(English version below)
“網地島の未来を育てましょう！（中編）”
４月より石巻日日新聞さんの「潮音」（ちょうおん）というコラム欄を、半年間、月１で担当させて頂いています。リックの担当は、毎月第３土曜日です。今回は第３回目でした。
雑草と共に育ち続ける、農民リックを今後ともどうぞよろしくお願いします！
“網地島の未来を育てましょう！（中編）”
４月より石巻日日新聞さんの「潮音」（ちょうおん）というコラム欄を、半年間、月１で担当させて頂いています。リックの担当は、毎月第３土曜日です。今回は第３回目でした。
雑草と共に育ち続ける、農民リックを今後ともどうぞよろしくお願いします！
Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima! (pt.2) -- June 18, 2016
I see gardening, and for that matter, farming, as a great metaphor for my life’s growth. The seed of my future was planted in my dreams as a child. Like a seed, my dream lied dormant until the conditions were finally ideal for it to grow, i.e. joining Ajishima ABE. It took a long time to germinate, and once I came to Ajishima it slowly sprouted. The most difficult part for me came next: weeding! Some weeds are beautiful and can be used to our benefit, but there are invasive weeds too that can smoother out and steal resources from the desired plant.
For me, I realized the only way to grow to my full potential was to weed out the self-destructive habits I had, like spending too much time indoors playing video games alone, drinking in excess, and perpetuating my depression by avoiding my fear of failure by never starting anything in the first place. New weeds can pop up anytime anywhere, but if one can root them out before they get established and before their own seeds spread it is much easier to get them under control. I have the chance now to keep on growing. There are some plants/trees that take years to blossom and bear fruit. I do not know what my life will blossom into in the future, but if it is anything like my childhood dream, I know it will be beautiful.
The only way I know to grow things sustainably and successfully is to tend to the needs of the plants, to cultivate and weed, to give the proper nutrients and encouragement. However, sometimes certain “weeds” or problems arise that are very problematic. These require special tools and techniques to eliminate. Please allow me to give an example.
In one of our many fields, we decided to grow sweet potatoes, which grow quite well on Ajishima. In fact, we grow the most delicious sweet potatoes and make the most delicious dried sweet potatoes in the world on Ajishima! I started to prepare the field with our roto tiller, and I soon realized that 3/4 of the area was nice workable soil but the remaining 1/4 was solid clay, hard as a rock with absolutely no topsoil. It was so inhospitable, not even weeds could grow there. After several passes the roto tiller hardly scratched the surface. Rather than break the machine and break my spirit by forcing the process, I decided to let that small area be for a while so I could think of a solution. In the long run I want to utilize that space, but I had many more fields to prepare this season, so I moved on to the next field. While working elsewhere I was able to meditate on the problem and I came up with a solution. Of course, there is a backstory to how I came up with this solution!
Before my wife and I moved back to Japan, I became interested in natural farming and learned about an idea called Permaculture. Permaculture has its roots in the intimate knowledge our ancestors around the world had of observing nature and then finding ways to work with nature instead of against it. The Japanese concept of Satoyama falls into this category where food crops are planted amongst fruit bearing trees in a way that mimics the functioning of a forest.
Once we moved to Japan, my wife and I attended a year-long monthly class in Azumino, Nagano to study Permaculture. We learned many useful things there. There was a Japanese man named Fukuoka Masanobu-san, whose book “One Straw Revolution” I highly recommend, who popularized a Japanese flavor of Permaculture. The idea of his with the most impact on me was “no till” farming. Basically, you use neither hand tools nor machines to dig up or mix the soil, because that disrupts and kills soil life. You may have immediate success with your crops if you till, but in the long run, the soil is depleted of nutrients, organic matter and biological activity (life) and becomes compacted making it difficult for future crops to get established.
