Starting today, we're starting regular vegetable box deliveries!
We start preparations while it's still cold, and the most joyous moment is when we finally have all the fresh vegetables ready to be harvested and delivered to you!
As the temperature rises in June, spring vegetables are ready for harvest and summer vegetables begin to grow rapidly, marking the transition period. For farmers, this is the "off-season" and a time to be on high alert to avoid vegetable shortages. In recent years, spring has been too warm, causing the harvest of spring vegetables to come early, and we have been struggling with this off-season. One of the interesting things about farming is that we are at the mercy of nature, which changes with the passing of the years, but we are constantly working hard and coming up with new ideas so that we can always deliver the best vegetables to our customers.
This year, I was able to rent a new rice field near my house, and I'm now able to grow rice with five of my neighbors.
However, the rice field we rented had a concrete bank that had become aged and tilted last fall. If we tried to fill it with water, it would all leak out immediately and it would dry up within a few hours. So we are now working by hand to build a bank in the rice field so that we can store water at all costs.
The construction was done on a tight schedule, with less than two weeks until rice planting. This work should have been done during the winter, but there was no other way. The damp soil was clayey, making it the perfect condition for building a bank. The soil was dug up, piled up, and piled up. Somehow, the 50m-long bank was completed!!
All that's left to do is fill it with water, repair the leak, and it's finished. Will we make it in time...?
The other day I did some early work in Ome.
Villagers gathered at Eco Village Pitara Village to thin out and harvest the plums that were ripening abundantly on the Pitara site. Adults and children alike were engrossed in the activity (occasionally getting distracted by cherries) and were able to harvest a large number of plums.
↓These are cherries. Small warm-climate cherries. Sweet temptation.
Each participant enjoyed processing the green plums they harvested.
Plum syrup is great for hot days, plum wine is a medicinal drink, and plum extract is a miracle drug that has been passed down since ancient times.
Ume extract is a folk medicine made by grating and squeezing unripe plums, then slowly simmering them to concentrate, maximizing the medicinal properties of plums, which are said to "eliminate the three poisons." The process is so simple that anyone can make it as long as they have plums and patience. Wash and grate the plums,
Wrap it in bleached cloth and squeeze it out, then put it in a clay pot and simmer it down.
Normally, it is concentrated by leaving it in the sun, but since it was raining for a while this time, I decided to boil it down a little with gas and then leave it in the sun for the final touch. This is how much juice I got from squeezing out 500cc. The amount used each time is about half an ear teaspoon, so I think it will last a long time. This will help me work healthily again this year!
Preparation of umeboshi begins around mid-July when the plums begin to ripen.
This weekend on the 7th, we will finally be having a horse-plowing experience! You will get to experience plowing a flooded rice field together with a horse.
Although applications are now closed, we will be holding a social gathering at Pitara Village from 7:00 PM. Please come along as you will have the opportunity to interact with the family of Umaya Shichifuku, the instructors who live with horses.
