Here’s an album of my own pictures from our visit to Tokyo’s underground Udo forcing holes…
More about Udo (Aralia cordata) on my web site www.edimentals.com
Thanks again to Ken Minatoya-Yasuda for liaising with the agriculture industry Tourism Division in Tachikawa city!! We were the first Europeans to ask for this particular tour!! Thanks also to Tei Kobayashi for acting as interpreter and great to meet local gardening blogger Joan Lambert Bailey and friends on the day!! We all had a great day I think!!
Please help translating the text on some of the pictures!
http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=7499 (My “The Many Uses of Udo” Permaculture Magazine article and pictures taken by Naturplanteskolen who joined me on the trip!
To see an underground Udo (Aralia cordata) farm has long been a dream. My dream was finally fulfilled this spring and below you can see a short video I took in the Udo cavern! I’ve also added 3 videos above the ground where you can see piles of spent Udo roots…the roots themselves have been used medicinally, but at the moment are going to waste :(
Below the videos is a gallery of photos taken by my friend Tei Kobayashi who acted as interpreter!
More pictures from the visit can be seen here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=7499
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For the first time freely available is my article in Permaculture Magazine about my largest and most exciting vegetable Udo (Aralia cordata)! See the link near the bottom of the page and please subscribe here, they do a great job, but need our support! Go to https://www.permaculture.co.uk/subscribe…………….
To witness the underground cultivation of Udo in large caverns under Tokyo (mentioned in the article) was one of the reasons for embarking on a study tour of Japan with Naturplanteskolen in Denmark in Spring 2016, and during the visit we discovered that you can have one more layer in a forest garden……..
The udo wood…
About to descend for the first time into Udo heaven; picture courtesy of Naturplanteskolen
…and there they were!!
Green udo tempura in a restaurant!
The broccolis are also used
In the coldest spring ever in 2015 in my area, udo grew better than ever, whilst traditional farmers were struggling to sow and plant!
Thanks to Tei Kobayashi who acted as interpreter and liasing with the local authorities, to Ken Minatoya in the Netherlands who also initially called the city clerks for me and Joan Bailey for helping out, accompanying us on the visit and also for writing a local article, see here http://metropolisjapan.com/more-than-cherry-blossoms
I will write more about this visit as well as my other encounters with Udo in Japan as soon as I can!!
Each day on the trip to Japan had been equally amazing as the day before with new plant and food discoveries all the way!! The venue for my talk in Tokyo was the art/photography studio belonging to a guy called Ken Takewaki. It turned out he’d spent a lot of time in the UK working on organic farms and knew the owner of Poyntzfield Nursery in Scotland well and I’d already planned to try to visit Poyntzfield on my Scotland trip in September! Knowing that I was heading for the mountains after Tokyo, Ken kindly invited me to visit his mountain home! What a place and the food was out of this world! Ken and his lady Masami had made a special effort to feed me sansai!
The next morning it was as if I’d been transported home in my dreams as there was new snow on the ground at the Ken’s home at 1300m. The day before it has been over 20C at 600m! Thanks so much to Tei, who I got to know through Caroline Ho Bich-Tuyen Dang, a member of Norwegian Seed Savers, for showing me so much of her village near Besshou (Ueda) in Nagano Prefecture and sharing all the amazing sansai and sake and for taking me to Ken’s place! More on Besshou later when I get time!Thank you so much too Ken and Masami for your hospitality!
Knowing of my interest, Ken and Masami had picked sansai for dinner…here are the horsetails, tsukushi, Equisetum arvense flower buds
..and fuki (Petasites japonica) flower buds
…and I brought the shidoke (シドケ / Parasenecio delphiniifolia). I’d bought it in a supermarket. See here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154213988935860.1073742705.655215859&type=1&l=eb0bc1fced
Shop bought blanched Hosta shoots served as a salad with a dip!
Shop bought blanched Hosta shoots served as a salad with a dip!
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Ken Takewaki talks sake!
With Perilla
Taro (Colocasia esculenta)
Making the tempura batter…ice for cold water is important!
Fuki tempura
Fuki tempura
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Shidoke tempura (Parasenecio delphiniifolia).
Shidoke tempura (Parasenecio delphiniifolia).
Shidoke and tsukushi (Equisetum) tempura
Tsukushi tempura
Ken spent some time in the UK working on organic farms and wrote this book of his experiences
Inside the book cover is this map…I will hopefully visit Poyntzfield nursery next month. Owner Duncan Ross and Ken are friends and have visited each other!
I hadn’t expected to be playing billiards :)
Tei in action!
The English connection…
Dried Daikon radish for breakfast
In the morning, the view from the living room and snow had arrived during the night or had I been transported back home?
Sasa (a bamboo) in snow
Fuki, Petasites japonica in snow, a veg I must have eaten 10 or more times during this trip…delicious
Misteltoe
Tei wasn’t prepared for the weather and had to borrow some clothes :)
Masami, Ken and Tei
With Ken and Masami
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
