These are Kenji’s projects last week: Kenji used to work for a Japanese manufacturing company in automotive industry and he loves to apply 5S to our farm operation. He built a shelf and a table for produce packing station with left over materials from our house construction. They are both very strong and sturdy. In
Last Tuesday, we harvested, cooked and ate Fuki. Fuki (aka: Giant butterbur) is a “delicacy” of spring in Japan. When I was a child, there was a patch of Fuki right beside my path to school. They were taller than me (well, I was a small child even for my age) and leaves were huge.
Finally, it feels like spring. Our outside Christmas tree became a favorite spot for a little bird. As new farmers, we have small excitements all the time. Of the photos below, can you tell which one is tomato and which one is chard? Photo 1 is tomato and photo 2 is chard. I didn’t know
It has been cold and rainy and even christmas cactus thinks it is time to bloom… However, it is not time for holidays for us. In our propagation house, lettuces are growing. Bok choi and kales started to germinate. We planted seeds of eggplant, broccoli, more lettuce, and some rice for experiment. We used to
This week we have a good news and a bad news… Let us start with a bad news. In our greenhouse, we noticed that some of the komatsuna and mizuna were eaten. Didn’t look like slugs. It shouldn’t be crows as the greenhouse doors were closed. We set several mouse traps, and caught 7 in
New season has begun! Even though eagles are often visiting us, we can’t keep our eyes on sora (the sky). So far, mustard, spinach, komatsuna and snap peas were seeded outside, first batch of lettuce seedlings were planted, and next batch of lettuce is in our propagation house. In this week we plan to seed
Spring has arrived and we are back on the island! We enjoyed our trip but we are happy to be back. We came back last Friday and Kenji has been feeding and reviving his sourdough starter since. He did a trial bake yesterday and it was a success! We will be at AGI market this
Last Friday, we visited two miso factories who keep the same production method since 400 years ago in Okazaki, Aichi. They are Maruya and Kakukyu. The miso they make is called Haccho miso, which is made with soybeans, salt and water only. To make haccho miso, soybeans are steamed and formed into fist-size balls, inoculated
One of the things I noticed during this trip was that komatsuna is getting more and more popular. When I was a child, it was called “mochina” in our area and we ate it only for new year in mochi soup. Now it is sold year-round everywhere. It was even served as one of the
As per Japanese tradition, February 2nd is the day to ward off evil spirit and bring in fortune. At home, people throw roasted soybeans saying, “demons out, fortune in!” Many shrines throw packets of beans to visitors to wish them fortune. I visited a nearby shrine and received a couple of packets. One of them
