Got a broccoli!

We seeded several vegetables in late summer. They are growing up and getting bigger and bigger.

I brought a kitchen knife and cut the biggest one. I think that I can sell them in near markets..

Carrots have also been growing up. I did not cull them effectively in some areas. So, distance among some of the carrots are less than 2 cm. It is too close.

Also, I have found that each one is differ. Some are extremely bigger than others. I picked up them 2.

They are still small. But, the 2 kinds of white radishes are also going well. They are so good so far. I will continuously take care of them. We will be able to get them in December or next January.

Also, still I got small egg plants and peppers. Egg plants are on the final stage. But, I feel that the peppers are at the peak of their power of life.

At the kitchen, I found a caterpillar on the sink. I did think that the season of insects are almost over. We should monitor their activities a little more.

Autumn harvest has begun

After lunch, I went to our vegetable field. All vegetables in the field are growing up well.

5 broccoli trees are going well. The size of the first fruit became bigger than my fist. This is the best timing to eat, so, I cut the fruit.

Next, I earthed up the green onion. They have already grown up but I believe that they will be growing up more and more. In this winter, we will eat Japanese soup in the pot (Nabe) many times using our vegetables like the green onion.

Below is the green onion right now.

This is the cabbage. The ball size is as same as the good one, which is made by professional farmer, sold in the market.

This is white radish. There are blue-neck white radish on the left row and Okura radish on the right row. Okura is the next town of us. The kind of white radish, which is bigger and longer than the ordinary one, is the local one of us.

Chinese cabbage is also growing up well. The leaves will become a big ball but the current leaves are still spread. According to the my farming teacher, we should tie the leaves using a strap early January.

Also, turnips have grown up very well. To make big balls without crack, I did earth up several times. It is time to eat right now!

After that, we boiled the broccoli. I tried one and found that it is very delicious a little bit sweet.

We will eat taro, carrot, white radish, mizuna, turnip, cabbage, Chinese cabbage and Komatsuna (Japanese spinach) in this autumn and winter. What a happy time!!!

2014 Plan (Autumn Planting)

In the previous post, I showed you the spring planting plan. In this time, I would like to explain the autumn plan.

<July>
- Long onion (under the cheesecloth)

- Carrot (the middle all)

<August>
- Cabbage (the second picture)

- Broccoli (beyond the cheesecloth)
- Cauliflower

<September>
- White radish
 We sowed 3 seeds per a hole of the black sheet. In the near future, the best of the 3 seeds will be selected.

- Chinese cabbage
- Turnip (round 2)
- Mizuna (Japanese leaf vegetable)
- Komatsuna (Japanese spinach)

On the same ridge. In the upper area, there  are sprouts of turnip. In the middle, it is Mizuna. The seeds of Komatuna will be sowed soon.

We will harvest Carrot and Broccoli in October and Taro and Turnip in November.

2014 Plan (Spring Planting)

In the farming experience program in Setagaya, farming plan was created and provided by the field owner, who is the old farmer in my town, at the beginning of the year.

Fundamentally, vegetables can be categorized in spring planting type and autumn planting type. So, we started planting from March to May and harvested from June to September. Now, we have just completed autumn planting from August to September. We will eat them from November to January.

We planted the spring planting vegetables:

<March>
- Spinach (under the cheesecloth)
- Potato (the middle all)
- Turnip (beyond the cheesecloth)
- Komatsuna, a kind of spinach (beyond the cheesecloth)

<April>
- Corn (the second photo)
- Taro (beyond the cheesecloth)
- Tomato (the top left six)
- Cucumber (the top right four)
- Eggplant (the bottom left three)
- Paprika (the bottom right one)
- Pumpkin (no photos)

After planting, some maintenance is needed. For example, we did cull the young buds of the corn. Because we planted 3 seeds in a hole. So, we made 3 young buds to 2, and 2 buds to 1. The final one will grow up as a corn tree. The culled 2 were disposed.

Also, to make up tomato trees and cucumber trees, we tied the vine of cucumber (as shown below) with the pillar using the string. Since the vine grows up faster, we did the task once a week or more.

So, from June, we got harvest them even though shape of some vegetables were strange compared with the market products and some were unfortunately eaten by caterpillars.

<Turnips>

<Komatsuna (Japanese spinach) eaten by black caterpillars>

Typhoon attack

Japan is attacked by 20 or more typhoons every year. Moreover, power of typhoons is increasing due to global warming. Today and tomorrow, a middle class typhoon attacks the Japan mainland (Hon-shu) and the typhoon will come to Tokyo tomorrow morning (Oct 6, 2014).

I have 3 eggplant trees in my small vegetable fields and one tree was damaged by a previous typhoon. One major branch of a tree was broken. After that, the eggplant tree has made smaller and less fruits than other 2 trees even though we carefully gave chemical fertilizer and maintained the branches (see the red circle).

Anyway, I hope that the typhoon will not make severe damage my field and our country.

Tokyo Vegetable Life

I am a business person working at a Tokyo office of a global financial company. I have a lot of exciting and stimulus jobs every day. Also, it meas that they are often too exciting and too stimulus to make me exhausted.

So, I love to visit the countryside of Japan. The landscape of mountain, sea, or old town is wonderful (see the sample pictures below).

<Mountain side: Nagano pref>

<Local foods in Nagano>

 <Sea side near Mt. Fuji>

Moreover, I like to eat fresh fish, vegetables, and fruits growing up in the country, which are more delicious because the food is fresh and water and air are clean. Recently, I dream to live somewhere around the countryside though I cannot decide which is better of the sea area or the mountain area now.

As a preparation of country life, I wanted to learn farming and fishing. Then, my wife found a farming experience program in my town offered by the ward office to promote local vegetables and fruits. The program offers small area of a field (3 x 5 m = 15 m^2, approx 140 ft^2) with cheap price (4,000 yen per a month!!!; USD 40). Also, the field owner provides a cultivation plan, which all users have to follow, and guidance whenever necessary (I ask various questions about vegetables with the old expert farmer so often).

You may not believe that there are a lot of vegetable fields in Tokyo special wards. But, you will see a lot of green areas in Tokyo when you see satellite maps such as Google Earth. Because historically there are many green parks and a lot of vegetable fields in Tokyo.

40-50 years ago, there were crowded areas only in Tokyo central area. In the surrounding areas like my town, there were still many vegetable fields. After that, many residential areas have been developed to follow Japanese rapid economic growth. On the other hand, vegetable fields and farmers have been decreasing. So, the ward offices protects and promotes the local agriculture. As one of the promotion and protection, our ward offers the experience program.


My wife and I have participated the program since 2013. In the first year, our knowledge was very poor and made various mistakes but the vegetables were very strong and grew up. As a result, we learnt that fresh vegetables are incredibly delicious even though amateur farmers (my wife and I) made them with various mistakes.

Through the blog, I would like to show such wonderful experience for you guys living out of Japan.

Thank you.