Eggplants in the mail box

We received an unexpected box from Kamloops a few days ago. It was a full of eggplants and peaches!

I have Japanese 'Parents' in Canada living in Kamloops. I met them in 1995, so we have known each other for...17 yrs! They were such a great help when I first came to Canada to study English, and we have been keeping in touch since then.

Their house in Kamloops has a huge back yard with several rows of vegetable gardens. They also have fruit trees, including peaches, apples, plums and apricots. The Mrs. is a great cook and she cans all her fruits and veggies to preserve them. If something happens to the world and you need food, this is the house to go to! I know what their basement storage room looks like. Lots of  home made goodies...

 Anyway, I was very happy to receive a box of Japanese eggplants as my own experiment with them was a failure. The ICHIBAN eggplant I planted late May didn't grow at all and I can't buy any decent eggplants around here!

Japanese eggplants are much smaller, seedless, and their skin is so soft, not like American eggplants.

I made pickles with them and added our own  home grown cucumbers. I also cooked some with chicken in chili sauce over rice. Yum :) I have several more eggplants left... what to eat tomorrow?

Green and Red

Beautiful contrast!

                                                                 

Project #...?

So, I started another new project today. What is this green plastic cone shaped thing?
I will let you know in a few days...

I'm back

After a month of absence, I'm back.

I came back from Japan with my parents at the end of June, and we travelled to Victoria, Seattle, Vancouver and to the Rockies in a month. My parents really enjoyed everywhere we travelled, specially Victoria, but their favourite place was our backyard, just sitting on the chairs, relaxing, looking at the trees around and playing with Snoop. They enjoyed the trip very much and said they want to come back next summer again. I'm sure they will come back.

So, in one month, our vegetable garden has over grown, everything is getting so much bigger, including the zucchini plants. We had our first early tomatoes harvest a few days ago and they were actually really good. We have been eating salad everyday from the garden and we can't keep up with the amount of lettuce leaves coming out.

Snoop has been a bit stressed out for a while as I was away many days. But I think he is also back to normal and happy to have me around again.

Update

I have been just little busy doing other stuff for the last few days... I thought I should get back to writing before my mother-in-law sends me another message! Hehehe :D

Anyway, we are all doing fine including the vegetable garden! The sun is out today and we are having some fresh salad from the garden and nice pasta on the patio.... and of course a few glasses of red vino too!

ICHIBAN Eggplant

I stopped at the grocery store and found something I wanted to grow in my garden. At their gardening section, there were several different plant starters on sale. One plant I wanted to try was Eggplant. Friends told me they will not grow in the cool climate of Vancouver Island. But I had to try because they were Japanese Eggplant "ICHIBAN" = meaning "No.1". Of course, we don't have eggplant called ICHIBAN in Japan. This must have been named here.

There are so many funny Japanese words used in North America for Sushi restaurants names (owned by non-Japanese). I guess they just use any Japanese word they have heard or know without not knowing the meaning?

Here are some strange restaurant names I know from Vancouver and some I have heard of.
Oishi Sushi = Tasty Sushi (That's OK)
Sumo Sushi = Sumo is the Japanese wresting
Kimono Sushi = Kimono is Japanese traditional clothing
Oyaji Sushi = Old Man Sushi (really?)
Sayonara Sushi = Goodbye Sushi (Don't think they lasted too long)
Yakuza Sushi = Japanese Mafia Sushi (...?)

Patio

It's a long weekend and we all hoped to have the warm temperatures continue, but the great weather we had been enjoying the last several days ended today. Cold and rainy day and our fireplace is on. Oh well, we had some unexpected wonderful summer-like weather, so we won't complain. Snoop is confused though as he is not spending time laying on the grass in the back yard today.

 A few days ago, we bought a new outdoor dining table set for our patio. We had been using some faded and duct taped old plastic chairs and tables. We thought it was time to upgrade when we saw one in the flyer for sale.

I made the cushions with some familiar fabric (also used on kids aprons and the dogs car hammock), for an added a bit of comfort. I want to add more plants or something later to the patio area, but this is a start.

Thanks for being a model in this cold weather, Papa and Snoop!

Japanese Maple

Apparently the blessing I gave the Japanese Maple at my in-law's place 10 years ago worked really well. It has grown a lot and now it is big and healthy.

Today I planted our Japanese Maple in the back yard. Did I give it a blessing...? Oh no, I forgot!

One of the Rhododendrons bloomed this morning. It is bright Pink! We didn't plant any of these flowers, so we had no idea what colour they would be. I'm happy to see some colourful flowers as our back yard is quite green looking.

I think this bright blue flower is called Lithodora Grace Ward. We were not sure if they were alive during the winter as the colour was a rotten looking black. But they bloomed very nicely and adding some nice colour in the front yard.

Man on the roof

In this nice summer-like weather, we can't stop working outside. We have a list of things we want to do to this house, and one of the things was to clean the north side of the house.

