Gone a week, come back to a Tokyo windstorm

Last week I enjoyed a 7 day vacation in Hawaii and am a bit bummed to be back to real life here in Tokyo. On the other hand, only 51 more weeks to go until the next Hawaiian weeklong vacation!

I didn't have anyone who could take care of these plants while I was gone, so I did my best and topped them up with water and hoped things would turn out for the best. Unfortunately Tokyo is in the midst of a spring windstorm and there has been quite a bit of damage to some of the plants.

Strawberries devastated by the wind

The strawberries seem to have taken the brunt of the wind. The larger, taller plants are all broken near the soil and any fruits that we might have expected seem to have dried up. It may not have all been a wind problem, as no one was watering them all week, but seeing how torn up the leaves and stems are seems to show that the worst damage came from being battered around in the wind.

Interestingly, the shorter (more delicious berries) on top seem to have done okay. I suspect because they aren't so tall they didn't catch the wind as much and just pushed through the storm.

What I'm not too happy about is that the plants on top are foregoing fruiting and are just sending out runners. Runners are great when you want to make more strawberry plants, but not so great if you want strawberries. I'll have to find a pot to catch the runners in and start them before it gets too hot. They will become next year's plants. I still wish I could get *this year's* berries, though.

Corn seedlings thirsty for water

The corn seedlings seemed a bit better. Although the vinyl covering that protected them was torn off during the windstorm, the seedlings seem to be doing okay. However, because they are in such small pots, the soil was bone dry and a lot of the seedlings were wilting. I gave them a shot of water this morning and hopefully we'll see some life in them. These are for giving away to other veranda gardeners. We certainly don't have room for 16 more corn plants here.

Corn in the planter doing great

Surprisingly, the corn in the planter, directly exposed to sun and wind for a week without anyone to care for it, has done great. All the planted seeds have sprouted and they look great. Sadly, there are too many here and I will have to thin them out. This is always the most difficult part of gardening.

The thinning will be done next Saturday so the most vigorous corn can be identified. Hopefully the strawberries and corn seedlings in the starter pots revive!

Tomato: Seedlings coming along

The weather has again taken a turn for the worse and so I'm worried about the young tomato seedlings. The past couple days have been really warm and sunny, and the seedlings perked up a lot. However, if the frost comes tomorrow morning, these little guys may be wiped out in one fell swoop.

I took the opportunity last weekend to thin some of the plants. Since each pot received 3 seeds, some pots needed thinning.

Unfortunately, the fluctuating weather has been tough on the seedlings, and a few pots are unpopulated. It's okay, though, I really didn't need 16 tomato plants growing all at once.

I had originally expected that the plants would be much bigger by now, actually. The seedlings at the home center are all at least 10cm tall, but mine are barely 2cm. But it is still early in the planting season and so these seedlings still have 3 more weeks before they need transplanting. If the weather holds up, they should be 10-20cm in a couple more weeks.

Tomatoes: Sprouts

It's spring time here in Tokyo, but you wouldn't know it if you stepped outside. We've had a week-long cold snap here which has really put a damper on cherry blossom viewing. Usually the cherry trees are in full bloom, but due to the cold many are buds haven't opened yet.

Today is a bit warmer, but it still doesn't quite feel like spring has sprung.

The tomatoes I planted in the first week of March are sprouting. The cold hasn't affected them as much as I had expected, and all 16 pots have tiny little sprouts poking up through the soil.

As I mentioned before, each pot is planted with 3 seeds in the expectation that the majority of seeds will likely fail to germinate. That 16 sprouts have appeared is pretty astonishing to me, since I wasn't expecting so many to actually make it.

These plants will continue to grow in the pot until they are about 20cm or so. My notes show that the plants should be ready for transplant in late May.

Watermelon: Weekend planting and seed preservation tips

Someone mentioned to me over the weekend that no one is interested in pictures of my garden. It's like pictures of peoples' cats. This person suggested that I add some educational information about gardening and the plants I'm growing so that people have a reason to keep coming back.

I gotta say, I tried that with the avocado blog, but people never really did come back. They never really came in the first place, so that might be a reason.

A couple weeks ago I planted tomatoes. I wrote about how I had preserved the seeds from last year for planting this year. I actually did the same thing for a particularly tasty watermelon, so instead of showing the final result, I'd like to share the whole process.

There are essentially two kinds of seeds, Wet and Dry. The difference being that wet seeds have juice or other organic matter attached to them, while dry seeds come out of the seed pod dry.

Dry seeds are typically found in flowers, nuts, grains, and herbs. When they are picked, they can simply be put into a paper envelope and preserved until the next planting season. I usually just fold some normal office-use paper into a small packet and use staples to seal it.

Wet seeds can be found in most fruits and vegetables. They need to be dried off before preservation. Mold and rot are major risks if the seed is not completely dry. In the wild, these plants would fall to the ground or get eaten by animals, but here on the veranda they will get put into pots. I don't want them sprouting early, so I devised a simple way to dry them out and preserve them at the same time.

