Acting like Very Hungry Caterpillars: mulberries in the forests of Yokohama

The Empress of Japan, Empress Masako, was a career diplomat and an econometrist, before she got married with the then-crown prince. Her father was also a career diplomat. She spent her younger years abroad, like in Moscow, Geneva and NY. She was not a type engaging in Japanese traditional agriculture. Even though, now she’s in charge of nurturing the most traditional silkworms, called Koishimaru 小石丸. These hungry caterpillars produce thinner silk threads with characteristic twist. They can make exquisite silk robes of noble luster. Taking care of silkworms in Imperial Palace is the official duty of Empress. Why? The tradition was started in 1871 by Empress Shoken 昭憲皇太后. At that time, Japan was struggling to be counted as an “honorable nation” in Euro-American centered international politics. As always for achieving such ambition, money was important. Japan did not have the latest technology of steam engine or the like but could produce silk. Very luckily for Japan, during the late 19th century European silk industry was devasted by pebrine that annihilated European silkworms. In addition, China, the birth country of silk industry some 5000 years ago, was in a serious mess due to colonial invasion of Westerners. It made China difficult to produce enough silk for export. Japanese government saw the opportunity. They took industrial policy of silk industry for trade. And so, the Empress herself was showing the “example” of economic development to the nation. It was a jackpot. Around 1900, Japan became the number 1 exporter of silk in the world. It brought handsome profit. With the money from silkworms, Japan built large military and plunged into the World War II. Until 1941, the year of “Remember Peral Harbor,” silk was the number one earner of hard currency for Japan.

Yokohama, the largest international port of Japan since the 1850 until the 1970s (currently, the largest is the Port of Tokyo), played a crucial role for silk trade. The main silk producing regions in Japan were in South Tohoku, North Kanto, Yamanashi, and Nagano. The product was agglomerated in the City of Hachioji and carried to the Port of Yokohama. From here, Japanese silk was sold globally. The road, the present-day National Route 16, between Hachioji and Yokohama became Japanese Silk Road. It runs along the southwest edge of Tama Hills 多摩丘陵 where Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森 locates. The area has lots of small hills and streams that were too small and not so good for competitive rice paddies or veggie field. But mulberries for silkworms grew well. People lived between the two cities watched the traffic of impressive wealth at the front row, and inevitably thought “Hey, why not nurturing silkworms that can bring fortune for me?” There was a craze at that time in Hachioji, Sagamihara, Kawasaki, Machida, and Yokohama to be sericultural farmer. From the late 19th centuries to the first half of the 20th centuries, the scenery along the road between Hachioji and Yokohama was of mulberry orchards for silk.

Tourists’ heavy part of the Port of Yokohama, 21^st century

After the World War II, silk lost its shine to synthetic fabrics like nylon. Japanese silk never became the protagonist for Japanese economic growth after 1945. Many farmers in Yokohama along Japanese Silk Road abandoned their silkworm business, moved on to another produce, or sold their land for urban development. Yet still the greenery in Yokohama’s north forests has lots of mulberry trees that originated from the abandoned orchards some 70 years ago. I tell you, mulberries are not “wall flowers.” From late May to June, they bear lots of sweet berries loved by city birds. They bombarded the forests by mulberry seeds in their poop. Mulberries are multiplying in our city.

The large portion of Niiharu Forest was once the orchard of mulberries. After 1945, the landlords replanted their property with confers hoping they would be sold at good price as construction materials, instead of loss-making mulberries. Then lamber trade was liberalized in the 1960s and landlords’ expectation was never materialized. Meanwhile between cypresses and cedars left-over mulberries poked their head. When we mow the undergrowth of Niiharu Forest, it was like, “Hey, remove these young mulberries, here, here, and there.” Now the established mulberries along the trekking route have lots of fruits without fail every year. We Lovers of Niiharu are secretly grading the taste of berries from each tree. The mulberries along the route X are aplenty, but the sweetness and the size are so-so. One tree at the point Y is old, but bear large and sweet berries every year … (I won’t tell you exactly where these points are 😉.) But our seasonal talks of mulberries ended always like “Though, not many visitors to our forest care them, don’t you think?” “Yeah. The city rats simply do not know it, do they?” “Huh, Japan had economic development because of the tree, didn’t we?” “Indeed …” Then, something has happened with COVID-19.

