Japanese Gardens

Before I lived in Japan, I thought of Japanese gardens as containing a few deliberately-placed trees and shrubs around a gravel "pond" raked by some 1000 year old man. The trees were all perfectly manicured without a stray leaf in sight. And while many of the country's beautiful gardens are this way, I have been struck by the every day potted gardens and the street corner vegetable patches that produce everything from squash to chili peppers.

Just about every morning, on our way to coffee, we walk by an old woman stooped over a small strip of soil and shrubs that divides the sidewalk into two lanes. She is picking out weeds and removing dead leaves. The garden she cleans up isn't very attractive, as Japanese gardens go, but it is immaculate. And on this walk, I have begun to notice all of the little gardens on the way. Mostly people have fifteen or twenty small and medium pots filled with annuals or vegetables on their balconies or clustered around their front doors. All of gardens are perfectly maintained and all of the plants vibrant, healthy and productive - a concept I cannot understand given my lack of ability to grow anything, anywhere. My favorite is this miniature watermelon plant with two or three watermelons growing on it that is stuck in a garage next to someone's car.

But in a few hidden places, though, I have noticed extensive vegetable gardens crammed between apartment buildings, or in small strips behind parking lots. Besides the many unidentifiable plants, there are perfectly aligned rows of corn, tomatoes, squash and fruit trees. I assume that a lot of the larger gardens are for commercial purposes - just one small farmer selling his produce. They clearly take massive amounts of work to keep up, so unless someone just LOVES gardening, it is hard to imagine any other point besides selling the fruits and vegetables.

Our apartment is right near the Nagoya University School of Agriculture whose laboratory includes several small fields and greenhouses filled with plants and flowers. Even on the weekends, we see students in lab coats weeding the squash or plumping the soil around the herbs. But the crazy thing, to me, is that we find immaculately kept gardens like this everywhere.

Below are some photos















































Other than that, we had a lovely weekend in Nagoya. We had dinner at some friends' house, went to the most incredible play area ever that had those rooms of plastic balls to crawl around in and just kept cool. And Carlos got a new hat... and declared that he had a "Japanese Penis"... whatever that means.