Thomas Kloepfer founded the organic, no-till Pitchfork farm on Mukaishima island (Onomichi) Hiroshima talks about his projects on the farm balancing new plants with trees and raising animals to work in balance with the needs of growing food. Watch the video of the talk.

Previous talks with Thomas Kloepfer about Pitchfork Farms, his research, and textiles in Seek Sustainable Japan:

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JJ Walsh 0:01

Hi, everyone and welcome. This is seek sustainable Japan. I'm your host, JJ Walsh here in Hiroshima. And I have the pleasure once again of talking with organic no till farmer in Fukushima in Hiroshima. Thomas Clifford, thank you so much for joining.

Thomas Kloepfer 0:21

Thanks for having me.

JJ Walsh 0:23

Great to have you. And actually, I visited your farm the other day. And I took some video and I was planning to put together a video and I was like, I should just have Thomas on the show again, to get it straight from you all about your exciting updates. There's a lot going on right now.

Thomas Kloepfer 0:41

Right? Yeah, there's a lot going on. It's kind of spring transition into summertime. So yeah, the farm is always seems busy. This time of year. It's an exciting time of year. So yeah.

JJ Walsh 0:55

And when I talk to other farmers around different parts of Japan, it sounds like they take the winter off that you really haven't had a break at all right?

Thomas Kloepfer 1:05

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of hard to I mean, we, we, we are a little bit warmer climate, we do have one Greenhouse on the farm. And so we just try to keep things going. We have several projects going on as well. So we stay pretty busy with that. And, yeah, it's kind of hard to take the time off. I might prefer to take a few weeks off in summer if I can, because it's just it's usually so hot.

JJ Walsh 1:32

Yeah. And that was one of the changes that I saw when I visited your farm. This time, it seems like you're planting more trees, trying to have that combination of like a food forest. Is

Thomas Kloepfer 1:45

that right? Absolutely. Yeah, the food forest model, it can be really be scaled up. And so that's what kind of what we're doing. I've seen a lot of gardens that practice it. But I think one of the things that we're trying to do is combine and interplant a lot and really stack the functions of the farm. Because there's so much space still available on the farm. And there's a lot of farmers who talk about that I know Joel Salatin from the states he mentions is that it's just stacking functions and finding space to grow more things. But surprisingly, you can fit a lot in a small amount of land. Right? Yeah.

JJ Walsh 2:27

And I talked to podcaster. And food forest gardener being pod, and he's doing the same thing. He designed his garden to have lots of trees and plants at the same time. I think just especially with the summers getting hotter and hotter, it seems like it makes a lot of sense, right?

Thomas Kloepfer 2:46

Right. Yeah, providing just more shade. For the your understory crops it makes it does make so much sense. And because we're doing the no till style of farming, we don't really need to bring in big machines. And we can't bring a tractor because we're on this sloped hillside. So if we can add stuff in between or on the understory of some of these trees, while the trees are growing, I think this can be really great. And some of those might even provide nutrients for the trees, like some of the nitrogen fixing plants that we have, like beans and peas that are growing. So the more we can do that, I think, especially while you're waiting for those trees to actually provide an income as a farmer, who's, you know, that's another really important part of our farm. Yeah,

JJ Walsh 3:35

yeah, I'm sharing your website right now. I just give people an idea of the beautiful view from your farm. Now, like many farms around Japan, they're quite steep on the hillside. Right? You said that's both good and bad for growing food. Is that right?

Thomas Kloepfer 3:53

I mean, I think it provides some additional challenges, especially, you know, at scale. We're a pretty small farm, actually, by a lot of standards. And it does make it more challenging, but for the citrus, being on the slopes is good to have a well drained soil. And it's also maybe some people say the SHIO-KAZE so the the actual salty, what winds that you would get off the Seabreeze is maybe good for the citrus, in a lot of ways.

So we really, we really take advantage of that. And previously, our farm was a citrus orchard. So we want to stick with what's been known to grown in the region. So that I think that's something we're trying to take advantage of, but it does make for a lot more labor intensive work. We can't just bring in the tractor until something under or till something into the soil when it's finished, and we can't really bring in larger machinery. So a lot of it's done by And, but that's why we've tried to take advantage of using this no tilt approach or no tilt technique in the, in the form.

