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3 months later my 向日葵 are starting to bloom already and I harvested and ate all my ほうれん草 (sadly I didn’t take a picture) and I will plant new seeds in August!
My いちご植物 graced me with exactly four 果実 and they were the best tasting ones I ever had. 
I have a feeling I won’t get any more this year but a colleague of mine said that いちご植物 usually produce more 果実 in their second year. So I’m hoping for the best next year! The plant also grows two new offshoots which I will cut off and plant soon, so that I will have at least three いちご植物 next year!
…and I bought a プチトマト植物 from the same shop I bought the いちご植物 three months ago. And I can already see three little fruits!
其れに、七月から八月まで日本に行かないので、 ベランダで草本や果実や野菜を蒔いて植え付けるつもりだ。楽しみ！
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That’s pretty cool! Maybe you will get 12 いちご next year 
I often find that smaller berry-esque fruits seem tastier - it’s like the larger fruits just kind of swell up with diluting water.
Have you thought about getting a strawberry planter? Then you could continue to expand your strawberry family without taking up much more room…
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Oooooooh 
I never heard of these before but I googled them and they look amazing! I will actually go to a ホーム･センター on Friday to buy some stuff to pretty up my ベランダ, maybe I will find such a planter! Got the airbnb Tokyo accomodation and the tickets for the Olympic games refunded, so I have a lot of money to spend… 
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Haha, perfect opportunity! Sorry to hear about your cancelled trip, but it’s good you got some money back.
And yes, they’re cool! Hope you can find one 
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Gardens grow.
We have had two straight years of record rainfalls here. Centimeters a day, for weeks on end in the summer. Like many areas of Japan.
This year, though, we are back to our regular. In the summer, the only rain that we get is when afternoon thunderstorms come through. Storms that can be hit or miss. The corn is mostly small in the fields. Everyday is 30C+.
Tough weather for plants.
I had decided not to water much, but in these conditions it is a necessity if I want produce. I carry the water in pails to force myself to conserve it. We have great water pressure, and very expensive water.
The シソ is out of the frame. I just started more cabbage and fall beans. Also, I have trays of beets and turnips started. My soybeans did not germinate well, but I have eight plants.
Tomorrow I need to harvest more 竹 for stakes.
I learned some things about gardening from my mother, and have been gardening in some form for most of my life. Enough to count many failures, and some successes. For several years, I have been asking people about their トマト. I am pleased to say that I finally understand their growth, after a lifetime.
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Your garden looks great! Is that whole bed full of ズッキーニ?
This sounds like our weather this summer 
The grass is starting to get brown already. Late this afternoon I put on the sprinkler and my swimsuit and had some fun pulling the
Edit:
Can anyone help me identify this flower? We planted some mystery seeds…
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There are a mix of ズッキーニ and yellow squash in the bed. I need to thin a few out, but I want a mix, so I was waiting until I can tell them apart for sure so that I don’t end up with just one type.
Your きんれんか look nice. Mine are having a tough time this year. They are the only thing that I planted that doesn’t seems to care for being planted in straight up compost.
It looks like you will have a productive garden this year! (if you keep on watering 
) These days into the nineties take a lot of moisture from the soil.
Did you grow the 小鬼 from a seed?
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mmm… I always enjoy a mix of summer squash, but we don’t eat a ton, and it seems silly to buy a bunch of different seeds just to end up with one plant from each packet… Will your yellow squash be パティパン or some other kind of 黄色のスクオッシュ?
The きんれんか are a bit of a happy accident - I had never even been able to get them to germinate, so when my husband wanted to plant them I tried to discourage him. He did it anyway, and they are a definite success! 毎日花を食べます。ｗｗｗ
We were lucky and got an afternoon thunderstorm today (yesterday was a good thunder and lightning show, but no actual rain).
The 小鬼 was a transplant 
It was already mature when we got it, but it seems to be thriving here.
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I am pleasantly surprised to find that I have successfully germinated one whole columbine! I don’t have a greenhouse or space for seed trays indoors, so growing from seeds rarely seems to work for me. But one came through!
The Japanese aquilegia, fan columbine, is called オダマキ - I don’t know whether it’s their only native aquilegia, but it’s only native to Japan and Korea. The genus is called オダマキ属 (that last kanji means “genus; affiliated; belong”), so it certainly seems to be named for that one species.
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This was the year that big changes happened in my garden. We bought this property 10 years ago, with dreams of a large vegetable garden. We have battled persistent weeds and poor soil.
(I can’t even believe the house used to look like this!)
I am not big on gardening gurus, but I really like Charles Dowdings temperament and philosophy. I also love the beauty of his garden.
So this was my chance to do it.
- I brought in 10 yards of straight-up compost.
- I put down thick cardboard.
- I laid the compost 20-30 cm deep, then squished it with my feet.
- I planted by punching holes in the compost and inserting seedlings.
- In the fall, I will clip plants off at the base, then compost the whole garden with a few cm of compost that I have put aside.
So far, so good. I have no weeds and things are growing well. If I should get some terrible weed attack, I could always just till the ground next year and go back to a “normal” garden.
I have a belief that my garden should produce more food than I spend on it. So I questioned that $300 I spent on compost. But what a joy to plant in good Earth. I will have a good harvest this year, enough to make up for my investment.
I have a suspicion that this will be the new normal for me.
The great thing about columbine is that they seed themselves when they are happy. Hopefully they will spread in coming years.
The yellow スクオッシュ is just plain old yellow スクオッシュ. I prefer the taste of green, my partner prefers the taste of yellow, so we plant some of each. Secretly, in a taste test, I don’t believe that either of us could tell the difference.
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Could be a Geranium ゼラニウム
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On Monday I woke up to this:
I was wondering why one of my beautiful 向日葵(ひまわり🌻) has been picked to pieces…
A few minutes later I caught the 犯人 (more like 犯鳥) in the act 
My poor 向日葵 
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But isn’t that the whole point of its seed distribution strategy?
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I wanted to harvest the seeds myself and see if I can grow new sunflowers next year from those seeds… But only after my sunflowers had passed their prime…
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Thanks for the suggestion! I hadn’t realized there were so many different types of geraniums, but after doing some searching I’m not sure this is one. This plant has narrow leaves, and I can’t find any pictures of geraniums with a similar type of marking on the petals…
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My guess was more based on the type of leaves than the petals, I think Rowena’s remark is spot on 
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That looks exactly like it! Thank you!
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