Hello from shizuoka

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Shizuman
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Hello from shizuoka

Post by Shizuman »

Hello
hows it going?
Awesome site and thanks for accepting me on here!
starting out on the vege dream here in Shizuoka!
from Australia but been living in Japan for about 3 years now.
loving the info here on the forum.
よろしくね

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Hello from shizuoka

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Welcome to Japan Simple Life Shizuman and thank you for taking the time to register, we really do appreciate it. Glad you managed to find us, we're not a huge community but we are growing slowly.

What do you have growing at the moment ? Are you growing professionally or for yourself ? You've got a pretty good climate there for growing just about anything that it's possible to grow in Japan, will be interesting to hear how you get on. The weeds are going to be getting going soon, as the rainy season gets under way and that's always a hard time. They are a remorseless enemy that never gives up :lol:

Best of luck and hope you enjoy the site.

Shizuman
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Re: Hello from shizuoka

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I Just moved so i had to let go of my last field but i`m in the process of getting a plot to see if the girlfriend is keen on the agricultural lifestyle, been driving around this weekend checking out plots of land. My hope is to get an old style kominka or similar and a few fields and get stuck into market gardening, eggs and honey. Im an ALT right now but with the changes coming through i get the feeling the writing is on the wall for decent wages and the like so i rekon its time to follow the dream. I want to go as self sufficient as japan will allow. Yea theres that spindally green weed, looks like a thin cactus, that just wont give up, don`t know the name but its the bane of my existence !!

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Re: Hello from shizuoka

Post by Zasso Nouka »

It's entirely doable if you have some alternative income whilst setting up a homestead, like private lessons in the evenings or something similar. There are several items you might want to budget for if you are thinking of earning a living from market gardening, I'd suggest a large rice fridge that can go down to 2C or a small walk in cooler so you can store veg for a couple of days at a time and depending on what style of growing you intend to do a small rotovator from someone like Iseki, Kubota or Yanmar might be worth buying. And maybe a second hand kei truck.

Chickens are easy if you can sell the eggs for a premium, get a good electric fence energiser. Not one of the cheap ones from the home centres and you can then extend that to cover your fields if you have a problem with dear or inoshishi raiding your veggies.

Location wise I'd suggest somewhere with easy access to places you can sell, either supermarkets or michi no eki that locals use (rather than just tourists) to give you day to day sales.We sell at 3 michi no ekis that we deliver to every morning and the whole round trip takes about an hour.

Shizuman
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Re: Hello from shizuoka

Post by Shizuman »

Ah yea? i hadn't considered the storage option but ive seen at a few places you can pick up second hand restaurant fridges reasonably priced! That and the location close to a michi no eki thats a good tip! will have to research where in my area the rinky dink ones are, plenty of touristy one round here so close to fuji. With the michi no eki do you need a licence or something to sell at them? Will i have to join the JA ranks?

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Re: Hello from shizuoka

Post by Zasso Nouka »

find a place that locals use for their day to day shopping as that will provide you with a daily income rather than relying on tourists who aren't going to buy much veggies. Many supermarkets have a corner for local veg and often have a photo of the farmer in front of their veg, that helps people identify your veg once they get to know your produce.

You don't need to be a licensed farmer to sell veg or join JA but how the land is zoned will affect that, any land zoned as agricultural land will require a farmer's license but 'sanrin' or other classifications don't. Always contact the local authority of any area you intend to move to before committing to a particular spot. Some cites/town actively encourage newcomers and will bend over backwards to help you, others don't offer any help and are best avoided. Although technically you need to complete a three year course and 'control' 1500 tsubo of farm land to become a farmer many municipalities will waive all that to encourage people to move into their area, others enforce those requirements strictly.

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