Organic garden vegetables for sale: leave money in tin

Unmanned fruit & veggie stand in Okinawa

Something you rarely see in the UK but I’ve noticed is fairly common in rural areas of Japan are these unmanned fruit and veggie sales stands at the side of the roads.

These trusting rural Japanese folk leave their homegrown potatoes, carrots, onions, strawberries you name it next to a little money tin where their trustworthy customers can leave the correct amount for the produce they want and leave. I’ve even seen one selling fresh eggs in a type of homemade vending machine.

WOW, sorry to sound like a cynic but if that was the UK that money tin would be swiped within the hour! This is Japan though and it sums it up quite nicely. There is a remarkable amount of trust and reciprocity (some would even say naivety) amongst the Japanese people, especially the older generation.

Quite frankly I find it an endearing quality….

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Wwoofers daily schedule

 Daily schedule at the bee farm

So for any budding wwoofers out there wanting to know what their daily schedule might be, here’s mine (a previous wwoofer had translated this into English) I’m not going to lie, its a LONG day here at the bee farm. There are lots of breaks throughout the day but you’re up at 7am walking Babe the oh so gentle and senile dog through to finishing off the dishes from dinner at 8.30 maybe even 9pm.

Babe the dog

This wwoof host in particular is an exception in that we have to cook dinner for us and them every night. Most other wwoof hosts cook the meals (with your assistance) which I much preferred as I learnt Japanese cooking along the way and of course the pressure was off me to provide culinary masterpieces every night. Anyway apart from cooking dinner this is a fairly typical wwoofers daily schedule.

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Meeting the bees, the source of the tastiest honey in Japan!

My protective gear, one hat! Note my ankles are totally exposed…

So it’s been over a week I’ve been wwoofing here at the bee farm and although I’ve learnt a lot about honey/beeswax side products, I’ve yet to see any honey bees. This is partly due to the fact that Tomo san has had to keep his hives in separate places around the island and partly due to the fact he thinks girls won’t be able to handle being around the bees (the latter obviously making me reel!)

Tomo san with a frame hive

The very next day  I was on my way to one of the 6 bee hive sites Tomo san has in Okinawa. Tomo san told me that in Okinawa he has 2 honey collection seasons, one around the end of April (unfortunately I will just miss it) and another in September. It’ll take Tomo san around 3 1/2 weeks to collect all the honey from his moveable frame hives. I didn’t realise before that beekeeping is so weather dependent as Tomo san explained that if the weather continues to be fine like it has been then more bees will be out collecting nectar and thus higher yields (how do they cope in England?!) Apparently Okinawa is an ideal location for beekeeping because not only is the climate so warm but there are so many wild and flowering weeds everywhere (they look like daisies).

Today Tomo san was checking the hives which involved smoking them out and then checking the frames. 

Preparing to light the bee smoker

I was surprised with how little protective gear Tomo san was wearing but he insisted it was ample. I was given a hat with some tatty holed netting to wear too and considering I had 3/4 length trousers on thought it was a guarantee I’d be stung but….I didn’t! Every female beekeeper would have been proud, I didn’t go all “girly” when Tomo san pulled the frames out and the bees started flying everywhere. Felt quite proud of myself for a second until he told me these were the more placid hives! It’s definitely fuelled an interest and I want to learn more. Apparently my brother Ben has ordered a hive for the farm back home in England so hopefully I’ll get some hands on practice when I get back.

Oh and guess who got lucky and found the Queen bee within 2 minutes, can see her on this photo below? (clue: bottom-ish right)

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Hard to communicate in broken English/Japanese with Tomo san so that’s about it as far as the bees go.

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Cooking with wild Japanese herbs at Tomo sans

Akira san pointing out mitsuba for me

As assistant chef to Akira san I’ve been able to learn about some wild Japanese herbs that he uses to accompany some of his amazing ryotei looking dishes. As well as the familiar dill, parsley, mint in the garden and orchard I’ve also discovered mitsuba (みつば) which literally means “3 leaves”, and in English known as Japanese wild parsley or honeywort. It has a real spicy kick that I like, I guess I’d compare the taste as similar to rocket.  Apparently the stalks can be blanched and used as a celery substitute.

Japanese seri herb

Also making an appearance was seri (せり) which we managed to translate as “dropwort” in English. Some species of seri are extremely poisonous so I was thankful that the knowledgable Akira san was there to spot the right variety (memories of picking poisonous black ebony in the French Alps and ending up in hospital came flooding back) Seri doesn’t have the kick that mitsuba has but is quite tasty all the same.