JJ Walsh 5:08

Yeah, I found an old picture and look like you are using a tiller. And you did say that when the soil is really compacted, you do sometimes tell it up a little bit, right? It's like the same action that, INUSHISHI or boar or animal might do, right, which is nature's way of, of tilling the soil, right?

Thomas Kloepfer 5:33

Yeah, so we might, we might bring in the tiller, especially in the first the first time. Or even when we have this, that the tool that's actually there. That's not a tiller, that's a Wheel Hoe, actually. So what that allows me to do is hill up. And that's actually part of the no till process. It's a tool I brought over from the states several years ago. And it really fits in with our no till style. So not really flipping the soil over. But occasionally I've used the roto tiller. In the past, and especially when I first started on this hillside, there was some places where the slope was a bit too steep. So instead of running the tiller, across the hill, I kind of ran it up and down the hill and pulled on to the till the tiller and actually pulled the soil to create more of a terrace, which, you know, normally you might dig or do by hand, or you might do with a large excavator. But we were actually able to do that. Just the topsoil anyway, to smooth out some of the hill. And we we've still kind of done that, in places where I find the soil to just be a bit too hard or had that's had some impact, especially we raise sheep, so they often will sit or walk around some areas more than others. And so because of that, it's good to kind of go through until up where they've been just just the loosen the soil in the beginning. But we have such a small roto tiller, it's something that's actually available at the homestead home centers here. And they're really don't actually even tell that deep. So it's another thing that's kind of good about the process we're doing.

JJ Walsh 7:19

And just for just to remind people, no till and organic farming, just give people a brief explanation of what kind of farming you're doing. Very regenerative. Right.

Thomas Kloepfer 7:33

Okay. Yeah. So, you know, right now there's, I mean, there's several kind of terms that float around. And especially here in Japan as well, there's so many terms that might be, you know, considered natural farming or no till farming, organic farming, as you said. So organic farming. Although we're not certified organic. We do not use herbicides or pesticides or fungicides on the farm. So that might be considered organic in terms of what's allowed. But there are certain pesticides and fungicides that may be allowed under certain organic certification.

And that depends on the country or the region, and also the certification body. But we're actually non certified. So maybe we might drift into this regenerative agriculture or no till agriculture. And that's a lot of our beds are already pre laid out, we kind of maintain the shape of all of our beds, and we might apply a little bit of compost from our animals or some purchase compost on top of the bed. And then we'll take our pitchfork, which is our name, pitchfork farms, we actually will fork the beds and our beds really haven't changed especially in the lower part of our farm. In several years, we haven't road till there.

And we haven't really needed to because I think the soil has just improved and softened over time, because we're actually not tilling the beds, we might add some woodchips or some wood shavings into the pathways to maintain the pathways which is really great and add carbon to the soil. But also that mulch will actually add more carbon to the soil too. And we might bring in leaf litter or other broken down compost that are made on the farm to improve the soil structure as well.

JJ Walsh 9:28

Thomas Kloepfer 9:55

it's yeah, you can actually walk through there now without getting stuck by you know briars. And you know right now I think the the no Bata in Japan. So this kind of wild rose is blooming right now, but you can actually walk through and you know without getting stuck by that are there. And because the forest in Japan, people have been utilizing the forest and these hillside resources for generations and generations. And so at one point it was citrus orchard as well just like our farm, but what's actually come back and the some of the plants that have come back, a lot of it is creating too much, possibly too much shade. And it's kind of become a really dark place. And then a lot of animals can't come through there. A lot of birds can't fly through there anymore because it's overgrown. So it's really good to go in and do some clearing and really lighten up the place. Yeah, so and we've used sheep up there as well, which has been really great.

Yeah, that was one thing that I did organic, yuzu farm visit. And, and he said he, he's for hundreds of years, they've never used chemicals. And their practice is always to cut the tree in a way that they get a lot of airflow. Right, that was one of the things that you said is important about thinning the forest to get right airflow

through. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, a lot of air flow through through the forest will just, I mean, really lighten the place up. And I think then the next step might be to then plant are looking at planting some more broadleaf trees, and possibly some more nuts species. So that's what we're looking at next.

