The rains continue to come…
Yesterday, we witnessed another session of blistering thunderstorms…
And yes, it is the season for tomatoes…
‘Momotaro’ is the strain…
And of course, cucumbers too…
Been chewing on these crunchies for some time now…
The Korean perilla has taken a really good hold on our potager… they are all over and the leaves are huge…
The ‘ama-gaeru’ (literally, rain-frogs) are also very comfortable in our garden…
My apologies to Green Dragonette for the long pause in responding to query on what we do with the red shiso…
The only two things we do with the red shiso are to use them as a coloring and preservative (together with salt) for our Japanese ume plums, and to make juice…
The juice making is very simple indeed…
Ingredients:
red shiso 200 gm
sugar 600 gm
apple vinegar 1 cup
Wash red shiso well, use only the leaves
Put 6 cups of water and shiso into pot and boil for 20 mins.
Remove shiso leaves, squeeze the leaves and dispose
Add sugar and apple vinegar and boil for another 20 mins in low heat
Cool and store in clean flask or bottle in room temperature
Dilute accordingly, add ice or syrup, and enjoy
Grew rocoto chillies for the first time last year, with seeds given to me by a former student from Peru…
They are beginning to produce now…
The flowers are really pretty… the branches and leaves, hairy…
Am growing the Japanese yam again this year…
The root is a versatile and a lovely vegetable to eat… And the seeds (‘mukago’ in Japanese) that dangle off the vines also make good eating… we boil them together with rice…
Potager Y @ Japan 
I have also cucumbers in my garden, but not a good harvest.I am not a good gardener as you.
The tomatoes are really nice and have a good shape.Good luck to your garden. 😀
What variety of cucumbers are they? They look beautifully uniform in shape and really long – just lovely.
Seu jardim está lindo mesmo chovendo.¸❤✿•.¸♥ Bom fim de semana!♡ Beijinhos. Brasil
I like your rain-frog and chili flowers. We had a good crop of tomatoes but our peppers didn't produce any flowers.
What is the difference between Japanese yam and Japanese sweet potato?Love the photo of your rain frog on the Korean perilla leaf.
On the other hand, I am not as good a poet as you are, my friend…
Thank you, Coco… likewise to you…
To be honest, Liz, I don't really know the variety… I just grabbed the best looking plants at the local DIY… as for the shape, I suppose cucumbers will turn out pretty straight and long if left dangling unperturbed..
Thank you… I like the rains very much…
Oh Diane, I am happy to hear that you are also into a bit of vegetable gardening…
Hi Norma… Japanese yam is called as nagaimo （長芋)… as the name says, this one is long and slender and is easy to handle… There is another type called Japanese mountain yam (Dioscorea opposita ) or yamaimo (山芋)… we can find them 'wild' in the hills around our place…their shape is 'knobby' and is thus more tricky to handle but their 'stickiness' is highly valued, more so than the nagaimo… we grow both types in our potager…And Japanese sweet potatoes are well, sweet potatoes… we are growing four different types of these sweet potatoes too…
Hello Lrong, it is so good to have rain sometimes but if it persists for too long then trouble comes. Hope no more for now for you since it's time for tomatoes and cucumbers to grow its fruits and have a bountiful potager. Have a great week!
What kind of cucumber is that? It reminds me of green chilies.
You must have really good soil to grow nagaimo, I love the yam and buy it whenever I can, but it's very expensive here.
Actually Bom, I have no idea on what kind of cucumber this is… we just grabbed the seedlings from the store and planted them… 🙂
I am still trying to improve my soil by continuing to add in plant matter… I am happy to hear that you like the nagaimo too…
Just when we thought more rain will come, the authorities have just declared that the rainy season is over…
It is just so wonderful to see completely new vegetables and fruit in someone else's plot. I learn so much from your blog. Even though we are far away we have this in common!
Lrong, how nice to be able to grow fruits that you can just pick and eat, like the tomatoes and cucumbers. This is something I have not done for a long long time.
It's great to have fruits and vegetables around the house!
Your garden is looking lush and beautiful…I know you are enjoying all the wonderful things to eat!
I am always impressed by the vast amount of vegetables and flowers that you managed to plant in your potager…really amazing, the sakura cherries look really delicious and beautiful from your previous post.
I have given you an award. Feel free to take at my blog! 😉
Congratulations for your beautiful kitchen garden! I have a question… If you had to start planning a new organic potager, where would you start from? Arigato, Valentina
Hi Lrong,Thank you so much for the recipe for the shiso juice and I will definitely give it a try if I get enough leaves on my one little plant. Next year I shall be planting more plants as those young leaves are so very tasty. I also love the fact that the pink juice gently ‘bleeds’ into a salad-especially pretty with rice! Thank you again!!