We used the herbs in salads and in our homemade dressings but I later found out that these herbs form 2 of the 7 wild herbs used in creating nanakusa, a sort of rice porridge traditionally eaten on the 7th January every year in Japan for celebrating good health for the new year.

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The other side of wwoofing; cleaning windows with a toothbrush..

  

 Necklaces for sale hanging up in front of my spotlessly clean windows!

Here’s a post to shatter anyones illusion that wwoofing equates to days frolicking in the sunshine pulling a few weeds out here and there. Today I spent the entire day cleaning Tomoko sans windows armed with a miniscule toothbrush and newspaper. Yep that’s right, she gave me a toothbrush for scrubbing the edges of the windows and the newspaper I was to dampen and use to clean the windows. Bought me back to my cadet days at school….Had my iPod for company though (recommended if you decide to go wwoofing) although my choice of listening to the history of Britain by Andrew Marr wasn’t really apt especially since I’d just hit  episode 6, pearl harbour…all in all a depressing day!

Akira san in the workshop making bee hive frames

Akira san, my fellow Japanese wwoofer who seems to have got the rougher end of the deal, was busy in the workshop making a mountain of frames for the bee hives. If he’s not doing that he’s out in the garden weeding whilst a million mozzies attack him. I’m lucky that they don’t like my skin so I never get bitten but he has to carry around a anti mozzie candle wherever he goes and cover up head to toe. Poor thing.

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“Oh what a waste!”

 
Taking a well earned break, Akira san and I

Tomoko sans favourite phrase and used on a daily basis. I get it that things shouldn’t be wasted and there are so many ways of saving money but sometimes I can’t help thinking that Tomo and Tomoko san are blurring the boundaries of being resourceful and just being plain old tight.

Oh god, can you tell I’m not loving it here?

Facing the bare facts, they have two wwoofers (who they obviously aren’t paying) walking the dog twice a day, cleaning, weeding, making hives and cooking their meals for them every night. Now I’d understand if they were flat-out busy but as I come back from my morning walk with Babe the dog every morning, I can hear Tomo san practicing on his guitar!
There is also the food that is bought for us to use. The bread for toast is always half price, past its sale by date fine but not so fine for the off tuna fish that had me running to the loo with my legs crossed for 2 days…
When I noticed the blackberry bush outside the house, I was told only to pick 5 at a time! When I spilt a thumbnail size of flour onto the table it was promptly mopped up and carefully put back in the flour jar. Poor Akira san who, prior to my arrival, had been drinking a concoction of lemongrass reeds for tea was shocked when I managed to get some green tea and coffee from Tomoko san and almost dropped to my knees with appreciation!

The pink pizzas served at the café, although look nice, wouldn’t fill up a small child and when I was making them everything was measured out to the nearest milligram, even the mushrooms! The café CD player is switched on and off throughout the day depending on whether there are customers.

Ok on a positive note, at least their weekly spend must be minimal! Since wwoofing I have noticed that Japanese households are less wasteful in general than us Westerners but is this one just crossing that boundary? Hmmm…I wonder.

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Making natural beeswax cream & lip balm

Beeswax blocks (left) and finished handcream/lip balm in pots

Wow, ok this is why the hardwork pays off, today I got to make a beeswax cream from scratch. It can be used on any part of the body and is especially good as a lip balm. I never realised something like this could be as simple to make. Here are the ingredients;

100 grams of beeswax
340 grams extra virgin olive oil
2 doses of love
1 pinch of patience

Ok the latter two not needed but wanted to bulk out the ingredients list a bit. Yep it’s as simple as that, I couldn’t believe it. Watch my video and you’ll see how simple it is to make. I forgot to mention in the video that you have to melt and strain the fresh beeswax beforehand, then let cool and chop into 100 gram pieces. Then you can re-melt for the cream as I was doing.

Tomoko san sells these in her shop as well as a shop in Sendai (mainland Japan) that specialises in Okinawan products.

Half way through straining the beeswax

They sell for 700 yen each, about £5, not a bad little earner it seems but then factor in the amount of time + effort  it takes in upkeeping the bees and it’s perhaps not as profitable as you might think.  

