Garden update

 

The larger sunflower on June 2nd

 

for comparison

There’s a smaller one, two actually, just behind it and it opened early and faces the door, so this is what you see when you’re leaving...

 

The biggest one's grown quite a lot in just one week

 

A lot of the herbs and greens I planted were devoured by one manner of bug or other. 

I’ve started most of them over by seed and hope they get established before it gets too rainy. 

 

 

Our friends the Sanomachis foisted gave a tomato on to us. It was about a foot and a half or two feet high when we got it so I cut off the lower branches and buried it fairly deep. I’m told those little “hairs” on the stem will become roots and give the plant both stability and an increased root structure to get nutrients better. In any event, it started flowering about a week after I planted it and we’ve got one tomato developing so far.

Here’s a look at the containers that are meant to house the “green curtain” plants.

From right to left as you face the house.

There’s a struggling cucumber on the far right, a bean plant climbing the net in the middle and in the foreground are zinnias.

 

This one has a bean in the middle, a cucumber (via Troy) on the right and marigolds and hibiscus in the foreground.

 

The second cucumber from Troy.

 

This one has a bean at the netting and marigolds and hibiscus again at the edge.

Everything is about the beans. I’ve harvested two or three times already and they’re really starting to take off. Actually I have a container of bush beans that’s behind the netting and those beans came in first. Not to be outdone, the pole beans have come on strong.

 

I’ll do another update when things have changed some.

Comments

[Clancy]

Hi Shannon! I was just reviewing the last few pages of archives to catch up with how you're doing. It seems like you have such a lovely life in Japan! You've been there what, 14 or more years now? That's so cool. It must be really nice to think of Donald Trump so much more seldom than we have to here.

[Shannon]

Hey Clancy. Glad to hear from you.

Just began year 18, believe it or not. Most of the time I'm not consciously aware that I live in a "foreign" country. Actually, I am aware of it because people stare and treat me differently, but that's not much different than growing up as a black kid in the very white northwest Boston suburbs. Only the language and my height relative to average is really different.

I try to avoid the Trump stuff as much as I can, but unfortunately North Korea is too much on the minds of Japanese for this latest Singaporean dog and pony show to not be front and center on the news. I doubt this is covered much in the States, but North Korea abducted some number of Japanese citizens over the decades and getting those folks returned is a huge political issue in Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japanese_citizens

Prime Minister Abe met with Trump some time ago to urge him to bring this up with Kim Jong Un. Abe is gonna learn the hard way that throwing in one's lot with Trump is ill-advised.

Hope you and yours are doing well.