Vegetable patch

I tried to attach two images to the previous posting, but they would not attach. So here is the image of the main, original vegetable patch for the garden described in the post below. It will become a companion garden combining vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruits together. Let's see what this summer will bring in harvests.

Seedlings and beds

I was running around yesterday, preparing a frame to grow runner beans on, scarlet runners with their bright red flowers. I put this immediately back of the new hedge row planted last year, hoping to supplement the nitrogen supply to the hedge as well as provide an flowering background.

I shot off some snaps of the garden using a digital camera, which I am not to adapt at using. Some of the pictures are attached. I will improve on these later. One picture shows the cold frame, with various seedling, mostly visible are the squash and courgettes, but there are also basil, tomatoes, sunflowers, and others to be seen if you look closely. The second photo is the main part of the vegetable patch, with fennel, an onion/leek bed, mange tout, to the right, broad beans to the left, and various brassica behind, with cime de rapa in full blossom. Close inspection will also reveal apple, nectarine, and cherry trees.

Tip: Tomatoes: to ensure there is no calcium shortage, liquidise your eggshells and spread around the tomatoes. Liquidising will speed up the calcium release and uptake and thereby strengthen the plants.

Piano - Bass Duo

in April we will be featuring piano - bass duo as our next home concert. The pianist is Kosei Uchida, who was Helen Merrill's pianist, and the basist from Kosei's trio, Kiyoshi Mamura. The concert will be at 18:30, on Saturday 25th April, and tickets will cost ¥2,500 with all monies going to the musicians. They will perform two sets on Saturday evening of lyrical standard jazz. Our family are looking forward to this concert very much. I will post a link to a web page for the concert soon.

My daughter Hannah, then 5 years old, and I attended Kosei's trio concert in Fukuoka New Combo in December last year, when Hannah's mum was attending a bonenkai party. We drove through together in the afternoon, parked the car, shopped for some CDs and Xmas presents. We then went to New Combo, had some food and enjoyed two sets of excellent music before driving home at 10:30, whereupon Hannah fell into a satisfied sleep, safe in her child seat, wrapped in her favourite blanket. The previous concert we attended together was a Peter Brötzmann and Shoji Hanno concert at New Combo, which ia a concert of free improvisation that Hannah also very much enjoyed.

Garden, Music, etc. blog

This log was started as a journal of our garden and music activities. We have our garden in southern Kyushu, where the winters are mild and good for growing brassicas, and the summers hot and humid, especially following the rainy season.

In the garden, i have built a wood-burning pizza oven, photo on the left of the oven near the end of construction and beginning to be used, where I cook pizza, bake breads, croissant, cakes, and generally cook everything an anything possible in an oven. The oven was a lot of work and time to build, but it is paying for itself now through reduced gas bills and also provides pizzas and breads simply unattainable by means of an ordinary gas or electric oven. A photo of the oven is attached, i will place some photos of the garden as and when i can.

We also organise occasional house concerts, featuring improvised and jazz music, and soon some classical musics. The money we raise from tickets is given to the musicians, and we have the pleasure of the music and their company, usually for some days.
There are three of us in Braeside Cottage, Hannah our child, my wife and myself.