And then also, because they did citrus farming, and if you've been to a lot of the citrus farms, here in the in these regions, you'll notice that most of the citrus farms don't really have much of an understory and they're really strict or serious about removing all the weed species and stuff. But because of this area, we might not necessarily consider growing a lot of citrus up there anymore. And so there's not really a whole lot of understory as well.

Like things like clovers and other grasses, there's really not much that exists there now, because they removed a lot of that, and that and the new weedy trees that have come up, don't really provide a lot of mulch to the soil. And they don't really drop leaves that add to the nutrient density in the soil. So we're really considering that as an option going forward and how to better utilize it. But and right now to this, there is just a lot of dead trees and a lot of things that could be cleared and you know, re reuse. So

yeah, and one of the things that this is from your Facebook page, talking about cover crops. This is something you mentioned as well throwing clay seed balls in or scattering seeds or letting things seed and come back again next year. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, cover crops are a really common practice, I think both inorganic and then in no till farming. And and especially in the regenerative farming, people really want to build soil, some of the best ways to do it is to get a cover crop and, and a lot of farms. And in Japan farms are typically pretty small. So a lot of people actually don't do a lot of cover cropping, like we see in some of the other countries like in the States or in maybe in Europe. So what we'll do is maybe we'll plant clover, or we'll plant some nitrogen fixing P or write as another really great cover. And we'll try to crush that. And then it'll break down eventually into the soil and really add to the carbon in the soil.

And we'll also absorb a lot of some of the carbon in the air and then release that into its roots as well. It'll stay there. And so that's one way we can do that. And then really just recycle and you know, take up a lot of those nutrients that are also leached out from maybe some of the compost that we've used. So the fertilizers we've used on the farm, those plants will actually take up some of that, and then recycle that back in to growing. And then we can take that and put that in our compost and just get the recycling process going. So soap is a great example. I think it takes up like either phosphorus or potassium that's kind of a waste into the soil. And it absorbs some of that and we can take that and then break it down. But I will say some of the cover crops can get out of hand. So maybe before you do a cover crop you really want to look into how to take it out of your farm. Right now. I've actually I did so but in that same area that you just showed, and I have a lot of soba that's come up as a maybe a weed now in between my lettuces. So it can be it could potentially be a problem.

But actually, maybe soba and lettuce are very different in terms of the nutrients they require to grow well. So I might be able to get two yields out of this one row right now I'll be able to get a soba yield, which then I can later use for another area where I want to put a cover crop in. Because we not growing enough, so but to turn it into noodles, or pancakes or anything, but we're, you know, we don't have to then go back and buy seed again, which is really another sustainable practice, I think. But then we get this lettuce that, you know, didn't really have to fight with the soba to grow well, and the soap has. Maybe also taking up some water and then sharing that with a lettuce. It's really hard to say exactly what's happening underneath the soil because we can't see. But I think there's this process that's there's a lot more sharing going on than than we think. And yeah, I'm noticing that. So but this this one, one row right now anyway,

that's great. I love how you, you're very much aware of how things are changing on your farm, and you're adjusting and trying things and then adjusting again, I love that style.

Yeah, I think the you know, this kind of small scale, you know, organic method, you're, you are constantly doing experiments every single year, and you're learning and then you're, you know, and you're making mistakes, but then you're coming back through and you're figuring things out.

You know, that's what's so different, I think, compared to maybe the more the industrial model where, you know, you if you have this problem, you spray it with this, and then that's it. But do you did you really learn anything in that process? And, you know, I want to try to see what, what we can do or what maybe we're nature might actually provide some of the answers and some of the solutions as opposed to just going through and, you know, doing it with chemicals or doing it from an outside source, we can probably avoid some of that on the small scale farms.

Yeah, definitely. We have a great come in from Z. Is I've been farming for a decade now. I'm very familiar with all of this. Wonderful, great.

Yeah. 10 years. 10 years is a good? I mean, I've actually yeah, 10 years here at this farm. And yeah, you learn a lot every single year. And it's and that's I think, you know, that's what experiences is really all about. That's the best teacher? I think so. Yeah.

There's, it's amazing, like I people who don't really know about organic vegetables to look at this amazing lettuce and salads that you grow. And there's no like, it's not destroyed by bugs, like you're you're able to balance through what you're doing a way to grow food without using chemicals. Right. I think it's mind blowing to some people. Right?