Our house is 7 years old and we don't think the cream colour vinyl siding has ever been cleaned before. The North side, where it never gets sun was really bad. So, my husband got up on the roof again to clean it up! Great job!

The grape vines are now in the ground1 We hope they grow up on the lattice and cover it up to provide some privacy. And of course to provide us with some vino :)

Front Yard

Another request from Mrs. A, a picture of the front yard. Almost everything is blooming now, except a few rhododendrons below the window. Not sure what colour they will be?

If you look closely, you will see someone who really wanted to be in the picture through the window....

Lattice

Long time no post! ... I can't believe it is already May! I didn't think I was off this long until my mother-in-law told me to get back to work and start posting the blog again! OK, Mrs. A, I am back for you :)

Where to start... Lattice in the back yard is up. Each square was bigger than we thought, so we can see the dog park parking lot, but it is still nice to have for some privacy.

We are hoping to have a nice wooden bench and comfortable cushions in front of the lattice. I'm sure you know who will love this spot, right Snoop?

Garden Update - Lettuce -

Yay! Lettuce Baby!

Lawn Mower

Being first time house owners, we are learning it costs a lot of $$. As we were living in a condo in downtown Vancouver for so many years, there are many things we didn't own that are necessary for the home owner. One of the many things is a lawn mower. So, we purchased our first lawn mower! It's an electric, we didn't want a gas powered one as they are noisy and not environmentally friendly. But we decided not to buy a push mower as everyone recommended avoiding them including sister Amy and my father in Japan.

Anyway, it's light, powerful and it comes with a bag to put behind the mower. I need to learn how to operate this machine too! Just need to be careful not to run over the cord!

Our first veggie garden

Squash, Zucchini, Garlic, Green onion, Cucumber, Lettuce, Broccoli, Tomato...
Hope they will be ready when you guys come and visit this summer!

Hydrangea

Sunny Saturday. We spent some time shopping for more gardening items at Costco and playing in the back yard.

I always wanted to have Hydrangea in the garden if I had my own house sometime. Today my husband bought me a beautiful white hydrangea :)

Two of my favourite white things in my own back yard...

Finishing the hedges

It was supposed to be nice weather, but it turned out to be a very mixed day. While the sun was shining in the morning, we decided to finish the hedges. There were so many buckets full of rocks from our digging that we used them to edge half of the hedges. We also picked up some driftwood from the beach after the recent storms, so we used it in some areas. To finish the job we added mulch and gave them another good amount of water.

Snoop is getting tired of us being in the garden working. See him in the picture below, yawning...so bored...

Snoop, this is not the end of our projects! Next will be the veggie garden!

Four more Cedars!

Another gardening weekend. Not as nice as last Saturday, but we decided to plant 4 more cedars on the other side of the yard where we are right next to the neighbour's deck.

Our house sits higher than the neighbours' but their 2nd floor deck is the same level as our back yard. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, for a little privacy, we decided to plant just 4 trees (didn't want to cover it entirely and be unfriendly...). See the yellow arrows in the picture below.

We also straightened our Tamarack tree. Due to the strong winds during all the storms we had recently, we noticed the tree was leaning back. We tied a rope around the tree and nailed some tent pegs into the ground to keep it straight. Not sure what else to do. Hope it will grow back straight up!

Update for the wine lovers. Our grape vines have roots now! Yay! They will be transferred to a pot and will be kept in the warm house until Spring finally comes.

★We decided to post today's blog early to participate the Earth House from 8:30pm. Hope you are all turning off the lights in the house to save energy!★

Cedar Hedge Project - Day 2

Done! 21 cedar trees are in. 
We just need some Advil, a few glasses of wine and good night sleep.

Done, done and done!

Some of the rocks we found when we dug the trench for the hedge.

Cedar Hedge Project Day 1

Beautiful Saturday. Perfect day for gardening!

Although my husband had to do more field work after the overnight trip and I had a choir lesson in the afternoon, we managed to start the cedar hedge project.

Today's big task was to remove the gravel and grass and start to dig the trench for the hedges. It was a hard job.... Around 4 in the afternoon, we started digging. There were so many rocks including some huge ones and we realized it will take longer than we thought to complete this project... to be continued...

Snoop, you are so NOT helpful! Snoozing in the sun...

End of Day 1...lots more to do...

Cedar Trees

A nice warm Sunday. Today, we went to visit some garden centres in town and discussed what kind of projects we need to do in the back & front yard. There is a list of things we want to do including building vegetable boxes, planting hedges, building a retaining wall in front of the entrance, planting fruit trees, weeding, mowing the lawn, re-doing the back yard gate etc....

Today, we started the hedges project. First things first. We need to get shrubs, not 7 or 8, but 23! We borrowed a friend's truck and went to the local store where they have the 7 ft cedar trees on sale for $15/each! It took us a while to load them in the truck as they are really heavy. We managed to put all 23 in the back of the truck and drove very slow home.

We will need to dig 23 big holes along the fence, so it will probably take a while to show the finished product...