May 2021 is the bumper year for mulberries, and visitors to Niiharu Forest. Under the State of Emergency in Tokyo, families, couples, group of friends, etc. come to the forest with picnic blankets and lunches. Mulberries started to have ripen at around the middle of the month. I don’t know how it was initiated exactly, but we Lovers met many families had merry snack time under fecund mulberry trees. “Dad, could you pick that one for me?” “OK, yeah, those branches receiving more sunshine may have more ripen fruits …” “I cannot reach to that high!” They had sweet sticky fingers and lips with blue-tinted purple colors. They looked happy. Some even come to us to inquire “Which tree is the sweetest?” Wow. They enjoy mulberries like very hungry caterpillars for mulberry leaves.

Last weekend I asked one of my senior volunteers. “Will they continue to visit Niiharu after COVID?” He was rather cynical. “Well, once Tokyo Disney Land resumes their business for full-capacity, and shopping centers serve dinner till 23:00 as before, they won’t come to Niiharu.” Ah … Maybe. But the office for Empress keeps the sericulture tradition long-after the silk stopped being the main export of Japan. Some of the visitors today might return Niiharu Forest in future May for sweet mulberries. The other could remember forest nearby is a precious place of relaxing picnic. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center
新治管理事務所・里山交流センター
Phone: 045-931-4947
Fax: 045-937-0898
Email: info@niiharu.jp
http://www.niiharu.jp/

Don’t be greedy: firewood and shiitake mushrooms in Japanese forest

 

Once upon a time, forest was indispensable place for daily life in Japan. Reason: it was the place where people procure fuel. Before the life with fossil fuels, Japanese gathered firewood from forest nearby. When forest was out of reach, like for the city dwellers in downtown, wood and charcoals were something expensive but indispensable necessity to buy. Forest was precious for survival. Such days lasted until the mid-20th century, about 70 years ago. We can still find the remnants of yesteryear’s usage of forest in Yokohama. The easiest sign is large marks of coppicing here and there in the forest near us.

The way people harvested firewood was thinning. In Yokohama, popular species for firewood were oaks, like jolcham oak (Quercus serrata) or sawtooth oak (Quercus acutissima). People planted oaks in their land and waited. From a seedling to be a nice-sized tree for fuel, it took about 15 or so years. After thinning, oaks will sprout basal shoots from the stamp so that the scheme could continue for a loooooooong time without new planting. When you have “self-sufficient” size of land, you plan your afforestation from a patch to another, and stagger thinning from year to year. “This year we harvest our firewood from area A, next year from area B.” It was an efficient, economical, stable, and sustainable strategy for securing household energy. The oak logs obtained was about 15 to 20cm in diameter that was a nice size to be fuel. And they have another usage. I mean, other than being firewood or doorstopper.

The typical sign telling this place was once a field for procuring firewood.
 Could you see large trees starting from the same root?
They sprouted after their predecessors were coppiced for fuel.
Their size says they did not have such chance to be firewood.
The landlord stopped doing this long ago.
The left-over shoots eventually become large trees of some 50cm diameter.

Abandoned old oaks can easily a pray for Japanese oak wilt.
The City cut a part of this sawtooth oak in a park
to avoid them falling over the head of strollers.

These days, almost all mushrooms we find in Japanese supermarket are cultivated version. I would say they are “manufactured” on mushroom bed in sterile room for controlled “factories.” That’s true for many species of fungus, including shiitake mushrooms. The 21st century cultivation methodology guarantees us steady and cheaper supply of shiitake mushrooms all year around. That’s a very good news, yeah. Though, factory-made shiitake mushrooms lack something … the robust earthy flavor, maybe. Shiitake mushrooms are important ingredient for Japanese (and beyond) cuisine. Japanese were searching for the way to cultivate Shiitake mushrooms since the 17th century. Unlike white mushrooms whose cultivation technique was found in the early 18th century, for some time Japanese way to cultivate Shiitake mushrooms was “Spare robust logs of oaks out of a pile of firewood, scratch the surface of a wood with machete, leave it in humid shade of forest, pray for seed fugus to dwell on the logs, and miraculously Shiitake mushrooms sprout.” That was a gamble, but significant usage of oak woods besides for firewood. Granted, their taste might be less profound than the true wild shiitake mushrooms, but definitely more flavorful than factory version. Actually, to harvest tastier shiitake mushrooms from forest, we are still using somehow improved traditional method of using oak logs for firewood.

