Forest garden

Since the rice harvest was reaped in mid-October the countryside in rural Kunisaki has settled down to the intermittent sound of chainsaws felling kunugi oak trees, which are used in the production of shiitake mushrooms. Meanwhile, the site of our small plantation, though, has finally been cleared of the ubiquitous sugi and hinoki cedar trees and we have just started to plant the first of many fruit trees that will form a forest garden.

Cedar plantations are a familiar sight throughout much of Japan and were planted to supply lumber for construction. However, Japan’s ageing and declining rural population means that in large part plantations are not being maintained. Without thinning the trees and lopping the branches the timber is generally poor quality and the forest floor, starved of sunlight, becomes a barren environment where few other plants and wildlife are able to survive.

Our ex-plantation does not look attractive now but in a few years time the forest garden - a multilevel woodland ecosystem consisting of fruit and nut trees, bushes, vegetables, vines, medicinal plants and flowers - will provide an appealing environment and a rich source source of food. Besides the garden, we are also working to maintain some plantations and, with other groups in the Kunisaki Peninsula, are helping to recreate the natural forests that once covered the area.

 

What's in a forest?

Japan is a verdant country. Lush, green hills and mountains stretch the length and breadth of the country. About 80% of Japan consists of mountainous areas almost entirely covered in trees, so I guess that it is a country with one of the highest ratios of forests relative to its landmass in the world. However, the majority of these forests are not quite what they might seem....

Earlier this year we felled a small cedar plantation of approximately one hundred trees - something I have been wanting to do for many years. By November we will have cleared all the timber from the site and stockpiled it before sending the best to the lumber mill. This coming winter we will begin the process of turning the vacant lot into a forest garden. Wikipedia succinctly explains forest gardening as...

'.... a low-maintenance sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. Making use of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow in a succession of layers, to replicate a woodland habitat.'

So over the next few years our small patch will be turned from a woodland of only two species of tree into a habitat of many different trees and plants providing a varied food supply and also a home to a range of wildlife (Though the plundering local deer and wild boar will be excluded!). In a small way, we are going to be flying in the face of the wisdom of Japanese Government policy of the last 60 years.

In the 1950s and 1960s Japan's post-war economic boom gathered pace and the demand and price of timber rose. The government urged everyone to plant trees, in particular two cedar species, hinoki and sugi. Both are used extensively in construction. TV news reports of the day show the Showa Emperor, shiny shovel in hand, planting saplings. Instilled with national pride and plied with subsidy money, dutifully the Japanese followed suit planting hundreds of millions of cedar saplings over the succeeding decades and in the process uprooted millions of acres of diverse forests (To be fair, they probably also planted some war-denuded landscapes). The march of the cedar also progressed over disused, stepped paddy and arable fields.

Over half a century ago, economic need spurred the cedar tree planting frenzy. Today, unfortunately, low timber prices, expensive labour and an ageing rural population mean that many of these forests - which should be just coming into their prime - are uncared for and are unlikely ever to produce good-quality timber, or be felled at all. Without thinning the trees and lopping their branches, the thick canopy excludes light from the forest floor preventing good growth of the best trees, most other plants and, in turn, any creature that might forage there.

Well tended for these forests can supply much of the timber that Japan uses and also sustain a reasonably diverse ecology. Instead, the verdant forest landscape of Japan consists to a large extent of a plantation monoculture that is under cared for and under used - a sort of organic rust belt.

In recent years, government policy on forestry has changed and a later post will address this. Please also look out for periodic updates on our forest garden.

Puzzled in stone

 A couple of days ago a neighbour passed me on his tractor heading for his nearby paddy field. The usual nod of acknowledgement was quickly followed by an astonished look. His wife, riding behind on the trailer grinned broadly. I had just placed another rock in a stone retaining wall that has so far reached about 14 metres in length and up to 2 metres in height. ‘Amazing. Well done!’ he yelled out over the noise of the thumping engine. In the Japanese self-deprecatory fashion I shouted back ‘Maybe, but a crazy thing to do, eh?’. With broad grins the farmer and his wife nodded again and continued on their way to their field.

 I started my wall in June 2011. It is the latest in a series I have built and my most ambitious to date. I have carved the side of a slope to create a zig-zagging path up to Koumori-tei, Walk Japan’s main office in Japan, and the walls hold the whole thing up. As time passed my ambition grew and the wall has taken on greater dimensions than I first envisaged. A bad back has delayed work for a number of months but the other day I found the time to restart.
 

