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Dec 31, 2011

Harvesting at the end of 2011

Today is the last day of 2011. It's a good day to reflect what happened in this year and to plan what I should do in coming next year, 2012.

The big earthquakes, disaster caused by nuclear power plants, my father's death,,,,,well, many sad things happened this year but gardening can heal and reanimate my spirit and seeing growth of vegetables give me a hope for next year. Today I harvested three daikon radishes and two cabbages with hoping for having a happy new year.









--from iPad

Dec 24, 2011

Merry Christmas!


I wish all of my blogging friends a merry Christmas from Japan!!


--from iPad

Dec 23, 2011

Germination in a cold day

 As the X'mas is coming, the temperature is getting colder and colder down to about 5 degrees C (40 degrees F) in Osaka. I seeded pak-choys and spinach 2 weeks ago covering them with vinyl tunnels to keep the air inside warmer. Today I thinned out pak-choys sprouts and found the spinach germinated.

 Choosing sprouts to be thinned out is still a little bit heart-breaking to me because I always wish all of sprouts to be grown and harvested. But I have to do it for pursuing bigger vegetables in a limited space.


 The growth of spinach is usually slower than pak-choi and other leaf vegetables and I'm very happy to find some spinach has germinated. It has been very cold in my town and I wondered when they could germinate.

Dec 11, 2011

The trip to Kuroshima island, Okinawa

 I'm a dyed in a wool freak on tripping to tropical islands like Hawaii, Maldives, and Okinawa. The luminescent green and blue ocean with white sand and various colorful flowers can relax and energize me. And local foods and cultural events and festivals are also attractive. I trip once a year to those islands using accumulated mileage points for free air tickets and at this time I went to Kuroshima island and Taketomi island, which are located in the southeast of the Okinawa main island. I would like to share some interesting videos of local festivals and foods on this blog.

 I'll show you videos of a local festival in Taketomi island, which has a long history dedicated to the God of a local Shinto shrine. You can see many dancers dressed up as samurai warriors and ancient farmers. Most of old festivals in Japan are held to pray for bumper harvest including the festival in Taketomi island.

The 1st dance by samurai warriors


The dance by female dancers dressed up as ancient farmer.


The dance by female oracles.