Garden views.

I was struck by the late afternoon sun shining through the leaves of the satoimo plants.

Called taro in English, they still have a month or more before we dig up them up.

The unused land around my riverside garden was taken over this year by a neighbor who planted sesame as a cash crop.

Called goma in Japanese, he is hoping to make a good income from it.

November harvest 2

Had a great taro harvest this year. I had never eaten taro until I came to Japan, and they have become one of my favorite vegetables, not least because they grow easily with little upkeep, and produce a lot of food. We probably picked 50 kilos this year. Taro is harvested in November, which is just about when the store of spring potatoes is running low, and taro can be substituted for potatoes in just about any recipe. Originally from India, Taro, known as satoimo in Japanese was cultivated by the Jomon people before the Japanese arrived.

Despite the raid earlier raid by the mountain whales, we still managed to get a crop of sweet potatoes. Called satsumaimo in Japanese, they were introduced from China and were very popular as they are very hardy and will produce even if floods or drought or poor soil produced famine. In my walks around the countryside I often see stone memorials to whichever individual introduced them into the local area.