A factory version in our fridge.

These days we don’t have to play roulette for seed to come to oak logs. Fungus seed of Shiitake mushrooms are commercially available. Using the seed, many Japanese mountainous communities are competing each other to supply Shiitake mushrooms “with more robust taste than factory-made ones.” They inoculate oak tree logs with fugus seed, put them neatly in humid shades of their forest, water them in a controlled way, and harvest the product. In all the agricultural experiment stations in Japan researchers are busy to establish the best way to have the top-quality Shiitake mushrooms in forests. Which oak species are the most suitable for the best Shiitake mushrooms? The size of tree? Where and how long to leave them in a forest? The microclimate of the site? Temperature? Moisture? Intensity of sun light? Air circulation? Etc. etc. Nowadays shiitake cultivation is the main usage of coppiced oak trees of 15 to 20 years old. When you hike mountains in Tanzawa, Hakone, Sagamihara, you may find farmers sell their Shiitake mushrooms. They are from the woods planted seeds of fungus.

The old “site” to put inoculated oak tree.
 Hmmmm … here the trees are almost spent …

Actually, fungus seeds are readily available in our nearby home improvement centers together with logs. We, forest volunteers as Lovers of Niiharu Forest 新治市民の森, annually inoculate oak logs with shiitake seeds to utilize the woods produced during our forestry activity. We drill holes on appropriately sized logs from our weekend, hammer the fungus seed from home improvement store, and voila! Here is the Shiitake mushroom bed. The season to inoculate Shiitake seed in Yokohama is spring. It takes roughly one year after planting the seed for Shiitake mushrooms sprouting. i.e. The season of “natural” Shiitake mushrooms is spring. During the whole process, we keep the seeded woods in nice shade where it is humid enough for the bed to supply sufficient nutrients for fugus to be mushrooms …

This is shiitake mushroom seed.
 Moist sawdust is molded into a peg about 0.8cm diameter
 and injected lots of shiitake seeds (fungus).

Woods from thinned oaks are drilled holes
here and there for the seed to be inserted.

The seeds are inserted to the holes.
 Now, lets strike them!

One weekend of this spring, Niiharu Lovers engaged in the annual task of “giving shots” to oak woods. I am learning the skill to embed mushroom seeds on logs … Practice, practice, practice. We must strike the mushroom seed vertically and securely but not too strongly. After planting the mushroom seeds, the members of Association of Lovers for Niiharu Citizen Forest can buy inoculated logs at reasonable price. I’m purchasing one wood per year for a shady corner of our family garden. Surely, they sprout Shiitake mushrooms every spring. 😊😊😊 This year, a senior volunteer advised me. “Naomi, you’d better carry a larger wood. They will provide nice harvest. The value for money, you know.” Hmmmm. Skinny logs are easier to move to shady places, but the nutrients from such seed bed are smaller. In order to expect 4-5 years of steady harvesting of shiitake mushrooms, we should choose logs of larger diameter ... I took the advice. I chose a 50cm wood in 20cm diameter.

The inoculated wood.
It’s better not to squash the seed.

That was … a true adventure with shiitake mushrooms. After saying see-you-next-week, I carried the log by arms. (I’m commuting Niiharu Forest on foot.) After 500m or so of walking my arms started screaming. Hey, you fool! You must know how heavy a log of sawtooth oak of this size. You become greedy, and now this phenomenal burden … Next Monday morning, I had a serious problem in maneuvering PC … Lessons learned. I keep crossing my fingers for reasonable pay off from my new wood with shiitake mushrooms.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center
新治管理事務所・里山交流センター
Phone: 045-931-4947
Fax: 045-937-0898
Email: info@niiharu.jp
http://www.niiharu.jp/

An Adventure of Spring Detox: trying young leaves of conifers in spring

In temperate climate of Yokohama, conifers we find in forests are mainly cedars and cypresses. Majority was afforested around the 1950s to satisfy strong demand for post-war reconstruction. After the trade liberalization for construction materials in the 1960s, the business of nurturing domestic conifers was bankrupted, at least in Yokohama. So, many cedars for the greenery of the city are now 60 or 70 years old, without chopping. It’s the age similar to 20 or 30 years old for humans, i.e. vigorous, still getting bigger, and prime to procreate. That’s the reason we have serious hay fever problem in spring (; my posts for December 2, 9 and 16, 2016). The trees spew lots of pollens. My eyes are itchy. My nose is congested …

