My First Foray Into Gardening

May 2011

I reached Japan on March 2011 for a work attachment in Japan for two years duration. Away from home, suddenly I found myself have nothing to do on weekends. So, I planned to develop a new hobby which was gardening!

I didn't fancy flower because it's just for decorating purposes, I planned to plant something edible. After reading from many gardening forums, I decided to plant tomatoes because a lot of people claimed that it's a very easy plant, very suitable for newbies.

After deciding on that, I went to Daiso (there's a Daiso in the Kumamoto Station) after work and bought a plastic pot, pot tray, trowel, a bag of soil and a plant support. Sometimes, this 100 yen shop is like a convenient shop, we can buy almost everything in Daiso or Seria. Then, on a fine Saturday morning,  I cycled to a gardening supermarket to buy tomato seedlings. The supermarket was quite awesome, there were so many seedlings, seeds, gardening tools, soils, flowers, decoration stuffs for garden, etc. There're many kinds of tomato seedlings, finally I settled for a cherry tomatoes and momotaro tomatoes (桃太郎トマト). I bought only 1 pot, so I took a plastic container and punch holes under it and turned it into a pot.

Then, I transplanted the seedlings into the pots (just put the seedlings into the pot and covered it with soil). I didn't buy any fertilizer, I just threw some orange peels on the top soil to provide some nutrients to the plants. I put the pots in the balcony, so the plants could get enough sunshine.

For the new few weeks, I watered the plants everyday, except when I had to go to other prefectures for business trips. Well, the longest I didn't water it was about one week, I went for a summer holiday that time. The tomatoes plant almost died! It needs water to survive, without water for a few days, the leaves became withered.

Anyway, I was so excited when I saw the tomatoes plant started blooming. It's yellow in colour and quite fragrant. I think I could smell something nice when I was near the flowers. Then, it started to bear fruits. Really happy that time, I thought I could enjoy a feast of home grown cherry tomatoes soon. By the way, the momotaro tomatoes did survive, but it only grew taller and taller, not blooming at all.

However, my excitement turned to disappointment, for the course of 8 months, I had only eaten one fully ripe juicy cheery tomato from that tree. Others were eaten by birds and some dried out on the tree because I didn't notice it. That was around summer time.

transplanting tomatoes seedlings into pots

Tomatoes - flowering

Tomatoes - unripe

Then, autumn came. The tree continued to bear fruits, however it just didn't want to turn red. It maintained the green colour for almost one or two months. I got slightly impatience, so I plucked all the still green cherry tomatoes. Silly me! When I tried to bite, it was so bitter and hard. I remember that some fruits will become ripe after plucking, so I kept the fruits inside the refrigerator for a week. Well, it didn't change the taste, nor the it changed the texture. At the end, all of these went into the dustbin. 

Tomatoes - still unripe after 2 months (I think!)

Although the plants were still alive after the winter, I had to dispose the plants because I needed to move to a new place and the new place has no place for me to place the pots. This marked the end of my gardening adventure in Japan!

Conclusion: My first gardening project is not a total failure, at least it bears fruits and I had 'one' cherry tomato inside my stomach!