Gardening Supplies

 In my first two weeks here, Susan took me to as many shops as I wanted and needed.  It was very helpful as it let me get to know the area a bit and see what shopping here might be like.  One of the places we went to was a home store, kind of like Menards, called コーナン (Kohnan).  It really is not like Home Depot or Lowes.  Since I have nothing really to do today, I rode there and wandered the gardening section.  Don't worry, Jen.  I didn't buy anything.  However, I did see some pretty neat stuff.  I have two pictures, but what I'll really do is make sketches of things for myself to think about.

 This is a sunshade that you drape over a frame.  This one reduces the sunlight by 70%.  There were others that went down to 50% (the lowest I saw, but there could be lower) and up to 95%.  We have these, I'm sure.  I've just never seen them in a shop like this.

This is the greenhouse pieces section.  There are curved and straight metal pipes, plastic tubes, semi-flexible rods, and a host of different connectors.  Tees, wyes, crosses, angles.  It's K'nex and TinkerToys, but for larger structures.  The plastic sheeting is held on by clips that are about 8" long.  The ones I'm seeing around now are exposed, with no sheeting, for the bottom 3'-4' and the top arches over the taller plants, like tomatos.  Because everything is so wet all the time, when these are assembled I think they trap a lot of moisture.  The humidity in there must be off the charts.  

Since it's modular, it is very easy to build a low greenhouse early in the season when you want to trap as much heat as possible.  Then, as it warms up you can raise things and increase circulation.  Or if a section of the bed does not need the protection anymore, you can move it where it will be more useful.  From what I see, the method works well.

Most vegetables are done in "raised beds," but not like we think.  Imagine a 20' x 15' plot.  It starts flat with an outer boundary wall.  The soil is dug and piled in such a way that rectangular beds rise about 6" above the surrounding ground.  The plot may have 6 or 8 beds like this of varying size.  To control run-off, the beds are covered in loosely woven straw mats, loose straw sort of strapped down with string, or black or clear plastic sheeting.  At least until the plants take root.  Since the bed has been raised like this, the soil is loosened and the plants don't have to work too hard to grow roots.  One rule of gardening is strong roots mean a strong plant.

The reason I wanted to check that section is gardening here seems to be just shy of a requirement for owning a house.  It feels like if you have 10 square feet of soil, you will be growing something ornamental or edible.  It seems particularly important to older people.

The house across the street from the apartment has a section of trees and a vegetable garden.  The owners are old.  Think older than 80 at least.  Yet, every day the husband is out tending the garden.  He's either building bamboo trellis from shafts and string or spreading straw/straw mats to keep weeds down or changing the shade over some seedlings or trimming suckers off tomato plants.  It's non-stop.  In about my second week here he planted radish seeds.  Those are now harvested and the bed has been prepped for something else.

In my explorations I have seen many similar gardens with some very neat structures.  Modular, temporary greenhouses are popular.  As I mentioned, bamboo shafts are used for fence rows, trellis, framing, and other things I can't give name to.  I really enjoy seeing this.

I have two other pictures I want to share.  The first is a camping grill.

It's made out of an airy pottery.  The outside dimensions are about paint can size.  The walls are very thick, and it uses charcoal.  To the left you can see the edge of a more traditionally shaped grill, at least as far as I'm used to.  Not all grills are this ceramic/pottery type, but I thought I'd share this one because I've only ever seen it here.

The other picture is of these blocks.

They are made of styrofoam.  Foam cinderblocks.  The come in several colors, different sizes, and could be used in a lot of ways.  Because they are foam, they won't rot.  I first saw these at a 100-yen store.  Here they are in a home improvement store.  I just did an search online, and came up with no hits.

I get lots of ideas when I'm looking at this stuff, and not just about gardening or home improvement projects.  It's exciting to have that feeling again.  The feeling of possibilities.