Our new veg plot in Japan

[John_henry]

Hi all,

We recently moved to Japan from england with the plan to become more self sufficient. Last week we moved into our new house and began work on our new veg plot.

The plot is a little over 400 sq meters (just over 4,300 sq ft). When we took it over it over last Saturday it looked a little over run with weeds, as you can see in the photo. So the plan for this week was to weed the entire plot before rotovating early the following week. Needless to say, it's been a back braking week and we wont be rotovating till Tuesday at the earliest.

We plan to grow everything organically from open pollinated organic seed, hence all the hard work with weeding by hand, instead of using chemicals. We've grown veg on the scale before in England, but it ill be the first time in Japan. We intend on incorporating as much companion planting and green manure/mulch as possible, this is something we have a little experience in, but hope to gain more knowledge for use with this plot.

We're a little late starting on the plot due to our moving dates, but as it was covered by snow until early may we're only a few weeks behind even the most eager local farmers. According to the local people we've spoke to we should still be good to plant most things from seed, except tomatoes and a few others, which we would now have to buy in as plants. It gets pretty warm here in the summer and the snow doesn't come until December, so not the worst growing season.

We have a heap of questions that we hope you might be able to help us with, and I intend to keep this as a journal that might be able to give some advise to others. I'll keep things updated as often as possible and aim to get photos up at least once a week, or as necessary. A few burning things on our mind are: how to bring the soil back to being organic, how if possible to protect/get rid of any cross contamination from local chemical use, any organic weeding tips, and how to compost a huge heap of weeds.

I'm quite new to this forum, so sorry if this is in the wrong area and or inappropriate my apologies. Thanks in advance, and I hope we can offer some advice too.

 

[Dawn419]

I can move this to the gardening forum for you or you can use this as a start to your journal and we can just leave it here. If you want to leave it here, as your journal, just edit your above post and include your username in the title: Self Sufficient Journals.

I look forward to reading about your garden adventures in Japan and it looks like I could gladly send you some rocks. Just kidding, but our soil here in the Arkansas Ozarks is very rocky so we are doing mainly raised beds to get around the rock problem. The rocks are so plentiful that they eat regular tillers for meals.

 

[John_henry]

I can move this to the gardening forum for you or you can use this as a start to your journal and we can just leave it here. If you want to leave it here, as your journal, just edit your above post and include your username in the title: Self Sufficient Journals.

I look forward to reading about your garden adventures in Japan and it looks like I could gladly send you some rocks. Just kidding, but our soil here in the Arkansas Ozarks is very rocky so we are doing mainly raised beds to get around the rock problem. The rocks are so plentiful that they eat regular tillers for meals.

Thanks for the quick response. Which do you think would be more suitable, move it or leave it here? I wonder if the gardening forum might be better?

It's quite the opposite here, I can count on one hand the amount of small rocks I've found on the plot. I think the soil is generally fairly rocky but as it's been farmed for a long period of time they've been cleared over the years. I have a friend in the uk who resorted to raised beds after being beat by rocks.

Thanks again

 

[Dawn419]

Your welcome, John.

If you think the garden section is better for this post/thread, no problem. That way you can talk about whatever you want in your journal...it's up to you!

I can sympathize with your friend...we bought this 17 wooded acres in 2009 and it had never been farmed before...atleast from what I can tell. I have several small garden beds that I'm working on getting the rocks out of but it is a never ending job, from the looks of it.

 

[John_henry]

Yep. I think gardening makes sense for the moment. Good luck with the rocks.

 

[John_henry]

OK. So, here's an update as of yesterday. As you can see we're nearly done weeding and have finally started to get some plants in the ground. It still looks horribly bare, but is getting better everyday.

 

[Wannabefree]

Nice looking start there John!

 

[Joel_BC]

A few burning things on our mind are: how to bring the soil back to being organic, how if possible to protect/get rid of any cross contamination from local chemical use, any organic weeding tips, and how to compost a huge heap of weeds.

A few opinions, based on more than 25 years' experience with organic gardening (IOW, since I was a kid). If you use organic methods year after year, the biology of your soil will improve. And that's what brings the soil "back to being organic". The methods include mulching, spreading compost and manure, planting green-manure crops, adding rock-powder soil amandments, and so on.

Weed control: With organic soil cultivation, you cannot get away from hand weeding, hoeing, etc. You mention having had the 4000 sq ft plot "rotovated" to prepare the soil. When I hear that term (rotovator), I think of a tractor-drawn mechanical implement. I use a rototiller - a smaller machine with its own single-cylinder motor. I rototill the aisles between my planted beds or rows, as a part of our weed control. This reduces the amount of hoeing we'd do here. I do amend the soil in the aisles, just as I amend the planted rows (though I may put extra amendment into the planted rows). Then, in certain aisles, we use a straw mulch, which eventually rots-in and provides humus and feeds earthworms.

What our practices mean, over the years, is that - because the beds or rows can change position a little or a lot from one year to the next - the whole vegetable/berry garden area does get enriched. We're cultivating about 5000 sq ft of food-growing garden area, and we're on hands and knees (or hoe-in-hand) a lot. But were it not for the rototiller as a weeding method, there would be little time for money earning, building and equipment maintenance, study, hobbies, and visiting with neighbors.

Can you borrow the use of a rototiller now and then?

Other people doing organic cultivation have other habits and practices, so it's worth gathering many opinions.

 

[pinkfox]

no advice to give but i must say its a beautiful lot, i know land is at a premium in Japan even outside the cities so congratulations and ill definatly be following your adventure!

 

[donrae]

I don't think it looks bare.


I think it looks like potential!