Yeah. And I think just the the year on year, I mean, and by having such a diverse lineup and of crops, you know, one of the one of the things that's really great is that, you know, maybe you will have some problem with this pest or this bug this, you know, one season. But I think, you know, having not really having all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, is really a great way to, you know, really sustain and maintain the farm. And yeah, I think it's one of the one of the best ways forward for these kinds of these kinds of farms.

And I think growing healthy plants right from the beginning your starts, that's really where it starts from maybe even seeds that you're purchasing if you can, if you want to grow organic, maybe looking at organic seeds or seeds that hadn't been traded with some fungicide or herbicide from the beginning and then starting to save your own seeds. With in your farm. If you can start to do that. You'll have a much more diverse and much more strong plant that's used to this region use of this area. And I think that's another big step that we've really tried to take over the last several years. That wasn't really available when we first started out in the first year or two. So yeah, that's

something I've heard Chuck Qaiser say who's a organic farmer in Shiva. And he says sometimes he just goes and sees what seeds they're selling at the dry center. Because then he realizes what the other farmers in the area are probably growing. And then he's like, Oh, maybe I'll try that next time or something. Right. There's other other visuals that he wants, which is something that you do as well and you're ordering in C from another area that's trying it, seeing if it works, right,

yeah, yeah. And these days, we're able to get, I've been able to find companies that you know, are easier to work with, that do provide, like, really high efficient seeds. But then we're also able to get heirloom seeds and a lot of older variety seeds that we can save, and that we can replant on our farm. And I've got, you know, several, several plants like our fava beans sold on there, a few varieties of corn that I've been saving for several years, our peas that I've saved for several years, which have turned out to be really great.

And this is something that I think can really work here and in the small scale, and I know that in a lot of other communities, I know that I think the UK has a really great gardening community where there's a lot of seed seed saving going on. But I don't see as much of that in Japan, and not as much as as I would think. So hopefully, that can start to increase and start to grow over the next several years.

Yeah, speaking of seeds, I know you're a fan of Fukuoka Sensei, and make the clay balls with the seeds in and that's my favorite story from his book, how he was asking lots of primary schools around Japan to save their seeds at school lunchtime. He was taking those in C balls to Africa and dropping them everywhere. Right? fastest way to try.

Yeah, and I mean to really regenerate or to green, I think the deserts is what was he what he claimed to to be able to do. And if you look through the pictures, and one of the books that I have, from the One Straw Revolution, I have this one copy that was gifted to me, there's a lot more illustrations in it, and you really do see the results. And that's what, that's what we really could be doing. And maybe we need to be doing a little bit more even here in Japan.

Because some of these like even in the forested area, it's actually not as diverse as it really could be. And so looking at, that's where we've kind of started to use the clay balls in the seed Balsam. So we'll be doing that I think this usually do it around this time of every year about April, May, a little bit before the rainy season. And I will, because we're going up into the hillside a bit more. It's not sometimes it's not even necessary to actually even do the clay balls, just broadcasting the seeds is almost as efficient and effective. So I've been trying that as well. Just to save some of the time involved.

Have you ever you thought about using drones? I heard about an American company now using drones to replant trees in the

river. I've heard about that. Yeah. Yeah, I've considered I would consider that like, using the drones to cause drones would also help you to scout out an area. And I think there's a lot of advantages to that could potentially be used for this kind of newer technology. Sometimes, I've thought if I could use the drones to open and close gates for my sheep.

So when I want to move the sheep around, and I saw I think Jeremy Clarkson had this Amazon Prime show about him starting a farm he was the one of the one of the what is it? speakers on the show Top Gear, he was like one of the host, I guess on top gear, and he started a farm in the UK around the lock downtime, and he tried to use it. He tried to use a drone to get to move his flock of sheep. It didn't really work very effectively. But it may be for some of these tasks like opening and closing gates and doors like it's possible. And then yeah, for planting trees or dropping different seeds would be really neat. So

yeah, it'd be interesting to try. And now drone technology has kind of come down in price a little bit. So yeah, a little bit more possible, even as a farmer, right? Yeah, yeah,

definitely. And I think that's probably where a lot of the drone usage is headed. And really, in terms of just mono monitoring, you know, looking at the plant health, this is now possible with a lot of the technology and drones. And then I think that the some people have argued that that could then help us to maybe limit or minimize the use of the pesticides we might be using. Because you can maybe pinpoint that certain types of pests in the area too, and get a better understanding an idea of what's actually affecting instead of just blanketing the crops in you know the pesticide, you don't necessarily need it and that would also save the farmers a lot of time and effort money. So this could be really great use of the technology. Yeah,

