July was certainly not a quiet month on our small farm in rural Tamba, Japan.

Shizuka started the month with a broken wrist, leaving her temporarily out of action at precisely the point when there was plenty that needed doing. Fortunately, things healed well, and the month gradually became a story of getting back to normal while the farm carried on growing around us.

In this month's farm diary, we plant our azuki crop and discover that the local moles have their own ideas about where the beans should go. The chilli fields go from small plants to being laden with fruit, bringing with them an ongoing battle with shield bugs. Meanwhile, around twenty cucumber plants produce a frankly ridiculous number of cucumbers.

We also look at the work involved in converting our unsuccessful rice paddy into raised growing beds, using azuki and daikon as part of the process of rebuilding the soil. There's a tiny batch of umeboshi from a very sparse ume year, ornamental pumpkins, our little kinkan tree beginning to fruit, and plenty of the wildlife that continually distracts us from whatever job we're supposed to be doing.

Kuro and Mame turn one, we put the summer sunshine to work with a new solar installation on the barn, and somehow continue working through temperatures in the mid to high 30s while dressed in increasingly ridiculous combinations of fan jackets, reflective sunshades and floral tights.

And finally, we get away from the fields for a summer festival and fireworks with friends and neighbours, one of those simple evenings that reminds us how much Tamba has come to feel like home.

Tamba Farm Diary is the audio companion to our written farm diary on Substack. The original article includes photographs from the farm and additional details from the month.

Read Tamba Farm Diary on Substack

Audio note: This episode is an AI-narrated audio edition of the original Tamba Farm Diary article, written by Todd Miwa (aka Todd Mackintosh). The words and stories are our own; AI voice technology is used solely for narration.