Rainy season is behind us now, a long hot summer ahead.  The plants are thriving and looking back at this picture from the beginning of rainy season, it is hard to imagine all this occured within the last month.

The lettuce is ready to harvest, as is the komatsuna (in fact we would have liked to harvest the komatsuna a little earlier as the leaves are that much more tender).  Since the last post the tomatoes have been given some physical support (free bamboo, in plentiful supply round here) and some mental support (we chat and share our problems daily).

We decided against spraying any of our crops with weed killer or insecticide.  This was for two main reasons:  A) growing your own food allows you to control what you put in your mouth and we like to limit the amount of unnecessary chemicals we put in our mouth and B) this is our first hatake and we like the idea of using it as a control (in our hatake experiement!).  If all the crops fail because of pest invasion then we need to think about how to solve this problem.  The same goes for viruses and general practical gardening techniques.  I guess we are learning the hard way.
We have tried to limit the damage by planting lots of the same plant; ‘one for the virus, one for the pest and one for us’ type method.  It does seem to work, although it is still disheartening to see any plant destroyed…  At the moment the tomatoes are under attack from a virus and we can only hope that it doesn’t spread to each plant (so far 5 out of 30 plants are affected.  The leaves curl up (with no yellowing) and the plant dies soon afterwards).  Apparently it is spread through the soil…

On the subject of pests, we found this bloke hanging around on the tomatoes.  Its a type of Hawk Moth caterpillar.  It was dense and powerful (with a cute tail) and I think it would have had the tomatoes for asagohan.  I moved it to some foliage far away.

Meanwhile, the bitter cucumbers are climbing well.

The Oba is flourishing.

The corn is almost three foot tall now, with flowers.  We shall have to consider some methods for scaring the birds.  I fancy making an anatomically incorrect Noel Edmonds scarecrow.  There is nothing better for scaring birds I think…

Elsewhere, Eri picked a huge bunch of Shiso from Sugimoto san’s garden.  With the fresh leaves she made shiso juice: add the shiso to boiling water and boil for a bit.  The water should be greenish.  Remove the shiso and add an acidic element such as lemon juice, sudachi juice or vinegar and the water will miraculously turn pink (I think shiso must be a sort of indicator like red cabbage juice.  I am not sure if when you add an alkali the water will turn green again.  I might experiment).  You can then add sugar to taste.  The shiso juice should be diluted with something.  Shochu? Vodka? Water?