I actually talked to some sustainability hackers live in Chiba. And we were using technology in a way to monitor different kinds of chemicals or ingredients in the ground. And then. So it seems like technology is going that way to help him agriculture a lot.

You have speaking of exciting, as you're expanding into the hillside, you are also expanding wider and taking over some abandoned buildings. Tell us about your new projects.

Yeah. So we've got our, my father in law, who's actually in the Tokyo area, he purchased an Ikea here. So an unused house. And it actually came with the house that you've just pictured, it came with that house in that property. So you what you see there is a citrus storage shed. And in the center, which that's actually no longer standing from that picture is an older Japanese style house that was was there on the property. And we're right now you can see the citrus storage shed there on the right side. And then on the far left side, there's a an older storage shed as well. And we're slowly trying to renovate this to possibly look at turning it into either like a no cup cafe.

And then my wife, she has the textile company touchy bun Tiki style King Cujo, she's considering moving her company into the front room of the house. So we're, yeah, we're really looking forward to doing this kind of project, I think it's going to be a great opportunity. It's kind of been my background being in sustainable development and outdoor education.

and that's probably the biggest job that we want to talk about in a minute. But we have a great question from Jaime Ikegami, who is joined from YouTube. Thanks, Jamie. She says my apple trees are old and may stop producing soon, I want to transition into vegetable farming. I don't want to cut down the trees, what technique would you recommend for the transition? Good question.

Yeah, I guess it depends on how many trees and what the spacing is. But if you want to transition, you know, maybe some of the trees can be cut back. And then looking at, you know, these days, some of the some of the municipalities also have ways to take some of your old trees and cut them. And instead of just burning them off, maybe create woodchips with some of that material, and then add that back into the soil. And then it may, it may be possible to grab some other varieties onto the trees. If you still if they're still healthy at the base, that might be a possibility. I planted a few apple trees here.

And I don't think they'll ever grow halfway, because it's just not the right climate. But they're flowering actually, I have more flowers on my apple trees this year than in previous years. So I haven't worked in an orchard but I think I think it's really possible and depends on your climate to maybe look at cutting those trees back and then replanting some of the trees in that space. And then in the understory. Yeah, consider maybe considered or depending on your soil tilling at first and then starting your vegetable rows in between the apples could be really great. But I think using the

chipper and then putting the woodchips around on your farm as mulch. That was something you were talking about when we visited Right,

right. Yeah, we just got a chipper. You know, it's a pretty big investment. But we do have the forest area, we have a large bamboo section, or that we're wanting to manage and bamboo chips, putting back into the soil and really building up the soil is one one way to do it.

So yeah, we'll be using the chipper a lot in the coming years. And I think this could be A way to, instead of just burning off or having something hauled off, really tried to recycle that back into your soil could be a really great way. And in some municipalities, they do it more for bamboo use, but you might find in Japan that it might be available for you to rent a chipper for low to reduce cost. So maybe you want to check that out.

And that's putting it back into the soil is something you're also doing with the old house that you're taking apart. You're reusing some of the wood and the clay from the

Yeah, so that's what we've done previously, we've taken some of the clay clay balls that we've made before, and they came from our second story window. So when we put in our window, we we we did that, we took the clay material and actually made those seed balls and put them back into the farm, put them back into the hillside.

So that's sort of what's so amazing about some of these older Japanese houses, there's not a lot of stuff that you have to throw away, when you're remodeling or redoing, I will say that some of the maybe the late 70s, early 80s, as you can see here, some of this is material that we did have to haul off and take out cost money. And it's unfortunate, but it is part of the process through but this one house, and especially the storage shed that's in such poor shape, you know, a lot of people would look at it and say, Oh, you're going to tear that down, right? And it's like, wow, there's still a lot that still lives, you know, that we can use and we can do with it. That's the building I'm talking about there. There's, you know, a lot of that is still in good shape.

