So it is the very end of October. The weather is er very good. 24 degrees, sunny, low humidity.

Not quite as blue

Basically the summer was a gardening washout. Er no, that does not describe the baking sun that burns everything to a frazzle very well.  My tomatoes peppers and aubergines all did very badly.  The only thing that prospered was the benni imo, purple sweet potato, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/5718283/Purple-sweet-potato-new-superfood-to-prevent-cancer.html, which is impervious to typhoons and does not seem to need any water.

Very large seed potatoes

At my local agricultural cooperative place I blunder around trying to work out when I should plant stuff as there is clearly a different cycle from even  very southern Europe. However I have noticed a sense of excitement over the last couple of weeks. Planting season is, I think, coming to Okinawa – October is April. Last weekend there were trays of onions plants. Yesterday it was potatoes. Hooray these I know how to grow.

After many years of preparing beautiful drills and then banking up the earth, this time I decide to simply dig a little hole and drop the seed potato in. We shall  see.

Pratie in the pratie hole

So I put in a bunch of potatoes and will await developments with great interest.

Potatoes to the left of them, potatoes to the right of them, volleyed and thundered.