The cream looked like lip balm but was really soft on the skin, Tomoko san uses it every morning, I might just give it a go, anything to get rid of the rapidly developing wrinkles…

 

 My finished beeswax cream in pots ready for labelling

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Pink pizza day and opening the café

Tomoko san cutting up pink dough made from organic yeast (bottom right)

This morning, I was tasked with preparing the pink pizza dough. Yes I said pink. Interestingly Tomiko san makes her own organic yeast from the pulp of the Okinawan sweet potato or (beni imo) When you come to Okinawa you will see this purpley/pink sweet potato everywhere in the shops (they sell sweet potato ice cream, desserts, sweets, crisps, pastries, you name it…) Anyway after measuring out piles of the pink stuff, my job was to roll out mini pizza bases, dress and wrap them ready for freezing.

Sweet potato natural yeast

Today Tomokos café was open (closed Mon, Tues) I love the vibe. So with Amazonian music in the background, wind charms tinkling from the warm breeze in the background, I set out to work. Luckily for me the menu is quite simple. Drinks include tea, coffee or sampopo juice and a “todays special” keki (cake) or a slice of my very own homemade organic veggie pizza.

 

In the café there is tiny shop where Tomoko san sells two different types of honey (a flower honey & a normal), homemade beeswax hand cream, jewellery and these wonderful antique looking light shades which I swear I had seen in England in the reclamation yard. It turns out their friend has a business making them and a lot of the designs are European inspired. I took good note. I’ve got to have them in my next house!

I then helped Tomoko san with labelling their organic honey which I have with my toast for breakfast everyday, it’s so yum.

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Wwoofing in Japan isn’t a walk in the park!

Dame, dame, dame!Tomoko san and I

I have to write this post as I don’t want people thinking wwoofing is a walk in the park and paint a scene through rose coloured spectacles. Sometimes the work is physically challenging, mundane and you can ask yourself why you’re doing it, well I had one of those moments today. The Japanese, be warned, are extremely particular.

 

 Akira san (my fellow wwoofer) in front of one of the wonderful dinners he prepared

Today I had a succession of “dames” from Tomoko san-in Japanese it means “No, not like that!” I broke the eggs in the wrong place, tried to make a Japanese salad dressing that was wrong, used the wrong cloth and covered the rice the wrong way when re-heating it in the microwave. Regarding the latter, is there really a technique?!

I was then told that I’d have to cook dinner solo from now on, “English cooking ok” but there’s only Japanese ingredients in the kitchen and I don’t have a cookbook.  I started to panic. So add together my “dames” throughout the day, solo cooking on the horizon, someone speaking Japanese at me for most of the day in a pace that I can’t really keep up with and a hormonal time of the month I temporarily crumbled. I went for a walk.

In my opinion, the success of wwoofing depends on 3 things; your host, your fellow wwoofers and the work itself. If all 3 are relatively good the chances you’ll enjoy it and get real value from your time wwoofing. Needless to say that if the wwoof hosts are taking a slight advantage of the volunteers (it can happen!), your fellow wwoofer is sweet but doesn’t speak a word of English and the work is really long hours then you’re heading for a disappointment. Make sure also that you factor in time to travel and see Japan in between your wwoofing hosts and don’t bank on having time to see the place you’re living whilst you’re wwoofing. Here I have 1 day off a week and since we’re in the jungle it’s hard to get anywhere without a car (luckily for me Akira san drives)

This is how it is wwoofing in Japan, it can sometimes get frustrating but on the other hand if you can stay patient it can be rewarding, read other posts to as proof!

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Self-build for the DIY averse?

The main house, most of it kept shaded by the tropical plants

Last night, we discussed the house in which I’m sleeping (there are 3 small houses in total here). It was so inspritational to hear about how they designed and built it themselves. I love the feel to the house albeit it more basic and “open” than I could handle (think gekkos, mice, cockroaches freely walking about) They were insistent that it’s totally achievable with patience, hard work and a good carpenter! Tomoko san had designed it on paper and then had it converted to plans by her handy architect brother. It’s made me think that its possible even though I’m slightly averse to house DIY…

Inside main house (cafe)

Tomo san told me that the truss roofing is European inspired (as is a lot of their house interior) and unlike most Japanese houses they have stone walls! No cheap looking pre-fabricated houses here. Amazingly Tomo san built the truss roof all self-taught from a book. Now if only I can rope my brother into helping ; )

Roughly plastered walls with exposed driftwood

The walls have been roughly plastered giving that rustic look (which was probably unintended but looks great). They also embedded shells and driftwood into the plaster as they’ve gone along. So much of the house interior has been homemade, including the curtain rails made from long bamboo canes, the shelves and even the clocks!

Curtain poles made from bamboo found outside, simple but yet resourceful

 

Beautiful handmade lights suspended from the ceiling beams 

 

 

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