And, you know, for me to put a, you know, a tin roof on it and give it some more read some more life into it is just one part of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle kind of mentality that we've got. Yeah, this is the top we're, we're getting ready to take these beams off so we can use them for another building. But it's a Yeah, it's a big puzzle that I am not sure of. And we took the Kawada off. And we're considering with the Kawada. What to do with that, you know, we don't want to haul it off and pay money to throw it away. So maybe breaking it into smaller pieces and using it as in the walkways, or using it to fill some French drains. I know that's really common technique, because it does rain a lot. And you knew we can use that as well. Some people will grind it up into a powder and use it as a maybe a parking lot to keep the parking lot from getting too muddy. So we've considered that as another option, instead of pouring concrete, which is really energy intensive and can be quite expensive work. This is another sustainable way of using the Kawana. Again,

the tiles Yeah, yeah, the time. Yeah, the time. It must have taken me ages to take the ends quite dangerous.

Oh, no, I took I took those off in about a day.

Was it dangerous walking across?

I didn't really walk too much on top. I kind of like Yeah, I kind of sat sat in the right spot. And yeah, we had a ladder and helmet. And

yeah, quite often around the old neighborhoods, you will see areas with all the titles just stacked around. Right, right with idea that somebody's going to reuse it someday. So yeah. Find a way to reuse it. That's awesome.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely I've, you know, I've seen people will make raised beds with it. I think that's one one way I've seen people put it back into some of the building structure. Maybe with some of this, like Waterland dog or cob style. So I've seen some of that as well. Yeah.

Nice. Jamie says she's in Nagano. So you should find Heather Fukasawa. Who is in? Yeah, yeah. She's also an apple apple grower. Right? Yes.I'm not sure she grows herself, but she's helping some of her Apple growing neighbors. Right. So second ones that are rejected from the supermarket, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that can be like I think yeah, partnering up with people in your region especially would would be the best way to go forward and maybe talk to some of the farmers around there as well. What do they do to transition, you know, going from fruit to vegetables and, you know, our farm, because we do a combination of the two. We you know, we want to consider how to how to just increase our you know, the yield on the farm and by combining fruit and veg is one really great way forward. But I know that that area Yeah, I guess other things that grow well would be maybe peaches and plums and some of the stone fruits and apples. So there's a lot of potential in the area.

That's great. I also I've talked to another farmer in farming couple in Nagano, Wendy and Rodrigo. So I'll say their details after you know them. They they did a Mexican farm to table Mexican food and workshop for us. And it was so good because he was growing his own beans.

Yeah, I was so impressed by his beans. Because, and I think Nagano would be a great region for for being growing as well, you could grow several varieties, because here, it almost gets too hot to grow certain types, we do really well. And we'd have done really well with soybeans here in the past an heirloom variety of soybean, but, but the the type of beans that he's using for making like refried beans, and you know, more traditional Mexican varieties are really, yeah, I was really impressed with that.

So good. And it's so hard to get a plant based protein grown in Japan, there just aren't any variety. Most of the soybeans are imported. We just don't have a lot of vegan source material here. So yeah, getting the beans growing would be awesome, right? Let's go back to the house a little bit. It's such a big job. You've got but you've got all these amazing things inside. Now in this picture, are you just taking out all the dirt?

Yeah, we'll see. Because it was a storage shed, it had a lot of fertilizer and a lot of like, broken up fertilizer bags that had just been sitting there for 10 or 20 years. So we had to remove all of that some of those bags were broken, there was a leak in the roof. So maybe some of the bags, because their paper had just, I mean, really just falling apart. So we had to scoop a lot of that out. I, you know, wasn't sure what some of the material was.

So it's one of those things where we I had to bring in a neighbor to help me read some of the Kanji on some of these, these fertilizer bags. And there's so much stuff that came out. And there's so much stuff that actually can be reused. I found a lot of old toolboxes, a wooden toolboxes with a lot of really great tools inside. And some of the tools that some of the baskets like the citrus baskets that I think you've shown are still there. And you know, it's really how do we avoid throwing some of these things out. And because there are they won't make these again, there's not really anybody, anybody that can make some of these baskets here in Japan anymore. So

I love those.

