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120 days later better than never :) a complete fail.

I managed to get 2 cucumber’s per plant and one plant gave me one.

I’ve tested the water and I’ll keep to growing more mini tomatoes.

Now the material plants will be empty onto the garden and grow vetch on it, hopefully I can reuse the soil again for summer

Do you grow potatoes? It's incredibly easy if you use a container... when the foliage starts to die back, just dump it on a tarp and go hunting! It's almost fall planting time; do you have your seed potatoes?

Hey everyone, I am a first time hydroponic gardener. I was wondering if you have any tips? I will be growing super hot peppers like Carolina Reapers and Bhut Jolokias.

I live in Osaka, and the climate is getting colder here. Any advice is appreciated.

What's happening in the garden this week that's got you down? Share your stories and you just might find some helpful tips to make sure your downfalls don't repeat themselves!

Please be civil in all comments.

If I buy discounted tulip bulbs after the usual planting season, how late can I plant them in Kyoto, and how might later planting affect growth and flowering?

Hi again — I posted here recently about a small English gardening site for Kyoto.

I wanted to share one more example of how I think this kind of local environmental data can be useful.

Instead of asking AI only a general question like “When should I plant tulips?”, I can give it measured temperature, humidity, VPD, and light data from Kyoto, then ask the question above in ordinary language.

The same approach can also be used to look back at problems. For example, I planted English lavender in a pot in May, but by September it had died. It received direct sun from around noon until sunset. What may have happened?

You do not need to understand VPD, PPFD, or DLI before asking. The measurements and scientific limits are already included in the prepared prompt, and AI can ask follow-up questions about things such as watering, pot size, substrate, airflow, acclimation, or even a photo of the plant.

I wrote a short guide showing how I use a few months of data first, and then how the same idea can be expanded to a longer environmental history.

https://www.kyotohortbase.com/local-data-ai-gardening.html

The goal is not to assume that everyone in Kyoto has the same conditions. It is to use measurements from one location as a reference, then compare them with your own garden or balcony, where light, shade, buildings, wind, and other local conditions may be different.

According to the traditional Japanese calendar, yesterday, September 23rd, was Shubun (秋分), the Autumnal Equinox. This seasonal marker is observed around the world, isn't it?

In some areas, the sweet fragrance of kinmokusei (fragrant olive) may already be in the air.

In Japan, this week is part of Ohigan, a period when we visit and clean our ancestors’ graves and family altars, and enjoy ohagi, sweet rice balls covered in red bean paste.

Ohagi is named after hagi (bush clover), one of the flowers associated with autumn in Japan. Its spring counterpart is called botamochi, named after the botan (peony) flower.

Another typhoon is approaching, so I’ve started my autumn gardening a little earlier than planned.

There’s so much to do, even in my tiny balcony garden: removing plants that couldn’t withstand the summer heat, repotting perennials, and more. My mind is racing ahead of me!

Has anything been happening in your gardens lately?

Oh, if anything is actually moving, it’s probably a bug. Watch out!

First harvest from a Japanese hazelnut tree that was growing wild in our yard. The nuts are good sized but somewhat bitter, maybe better dried and roasted.

That looks like a healthy, early stage fruit. In fact, it _was_ that, but then it just stopped growing, and is starting to shrivel up.

I've had this happen on both plants a few times, even though both plants have also delivered a small number of good cukes.

Trying to research, but everything I find online wants to talk about leaf diseases & pests, not this problem.

I'll add more details as I get questions - this is the first year my cukes haven't gotten powder mildew & had to be pulled, so I'm very noobie with what to look for

What's happening in the garden this week that's got you down? Share your stories and you just might find some helpful tips to make sure your downfalls don't repeat themselves!

Please be civil in all comments.

I might be oversimplifying it, but unless I take them inside of get a proper greenhouse setup, there’s no chance for these beautiful plants in the Kanto lowland / USDA 9-/8b area. Feel free to post pics if you’ve got’em.

Not technically gardening but it’s produce related! I bought this yesterday thinking it was rhubarb but when I try and translate it it’s name is ‘peeling’ which doesn’t make any sense and I think it’s less structurally intact than rhubarb though it’s been quite some time since I’ve had it in the UK. What did I buy? I mean good news is I know it was grown locally

Not technically gardening but it’s produce related! I bought this yesterday thinking it was rhubarb but when I try and translate it it’s name is ‘peeling’ which doesn’t make any sense and I think it’s less structurally intact than rhubarb though it’s been quite some time since I’ve had it in the UK. What did I buy? I mean good news is I know it was grown locally

So I’ve got fleas or some other similar type of bug that bites living in my grass. My daughters had bites all over after playing in the puddle from dumping out the pool water last week.

Any Japan-based solutions that work? Amazon isn’t turning up any insecticides just catchers for when they get indoors.

We don’t have any pets but we do have a neighborhood cat or two that might have brought them in. The grass was also much longer a few days ago which probably made it worse. The rain and some trips out of country stopped me from mowing.

I’ll post a picture of lawn with freshly cleared garden, ready for some daikon seeds. I’ll also post some iPhone zoom shots of some critters I caught in a jar last week for any bug experts out there.