Thanks to COVID-19, since spring 2020, we wear masks. Our struggle with hay fever has been softened, I guess. “Always look on the bright side of life.” Still, we’re now like, “It’s important to strengthen immune system of our body.” Lamenting seasonal problem and popping pills for allergy may not be enough. It is a time for spring detox! Is there any way to achieve purifying body and treating spring hay fever at once? I encountered a recipe. It’s simple. (1) nipping young leaf-buds of confers for snack in our forest. And, (2) brewing tisane from fresh leaves of confers. Hmmmmmm …. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Like many other plants, confers have their leaf-buds in spring at the tip of branches. Sometimes, in Yokohama, we can encounter young conifers in broadleaved area next to the afforested parts. They are not so tall as their afforested parents. At their tip of boughs and branches, we find fresh pale green which is young buds of leaves. They taste like a fresh herb, with slight sweetness. To my surprise, the soft leaf-bud did not have much tartness. It’s almost once a year treat in our forest. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, detoxing …

Limited version of Forest Snack

Next is tisane from cedar leaves. Until this experiment, I did not know there is such a thing, tisane made of leaves of cedars. Though, with a casual googling, we can find many makers selling such product via internet. Customer reviews in Amazon.co.jp say it may have medicinal effect of alleviating hay fever. Hmmmm ... As a forest volunteer, I have chances to collect fresh leaves of cedars. No need to order them from Amazon! So, I gathered fresh cedar leaves in forest, washed them well, and brewed tisane.

I threw washed leaves of cedars in my unglazed pottery pan.

After two hours of brewing with very weak heat …

Cedar tisane after 2 hours of brewing had tartness. I added lots of honey to the concoction. Voila! The smell of sweet tisane was refreshing scent of forest. It now tasted soft, or softer than red tea. The cup had surprisingly no distinctive feature, other than noble aroma. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, detoxing … With a bit more googling, I found cedar tisane contains terpenes that can cause gastrointestinal disturbances … Naomi took about a teacup of it a day, and had no apparent effect for my bowel movement … Well, refreshing smell able to induce flushing out from our body … it is perfect spring detox drink, I suppose … If you’re ready to a small adventure, please try. 😉

My cedar tisane with honey.
 I stored it in refrig and finished in 3 days.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420

The Forest of Exhibition: 2021 Spring Show of Laboratory of Forest Art, Yokohama

From April 29th to May 5th, Japan has lots of national holidays. It is a season when air is warmer but not so humid as in June. We can expect continuous sunny days. We call the time “a Golden Week.” This year, we had several windy and rainy days during the holidays. But when it was fine, the weather was gorgeous. Tokyo has been under the State of Emergency by COVID-19. We in Yokohama was also a sort of restricted mood during 2021 Golden Week. So, I visited the forest of the artists for Laboratory of Forest Art. It’s in a walking distance from home. Their annual show is in early autumn, and the City asks them after the show to remove their installation as much as possible for restoring the forest “As-Is.” But this year, they had a permission to have an encore during the Golden Week (; my post on April 16). I’ve been there and had a pleasant surprise to meet the previous year’s installation in spring forest.

The objet d’art we could find was the same, at the same place as the last year (; my post on September 25, 2020). Though, the light, the atmosphere, the vegetation, the environment … all are different from the last year.

Haruna Chikada

Noriaki Oka

Toshikazu Kanai

ASADA

Akira Harada

Kazuo Ishikuro

Naoko Kobayashi

Youichiro Yoshikawa

These days, September to October their regular show held is still hot and humid in Yokohama. The green the forest has is more robust than that of April to early May. The forest in fall has lots of mosquitos and horseflies so that applying insect repellent is THE MUST for us. This Golden Week, there was no need for such preparation to enjoy a stroll in the forest to admire their creation … I simply wonder why they don’t move their show schedule from fall to spring. Hm. I’m going to suggest it!

Artists’ way of treating oak tree wilt

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420