January harvest.

Kabetsu, known as cabbage in English, grow most of the year. It took me a few years to realize that without using chemical pesticides they all got eaten by butterfly caterpillars. Now I grow them under net :). Grated cabbage is included with many Japanese meals and in this form its called cabbage salad. Considering how common a vegetable it is in gardens and on plates I was really surprised to learn that it was not introduced into Japan until quite recently, during the Meiji Period.

Negi, known variously as green onion, spring onion, scallion, etc in English. They grow all year round. They are used extensively in Japanese cooking, either by cutting off the green tops, or by pulling the whole onion. They originally came from Siberia and were introduced about 1,500 years ago.

Still harvesting lots of lettuce, spinach, and carrots.

Finally got round to shelling the black beans. They've been hanging to dry for a couple of months. They are edamame allowed to mature completely. The plants grew plenty big enough, but most of the pods were empty. Need to do more research (i.e. talk to the neighbors) as I need to grow a bigger crop of legumes.

C.W. Nicol has a nice article in the Japan Times this week on country living in Japan. Japan has been plagued with food scandals recently, mostly caused by Japanese business ethics (or lack thereof), and with other factors contributing, the price of food is getting higher. I'm quite jealous of his parsnips and swedes! I have grown them here, but not very successfully. Maybe the climate and weather up in Nagano is more condusive to them.