Fukui Verana Garden, #0005: Champing All Day

Well, here we are again. The start of a new season and, of course, the restart of garden journaling. We seem to be picking up some new readers as of late, so welcome to you all.

This series follows developments in the veranda garden, including what was planted, what was harvested, infrastructure updates, wildlife sightings -- basically all you could ever want to know about my tiny green corner of Japan and plenty more that you could do without knowing.

The Soil

Let's start this year's entries by talking about my greatest failure last season: soil. I did a terrible job. I think I refreshed or did maintenance on a single planter and left the rest mostly to chance. Later in the season, I decided to mix in purchased compost and hoped for the best, but the damage was done. It was a dismal year for crops.

This year, I'm being far more proactive. I had a fantasy for a while that I could be a no-dig container gardener. No-dig depends on building up soil structure through composting, roots left in the ground, cover cropping, etc. My fantasy was that it would just sort of happen for me without properly doing too many of those things.

So, I emptied most of the planters, took out obtrusively large roots, and mixed in organic compost I purchased. Working my hands into a few planters, I found that the soil was actually in good condition, so I just topped those off with a few inches of homemade compost. I'm hoping that sustained effort in this way will eventually lead to the planters being fit for no-dig.

The Infrastructure

At the moment, the thing I'm really excited about the most is the garden infrastructure. The main idea for this year is to simplify, beautify, and attractive-fy (last bit seems a bit off, dunnit?)

As for simplification, I'm not going to use any planters that are too small. First, they increase workload like crazy because they need to be watered so frequently. Second, they tend to make the space look messy. Third, they limit you in what you can do. In place of those, we'll be using larger planters in smaller numbers. Productivity can be high without 35 different planters.

Beautification. I don't think I have a sense for creating beauty. I want to try, though. To that end, I'm going to attempt to start working in more levels than just one. Typically, my approach to the garden has been a bunch of planters put on the floor of the veranda. That's it. If you will kindly look at the photo below, you'll find a beautifully illustrated photo of my plans for the southeastern portion of the garden.

I hope the photo shows the beginning of a multilevel setup. The planter and raised planter are at different levels than the planter bag and the small water feature barely visible to the left. Where there are yellow circles, there will be hanging planters. To start, they'll be overflowing with nemophila, but as the season grows hotter they'll be planted with nasturtium. The red section will be filled up nicely with vining yellow roses, and the green lines will be peas, then cucamelon, then fall cucumbers.

Now, when I said "attractive-fy," I meant make the garden more attractive for wildlife. Flowers will be my main tool in that goal, but I also have high hopes for a newly added water feature. Right now, it's rocks, a piece of driftwood, and Mizutora-noo, a native Japanese plant that flowers up similar to lavender and is supposedly loved by butterflies. I'm going to add a cutting from my pothos to the driftwood and let the roots hang down into the water to naturally clean the water, but that'll be it. It will be simple and relaxing, but I'm hoping it will be a well-used water source for birds and the like.

The Plants

The only harvestable plants remain the three varieties of kale. On that note, they are perking up nicely in the slightly warmer weather. I'm getting larger harvests more frequently.

As for the seeds I've sown for future veranda glory, I'll provide a list below.

First sowing on February 12: Colorful bell peppers, Hawk’s Claw chilis, jalapenos, Carolina Reapers, Round Red cherry tomatoes, Indigo Brad’s Atomic Grape Cherry Tomatoes, Indigo Brad’s Black Beauty, Dinosaur kale, Red Russian kale, curly kale, chicory, mizuna, sunny leaf lettuce, kohlrabi, parsley, cilantro, nemophila, alyssum, chamomile, globe amaranth, marigold, and viola. (About 90% germination rate)

Second sowing on February 25: jalapenos, Red Oakleaf lettuce, nasturtium, dill, parsley, borage, swiss chard, chamomile, thyme, and Snap Dragons. (Still waiting on germination)

The Wildlife

Daurian Redstarts and sparrows have been making regular visits to the garden. They've been picking at my kale, but most importantly, they've been checking out the water feature. You get an occasional spider every now and then, but there's not so much moving about just yet.

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The 2024 season is (slowly) starting. Let me know the changes or other exciting things you're bringing to your own garden! Also,if you didn't know, I have a podcast called the Distracted Gardener which you can find by clicking on the word "Podcast" at the top of this page. I hope you'll give it a listen.

Until next time!