As noted recently, we put in a fresh garden plot in the front yard area of our house in Tsuchida, Okayama, Japan. As part of the project is moving a buncha boulders to make room for planting a smattering of fruit trees.
The boulders are moved by a steel tripod, chains and a pulley system and as such, assuming one is careful and strategic, *fairly* non-heavy work aside from pushing the cart with the boulder to the location to dump it off.
Time-lapse of a rock moving session:
[videopress aw5QNZNA]
The relocated rocks are used to build up a retaining wall of sorts to support a drainage ditch… When offloading from the cart to the ditch, we added leftover bales – really bales – of bubblewrap from the shipping of my archives to protect a hard plastic pipe in the ditch. Quite fun rolling the rocks into position!
Then using a few more to put a ring around a big plum tree to make a picnic park area.
We’ve done a few sessions now of hauling the rocks and while the pile is reducing, still can’t see the ground sufficiently to put in the trees, so we carry on / there are enough rocks that we’ll sorta extend a little wall.
Oh did i mention a couple of huge stacks of ceramic roof tiles which need a new home and purpose + a couple railway ties that i have an eye on for bocce court backstops.
Super happy to be part of this parcel of land which has been in the family for some generations. Hoping to keep making a positive impact on the land for good of the family, current and forthcoming.
Meanwhile in the shadier “back yard” which backs onto a bamboo grove with wild boar, the parents have a great garden going and we are doing our part to expand and extend.
With this in mind, we potted up a load of seeds to start some others plants (to go along with the beets, lettuce, spinach, carrots etc already rolling in the front yard).
Importantly made a cute name sticks for the pots, really the part of all of this for which i am best suited. Started loads of broccoli as that’s my fave go-to veg. Note: i also love sweet potatoes but so do the wild boar who tear up the garden if there’s a chance of a score.
Lots of various herbs, greens and whatnot.
and my own Turmeric which will hopefully populate this pot (and some in the ground as well – oh if you noticed a handful of ginger above, when we were scouting a place to plant turmeric and ginger, we came across some forgotten previously planted – hooray!
as we go, comes celery…
and a big pot of basil…
of course, handy parsley…
and cousin cilantro…
you can get a sense of the project. not huge but efficiently done with pots lined up, waiting to get a solid start before a transplant (i suppose, i just concentrate on making little sticks).