Below is the final result. I'll be working backwards since the seeds are already preserved, but you can reverse these steps to figure out how I originally saved the seeds.

This is the packet of watermelon seeds. I used a sheet of tissue paper to hold the seeds. Tissue paper absorbs water and is biodegradable. Since it is likely that the seeds will stick to the paper after drying, it is important that the storage medium be able to go into the ground with the seeds.

That is Scotch tape holding the paper in a tight roll.

Unrolling the paper, you can see the seeds held in a fold in the middle of the tissue. I use an extra fold to add some strength to the paper and give the seeds an extra layer of protection. On the right, the paper is completely unfolded. You can see that some of the seeds have some whitish marks. This is tissue paper that has adhered to the seed. No big deal.

To start the seeds, I picked up a ten-pack of these starting trays at the home center. I think it cost about 200 yen for 10. Pretty expensive, and I think I could have gotten a better price if I shopped around, but I don't have a lot of seeds to start and I don't need 100 trays. This is the easiest choice for me.

Only 10 seeds were saved last year, so I only filled 10 pots. Not every seed is expected to sprout, but since the number of seeds is so low, I decided to give each seed its own pot. Also, with the strong winds we've been having lately the more weight, the better.

Just fill each pot with soil and poke a hole in with your finger. Piece of cake!

After planting each seed, the whole kit gets a good dousing of water. Like the tomatoes, I'll give these guys a good watering once a week.


One thing to think about is how much water the plants are getting. Too much means that the seeds will get waterlogged and the sprouts may drown. Too little will dry them out completely. It's tough to get a good balance since we are not using a greenhouse, but giving them a thorough watering once a week ought to be just right this season.

Potatoes: Sprouts, shoots, and leaves

In just a week and half, the potatoes have really started to take off. In the picture below, you can see the two potatoes sending up shoots.

The potato on the top is the one that I circled last week. It is much closer to the soil surface so it is the first to break through with visible leaves. The other one is still under the soil, so only a couple leaves are visible.

Each potato will produce several plants, so even though the bushiness seems like a good sign, I will need to prune them both back to one main plant. This allows for each potato to maximize the soil nutrient usage as well as total soil volume for itself.

I'll let these grow a bit more, maybe a week or two, before pruning. I want to select the best sprouts.

Broccoli: Just 100 yen!

Supermarkets are overflowing with broccoli at the moment, but the actual "natural" growing season for broccoli is during the summer months. The heads of broccoli sold now are either from storage or grown in hothouses. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but sometimes the taste of the vegetable isn't the best.

It's interesting that broccoli is hitting the stores now because now is actually the sprouting season for it. This past weekend I visited the home center to pick up some pots for my tomato seeds and found broccoli seedlings for 100 yen apiece.

I'm learning as I go with broccoli, but there seem to be two main types sold in Japan. The first is the large head broccoli which is the most typical type found in stores. The other is called stick broccoli which instead of accumulating into one large head spreads out into individual stems. In the U.S. I've seen this sold as Chinese broccoli or Gai Lan.

Stick broccoli can be harvested continually as the stems reach the right size. This makes it all the more cost effective. Interested, I picked up one seedling and transferred it to a larger pot.

According to the instructions on the back of the label, moderate watering and lots of sunlight are all that is needed. Hopefully by June I'll have some delicious broccoli!

Tomatoes: Planting seeds

Everyone thinks of tomatoes as a summer fruit, and as far as the actual fruiting goes, that is correct. However, tomatoes begin their life in early March.

The planting window for tomato seeds in Tokyo is the last week of February through the first couple weeks of March. We've been having variable weather, ranging from warm and sunny to snow. I put off planting until this past weekend to avoid the chance of frost killing the seedlings.

I bought a pack of small starting trays at the gardening supply shop and started 16 pots. Each pot has 3 seeds to maximize the possibility of sprouting. If more than one seed per pot sprouts, I'll have to perform some thinning.

To prepare the seeds, I simply ate a greenhouse tomato in January. I gathered up all the seeds that spilled out and placed them on a tissue. I folded the tissue over and rolled it up into a tube and sealed it with some scotch tape. The tissue soaks up the water from around the seeds and keeps them dry.

Before planting, I simply unrolled the tissue and cut the paper so that each seed was separate on its own piece of tissue. The seeds stick to the tissue, so I don't make any attempt to separate the seeds from the tissue. Rather, I just cut the paper into small slivers. These slivers go directly into the soil. For the past few years I've done this with different types of seeds to great success, so it might be worth a try if you are growing anything from seeds that you're collecting yourself.

Here is a picture of the starting tray with the seeds planted:

According to my notes, the seedlings will take until May to grow large enough to be transplanted. Watering will follow a weekly schedule. Keep the soil moist but not overly wet, allow for full drainage.

Next tomato update will probably be when the sprouts appear above the soil.