 The Kunisaki Peninsula has stone retaining walls throughout its length and breadth. Most give form to the stepped-paddy fields, while others provide a delightful frontage to house plots. Some are created of finely wrought stones that fit snuggly together; others of rocks in their irregular, natural state neatly and rhythmically placed against each other; some a rough stack approximating a wall; some are tens of centimetres high while other reach over four metres. The premiere style is the a beautiful concave façade once fashioned by master craftsmen. Most walls, however, were built up by the locals working together in the farming off-seasons. Unfortunately, few master craftsmen remain in the whole of Japan and retaining walls are now mostly built of concrete.  

 
So, perhaps, these days an amazing thing to see being built. And, yes a crazy thing to do. It takes an inordinate amount of time, overly heavy stones occasionally put backs out and sometimes fingers are painfully caught between a rock and a hard place. But as much as I want to quickly finish it, the wall cannot be rushed. The rocks create an intriguing puzzle that only patience and time can solve. Life can only but take on a gentle, meditative pace. About another 7 metres or so to go and with luck I might have it completed by the end of the year. To be continued....

Setsubun

It has been snowing hard across most of Japan yet we are now officially in Spring. Celebrated on 3rd February, Setsubun - 節分 - ushered in the new season in Kunisaki and across Japan. Throughout the nation roasted soya beans were cast outside in their hundreds of millions from windows and front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome good fortune. A simple act, yet ever since I first arrived in Japan 25 years ago, I do not think I ever see so many, children and adults, so happily engaged as on this day.

For this year's Setsubun, I set off in my battered but ever feisty keitora - 軽トラ - a 4-wheel drive, dinky little truck - along snowy, mountain roads to Futago-ji, the principal temple on the peninsula. The head priest's son had invited me along to join in the service of gomaki - 護摩木 - held at Setsubun. Goma are small oblong pieces of wood on which are written votive offering, family prayers for the living and dead, that are burnt with mystic ritual. When most non-Japanese think of Buddhism and Japan the image conjured up is probably the austere aesthetic of Zen. However, most Buddhism in Kunisaki and much of the rest of Japan takes its cues from mystical sects, such as Tendai and Shingon. These were brought to Japan in 8th Century, arriving several hundred years earlier than Zen. Kunisaki is a Tendai stronghold and its earthy mysticism imbues the peninsula and its people.

The Gomaki service was held in the smokey, gloom of a slightly dis-organised but homely temple hall. Flames rose, flickered and fell back into the crackling, ember-spitting pyre of votive offerings, lighting the fanged, wrathful face of the destroyer of delusion, Fudo-Myo - 不動明 - a very popular Bodhisattva character in Kunisaki who oversaw the proceedings. A booming drum kept rhythm as the small congregation, which I had joined, repeatedly recited a short prayer; each phrase was left hanging momentarily on our breath in the frigid air. While chanting words of mostly impenetrable meaning (at least to myself), my friend, the duty priest, kept feeding more goma into the pyre; then rapidly twisting his hands into symbolic gestures; then quickly ringing a bell. He repeated the process over and over as we provided the backing mantra. An hour or two later - time really lost meaning in the atmosphere - we found ourselves on the veranda of the temple hall cackling happily as we threw our beans for good fortune.

Although the weather is still wintry, spring has already brought a fecund smell to the air, flower buds are subtly burgeoning on the ume plum trees and the days are lengthening into the evenings. P.S. The sharp eyed may have noticed that the monk is one of the Oni from my previous post.

Lunar new year in Japan and devils

An oft overlooked pleasure of Japan is the lunar new year celebrated in rural communities. Kunisaki's Shujo Onie - 修 正鬼会 - festival rang in the Year of the Dragon this past weekend. The Oni - 鬼 - (devils but, in this instance, benevolent reincarnations of Buddha) are brought to life by chants and a liberal dosing of sake spat from the mouth of a monk.
Infused with life and branding flaming torches that shower burning embers, the Oni dance frenetically before encircling everyone present to hit them with their torches to ward off or cure illness - Lourdes could never make the lame walk again so thrillingly.
Shujo Onie has been held from at least the Heian Period (794 - 1185 AD) and it is thought most of the temples that once dotted the Kunisaki Peninsula celebrated the lunar new year in this way. Many of those temples have disappeared since the heyday of Buddhism in the Kamakura Period (1185 - 1333 AD) but three temples still host the Oni, bringing some excitement to the forlorn depths of winter. This year two of the locals-cum-Oni happen to be friends of mine. Both young monks, their usual polite and calm characters were completely transformed on the night.