The Garden

Last summer I was totally impressed by a friend's container vegetable garden she and her significant other created over an ashphalt slab. I thought, HAVE AT IT! Chances are, I won't have the fabulous wood enclosures, the amount of garden or the incredible amount of success, but at least I will have added a smidge of oxygen to the environment and possibly get a couple veggies out of it.

Two things I did not count on in my gardening adventure.
A. Living in Japan.
B. Everything being in Japanese (why this is a surprise after A. I don't know. I was pregnant.).
C. All my problems only being found in Japan, thus only written about in Japanese.

That's right. Books about gardening in Japan in Japanese book stores are in Japanese. Books about gardening in Japan do not exist on Amazon.

Hallelujah though, I find a section on a web posting for something completely unrelated to Japanese gardening where an individual was asking for help with her garden IN JAPAN!! She wanted to know about grass, but still, I found out what zone I am in. Although I do not believe Seattle experiences 46 degree heat (although I noticed they did this year), two months with no rain, and heat that extends well into the fall, this was my starting point. At least I knew something.

Buoyed on by finding out our zone and making my very first purchase (seeds) at a local (but I would not call it nearby especially as I was 8 months pregnant and decided to walk there) department, Indy and I began our planting project. I decided to reuse the gazillion yogurt containers we had acquired (always a good idea as a novice, doing things your way vs. the recommended way). I had to hit the internet AGAIN after I examined our seed packets (see included picture of the back of the seed packet). That's right. Asside from how far apart to plant my plants, I had no idea what to do except to find a Japanese friend.

Indy and I had a great time watching our plants (Max mimicked his sister and also examined the containers every morning) and we successfully started cucumbers, beans, carrots, tomatoes, morning glories, small sunflowers and some odd carrot looking thing that does not produce carrots or any other vegetable. We love cucumbers and the kids eat carrots and beans, and there were very few other choices so tomatoes it was. You will never guess what our thriving, envy of the neighbourhood crop is. That's right, tomatoes. Which we do not eat.

I advise anyone planting veggies in Japan to plant tomatoes. They defy EVERYTHING I read about them. Tomatoes do not respond well to transplanting. Due to lack of foresight, I transplanted my tomatoes three times AND transplanted three plants into one large pot believing at least two would die off. Nope. There were no tomato plant deaths. Now I have upwards of 10 tomato plants, each at least 5 feet tall living within inches of his nearest neighbour (total faux pas) producing a gazillion tomatoes.

My latest plan is to keep pureeing them and then make a humongous batch of spaghetti sauce with my neighbour (although are pureed tomatoes supposed to turn pink? Was I supposed to remove the seeds? Again - I seriously know NOTHING about tomatoes!). This batch will last us forever as my kids have decided they no longer like tomato sauce.

After a trip to a Japanese Home Depotish store I decided to invest in a couple pepper and watermelon plants. Maybe it's the dirt or perhaps my inadequate watering skills but I produced only mini veggies. Watermelons the size of baseballs, and peppers the size of tennis balls. I was lucky I got anything out of these plants as they also seemed to attract these orange and black beetles that came out of nowhere and devoured their leaves. Not the tomatoes, the morning glories or the cucumbers. Do you think I can find this bug ANYWHERE? No. My neighbour who is also vegetable gardening was going to kill one, put it in a bag, and then take it to the Home Depotish store but God only knows what chemical craziness they could hand over (and only God and the entire Japanese nation would know as all the instructions/content would be in Kaneji.). I tried a few methods suggested by friends and only hastened the demise of my bean plants.

I did produce a fabulous lettuce crop though. This I attribute to the fantastic drip hose invention - watering done with the turn of the faucet.

In the end, I got some much needed dirt produced sanity, my kids learned where plants come from and how they grow, and Max learned the difference between a tomato and an apple.

All in all a very satisfactory experience.

Rose Coloured Glasses Required.

Life really is all about making the most out of what you got. For instance, I have an entirely white, tile (no kidding, floor to ceiling), windowless half a bath that one could look upon as being a clean slate - ready for decorating vs. an instituional room that keeps my kids from dilly dallying while on the toilet. So, I go to buy a really nice cottage style cabinet that is built around the toilet. I take one night of my oh so precious free time to assemble it (I LOVE ASSEMBLING!!). It weighs a ton, but I manage to drag it into the bathroom to complete the assemblage and OH look - it DOESN'T FIT!! Our toilets are monsters. One person may say "@#$%&*! Why the @#$% is the @#$%&*%$ Exchange selling things that don't even fit in our @#$%^&* houses?!" and wage war on the home living department, attempt to disassemble and get one's money back. OR one could look at it as an oppourtunity to get a head start on redecorating one's bathroom in a house being rented in Virginia you will live in MAYBE eighteen months from now, and leave it in pieces in the upstairs hallway until a place to store it presents itself.
That is what life as a military spouse in Japan is really all about. Taking something that doesn't quite fit and finding where it will fit in your life.