Fukuoka-san’s suggestion for stubbornly hard soil was to sow the seeds of one of the mightiest plants around, the humble but powerful yet delicious daikon radish. Daikon can grow just about anywhere and in less than ideal conditions, and in fact it works like nature’s roto tiller! It can break up hard soil, without mixing it, and in the process loosen it up for future crops. Indeed, when I first came to Japan over ten years ago, I was shocked and impressed by news reports of a mighty daikon that grew up right through an asphalt road!
Permaculture has many insightful points but the two that have become mantras for me are, “The Problem is the Solution,” and “Small, Slow Solutions.” Considering our problematic field and my limited time for each area, I decided to sow some daikon seeds, and to mulch the area with cut weeds. It will take some time, maybe years to build the topsoil in that area, but it takes little effort on my part to toss a handful of daikon seeds and even let wild seeds from the weeds take roots. This is one case where I would invite invasive weeds to grow, as they can do similar work as the daikon. Plus, I can chop and drop the weeds several times a year, and let the daikon seeds fall and another generation break up the soil. Maybe I will get a delicious reward and harvest some daikon, but even if I don’t, the real reward in the future will be healthy, vibrant, loose soil.
While I would prefer not to till, nor even mix the soil with a hoe, we have made a compromise in our attempt to run a successful business as Ajishima ABE. For root crops that benefit from built beds and that must be dug out to harvest, like potatoes and sweet potatoes, we will use a roto tiller to work the earth. The compromise comes from our decision to also utilize the traditional Japanese practice of placing straw under the sweet potato beds and even mixing rice bran into the soil when we prepare it. Both of these will add necessary organic matter and facilitate the spread of beneficial microbes. Recently, we even learned about island traditions of growing sweet potatoes between barley and transplanting the slips (sweet potato sprouts) in the rain, which means no need to water them in! Even as I type this column on a rare day away from the fields, my wife is outside planting slips in the rain. It could be argued who is more clever! But that is an argument I will always lose!
Several years ago, just as I started to recognize my depression and seek ways out of it, I was walking around the island and met an older man toiling away in his garden. We discussed many things and in the end, and maybe to convince myself even more than him, I said, "Ajishima's future is bright." He replied, "Wrong! It is so dark." I can understand why he felt that way. I felt that way before too. However, once I started wholeheartedly working with nature to grow our future, things improved. I know the sun is shining brightly, just like in my childhood dream. That sunlight is what all plants need to survive. Our future is indeed bright, but only if we tend to it and cultivate it. Only then can it thrive. So, now I say, "Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima!"
I see gardening, and for that matter, farming, as a great metaphor for my life’s growth. The seed of my future was planted in my dreams as a child. Like a seed, my dream lied dormant until the conditions were finally ideal for it to grow, i.e. joining Ajishima ABE. It took a long time to germinate, and once I came to Ajishima it slowly sprouted. The most difficult part for me came next: weeding! Some weeds are beautiful and can be used to our benefit, but there are invasive weeds too that can smoother out and steal resources from the desired plant.
For me, I realized the only way to grow to my full potential was to weed out the self-destructive habits I had, like spending too much time indoors playing video games alone, drinking in excess, and perpetuating my depression by avoiding my fear of failure by never starting anything in the first place. New weeds can pop up anytime anywhere, but if one can root them out before they get established and before their own seeds spread it is much easier to get them under control. I have the chance now to keep on growing. There are some plants/trees that take years to blossom and bear fruit. I do not know what my life will blossom into in the future, but if it is anything like my childhood dream, I know it will be beautiful.
The only way I know to grow things sustainably and successfully is to tend to the needs of the plants, to cultivate and weed, to give the proper nutrients and encouragement. However, sometimes certain “weeds” or problems arise that are very problematic. These require special tools and techniques to eliminate. Please allow me to give an example.