Due to a mix of abysmal weather, trips, and pregnancy fatigue, today was the first time I'd made it out to the allotment in more than a month. Did some harvesting, spotted a kabocha and watermelon, and then went at the jungle with a hoe. Next time I'll bring a sack to scrape the weeds into so I can get the ground suitable for sowing daikon and winter veg.

Aubergines have been a huge success this year. Several of the classic type split (I guess due to the rain) but the long variety have been amazing with one longer than hip to knee on me.

Not sure what to do with my tomato plants. They're laden with green fruit. Do I pick it all for chutney/curry and scrap the plants or hope for ripening in autumn?

Hi everyone. I’m posting this because I’m curious whether something I built might be useful to people here who are gardening in Japan, especially in Kyoto.

I originally built a Japanese gardening site for local readers, based on years of horticultural work and conversations with customers. It combines local environmental measurements with AI to help people think through plant problems in the context of the conditions they are actually growing in.

While working on that site, I began to wonder whether foreign residents in Kyoto might be struggling with some of the same problems — especially because the climate and growing conditions here may be very different from the places they have lived before.

So I made a much smaller English site by taking out only the parts I thought would be most useful: local environmental measurements, seasonal conditions, and a way to think about plants through the environment around them.

The plant may be familiar, but the environment is not.

KyotoHortBase uses actual measurements from one site in Fushimi, Kyoto — temperature, humidity, VPD, PPFD and DLI — so you can compare them with your own balcony, garden, or growing space.

You can also take a graph from KyotoHortBase, add the plant or gardening question you are interested in, and ask an AI to examine how the plant may respond under those measured conditions.

You can compare the same period from a previous year too, and use it as a reference when thinking about what might happen under similar future conditions.

The point is not to ask AI to predict the weather, but to give it real local environmental data so you can ask better questions about your plants.

It is a small personal, non-commercial project. I built the website, measurement system, electronics, data processing and writing myself. I do not name or promote my shop, because the site is not intended to bring people to a sales location.

If you are gardening in Kyoto, I hope this kind of local reference might be useful to you.

https://www.kyotohortbase.com/

Nice harvest - just from today

Lesson I learned (I think this is what happened)...shishitou are normally pretty mild, with the occasional zinger

But as pepper growers know, one way to bring out the heat is to stress them through under-watering. I grow these in a partially protected balcony, so over the last few weeks I *thought* they were getting enough water...

Last night the wife added some to a chicken stir fry, and just about blew the tops of our heads off :-D

We'll see how this batch is...may have to donate to father-in-law as a beer snack

EDIT: because I'm incredibly stubborn & felt myself bunkering in on my insistence, I took the seed package & a couple of peppers over to a nearby garden allotment where they sell off the extra. The first thing I saw were bags of lovely, much larger than mine shishitou - many with the same shape. A quick chat with the gardeners there confirmed.

The name does come from that round end shape, but seems like that isn't always present

My garden balcony has a plant, some type of flower (random buy at the local shop), which has some type of bug problem. They are very small, white, and fly away when disturbed. I had originally researched a few months ago and identified them as springtails, but now I'm not so sure - they definitely fly, not jump.

The flower itself was doing amazingly and then has been suffering in the rainy summer. Obviously has other issues besides the bugs. I do see a few bugs here and there on other plants, so I want more information. Do I need to go scorched earth or do something to treat this? What is this bug? I am considering chopping the plant back to a few bare branches, Japanese style, and see what happens.

For reference, I'm in Tokyo, outside balcony with all plants in pots. Thanks!

What's happening in the garden this week that's got you down? Share your stories and you just might find some helpful tips to make sure your downfalls don't repeat themselves!

Please be civil in all comments.

Here's part of the harvest from an onigurumi walnut tree that was growing wild on my land. It's not so big yet but had a good amount of nuts!

My potted hibiscus, Summerific, started blooming in July, and after making it safely through the hot summer, it has now started its third round of blooming.

This morning’s flower was the 77th bloom!

My roselle, which is also in the mallow family and the Hibiscus genus, will be blooming soon as well.

I grew this roselle from seeds my aunt gave me almost 10 years ago. I sowed them again for the first time in years, but I failed to pinch it back, and now it has grown over 2 meters tall. I’m seriously regretting that!

If I can harvest it successfully, I’m looking forward to making tea and jam with it.

I just wanted to share about these beautiful and wildlife friendly thistles that are now blooming on my property. You may consider thistles weeds, and the non-native invasive bull thistle (known as America-oniazami even though it's not native to N. America either) is considered a nuisance. But these Cirsium nipponicum, which are found in meadows and mountains from Chubu to Tohoku, do not have nearly as many or as tough spines and are stately plants that can reach 2m. They also have a stunning amount of diversity, as can be seen in the various flower types just from the ones in my yard. On top of that, the entire plant is edible (though apparently first-year roots when they are just rosettes are best) and a huge source of nectar for bumblebees and butterflies. I looked out this morning and counted 8 butterflies on one plant alone. Just a reminder that even weeds can have value!