carrots instead of Soba, but they seemed to be completely defeated by the Soba seeds.
Among the rows of summer vegetables, pak choi is in full bloom, and its peculiar smell (fragrance) is wafting around the area. I like it, but many people do not like it.
It may be a good companion plant for summer vegetables as it does not attract pests.

The bees came!

This year, for the first time, honey bees were on the white flowers of the pak choi. They were probably Western honeybees. I had thought they had become extinct around here due to pesticides, so this was the first time I had seen them in a long time.
Since bees are so common, I tried eating some of the pak choi flowers and found that they were sweet, so I topped them with a salad for lunch.