In one of our many fields, we decided to grow sweet potatoes, which grow quite well on Ajishima. In fact, we grow the most delicious sweet potatoes and make the most delicious dried sweet potatoes in the world on Ajishima! I started to prepare the field with our roto tiller, and I soon realized that 3/4 of the area was nice workable soil but the remaining 1/4 was solid clay, hard as a rock with absolutely no topsoil. It was so inhospitable, not even weeds could grow there. After several passes the roto tiller hardly scratched the surface. Rather than break the machine and break my spirit by forcing the process, I decided to let that small area be for a while so I could think of a solution. In the long run I want to utilize that space, but I had many more fields to prepare this season, so I moved on to the next field. While working elsewhere I was able to meditate on the problem and I came up with a solution. Of course, there is a backstory to how I came up with this solution!
Before my wife and I moved back to Japan, I became interested in natural farming and learned about an idea called Permaculture. Permaculture has its roots in the intimate knowledge our ancestors around the world had of observing nature and then finding ways to work with nature instead of against it. The Japanese concept of Satoyama falls into this category where food crops are planted amongst fruit bearing trees in a way that mimics the functioning of a forest.
Once we moved to Japan, my wife and I attended a year-long monthly class in Azumino, Nagano to study Permaculture. We learned many useful things there. There was a Japanese man named Fukuoka Masanobu-san, whose book “One Straw Revolution” I highly recommend, who popularized a Japanese flavor of Permaculture. The idea of his with the most impact on me was “no till” farming. Basically, you use neither hand tools nor machines to dig up or mix the soil, because that disrupts and kills soil life. You may have immediate success with your crops if you till, but in the long run, the soil is depleted of nutrients, organic matter and biological activity (life) and becomes compacted making it difficult for future crops to get established.
Fukuoka-san’s suggestion for stubbornly hard soil was to sow the seeds of one of the mightiest plants around, the humble but powerful yet delicious daikon radish. Daikon can grow just about anywhere and in less than ideal conditions, and in fact it works like nature’s roto tiller! It can break up hard soil, without mixing it, and in the process loosen it up for future crops. Indeed, when I first came to Japan over ten years ago, I was shocked and impressed by news reports of a mighty daikon that grew up right through an asphalt road!
Permaculture has many insightful points but the two that have become mantras for me are, “The Problem is the Solution,” and “Small, Slow Solutions.” Considering our problematic field and my limited time for each area, I decided to sow some daikon seeds, and to mulch the area with cut weeds. It will take some time, maybe years to build the topsoil in that area, but it takes little effort on my part to toss a handful of daikon seeds and even let wild seeds from the weeds take roots. This is one case where I would invite invasive weeds to grow, as they can do similar work as the daikon. Plus, I can chop and drop the weeds several times a year, and let the daikon seeds fall and another generation break up the soil. Maybe I will get a delicious reward and harvest some daikon, but even if I don’t, the real reward in the future will be healthy, vibrant, loose soil.
While I would prefer not to till, nor even mix the soil with a hoe, we have made a compromise in our attempt to run a successful business as Ajishima ABE. For root crops that benefit from built beds and that must be dug out to harvest, like potatoes and sweet potatoes, we will use a roto tiller to work the earth. The compromise comes from our decision to also utilize the traditional Japanese practice of placing straw under the sweet potato beds and even mixing rice bran into the soil when we prepare it. Both of these will add necessary organic matter and facilitate the spread of beneficial microbes. Recently, we even learned about island traditions of growing sweet potatoes between barley and transplanting the slips (sweet potato sprouts) in the rain, which means no need to water them in! Even as I type this column on a rare day away from the fields, my wife is outside planting slips in the rain. It could be argued who is more clever! But that is an argument I will always lose!
Several years ago, just as I started to recognize my depression and seek ways out of it, I was walking around the island and met an older man toiling away in his garden. We discussed many things and in the end, and maybe to convince myself even more than him, I said, "Ajishima's future is bright." He replied, "Wrong! It is so dark." I can understand why he felt that way. I felt that way before too. However, once I started wholeheartedly working with nature to grow our future, things improved. I know the sun is shining brightly, just like in my childhood dream. That sunlight is what all plants need to survive. Our future is indeed bright, but only if we tend to it and cultivate it. Only then can it thrive. So, now I say, "Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima!"
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