Life In Japan: City Boy Gardener

Yes, we’re at it again. Playing in the dirt, stocking our shelves and fridge with fresh, healthy vegetables.

Actually, as many Japanese do who are not officially farmers, we do this every year.

Mind you, growing up I didn’t have a garden. I lived in a mobile home park and our yard was about the size of a throw rug. And it was suburban Detroit. Detroit was not exactly famous for its farms at the time. It was the Motown sound and automobiles, i.e. groups like the Four Tops and Supremes providing the rhythms for tearing up the dance floor, and gigantic factories belching smoke to provide the world with family transportation. The population then was over 2,000,000. Now it’s less than 750,000 and I’ve heard — have not confirmed this with a personal visit — now there are actually huge tracts of abandoned property and Detroiters are growing all sorts of organic veggies. Right in the city! Amazing how things can change!

Anyway, so far we’ve already harvested more onions and potatoes than we can possibly use. We give a lot away.

The garden pictured above is at the early stages of producing the next round. We’re raising tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, butternut squash. And of course, we planted a nice amount — fifty-five plants, to be exact — of black beans.

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Maybe this fascination I have with growing stuff seems silly. But for me, every year it’s the same. I find it miraculous that you can start with a seed and a few months later end up with a salad, or a delicious bowl of mashed potatoes.

City boys may be street smart.

But we’re garden dumb.