We have tried to keep as many as we can, and the ones that are in really bad shape. I've been bringing up to the hill and hanging in the some of those trees that in the area we've been clearing. And when I've got time, I'll play some frisbee golf up there using those citrus baskets. So yeah,

you could make like a way to catch the fruit in and roll it into the basket with

Yeah, maybe maybe putting down some, you know, some boards that would just as the fruit falls, it kind of rolls down the hill hits the boards and rolls right into the basket.

So I've heard that's how the May farmers do it.

I know, I've seen I've seen where they'll take and shake the tree. And I know they're using some of these technologies where they'll actually put like, like a tarp and they'll wrap that around the tree and then shake the tree down for some of the nuts. But I saw some videos of some new technology being applied in farms and looked pretty aggressive way of harvesting

some citrus damage damage to the tree. Yeah, yeah. But these baskets for collecting the citrus are so gorgeous. Yeah, I did a lemon farm experience the other day in the center. Nikai. And they gave us plastic baskets. I was little bit disappointed because I've seen yours and they're gorgeous.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, most of the farms, you know, I really wouldn't have kept a lot of those. I mean, the plastic containers are maybe more stackable, I guess. So it's just more function there. But you know, and it seems like every time I go to the clean Center here in Makaha I see these baskets just getting thrown away and sent to the incinerator. So yeah, it's

these are drying baskets as well.

I think actually those would have been used either as citrus as well. But then, if you've ever seen pictures of Japan from 100 years ago, 150 years ago, some of the paintings and actually some of the pictures, you'll see people with a wooden stick across their shoulders, and they're carrying a load on both sides. That's what those are four. And I've got some of those sticks here on the farm.

And it makes, you know, before everyone had a wheelbarrow, you know, and now we've got an electric wheelbarrow, you know, so we're getting really high tech, but you know, this, that's what they that's what they're doing to walk up and down the mountain, they were harvest vegetables, and they would take them up, and maybe carry him to some stream and wash them off and then bring them back home. You could imagine, you know how many Daikon you could possibly fit on one basket on one side? And the other one, so you could? Maybe that's what they were using them for?

Yeah, um, now you have an interesting car, which was in the hillside farm that that you are trying to clear

I guess they decided to throw away or just leave their car abandon in the hill, you know, instead of paying the money to throw it out? Yeah, they abandoned it. And then they went and made a concrete space for the grave. So now you can't get the car out of there. Maybe ever I don't know what the what the plan was. I don't think there was a plan. But yeah, maybe we could turn it into.

As I mentioned, frisbee golf. This could be you know, the place where you come and pick up your frisbees before you go in and, and go into the forest to play frisbee golf. Or it could be a small Chai shop or bringing little tea shop up on the hill could be another option. We're thinking about what we could do with it. But

I love that idea. It's fantastic. And you you said about being The Last Samurai, you're like the last farmer in that area, right

in this area right now. Yeah. And it's kind of a joke. I mean, but you know, when I'm out farming here on the hill, there's not really a lot of people out, you know, I mean, you can imagine at one point, there would have been set, you know, people growing food in and around, and the village, but these days, I think I'm one of the only people producing food for sale on here on the farm here on this area in this village. And, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting, I think, to think like what the future could hold, you know, for this space. And, you know, going back to the building and what what we've thought my my, my wife's family name is nice, Otto, which means the Kanji is new and village. So we hope maybe this could be the new village or the start of the new village is the new property. And maybe it won't be like that, and I hope not. I hope not. But yeah, this is something we we think about and which kind of joke about. Yeah,

that's awesome. I love that the new creating the new village. Yeah, you're expanding into the buildings and providing a place for volunteers to sleep. Who brought into the farm? You mentioned your your wife has her workshop, maybe moving into that area? Yeah, there's a lot more you can do now that you have those facilities. Right,

right. Yeah, it was something we didn't have before. We, you know, we took our house, which was a citrus storage shed and we renovated that, but it really isn't a place to, you know, provide for people to stay up until now. But now with this new property. Yeah, we have several tatami spaces. We've actually got a wolf Wolfer or volunteer coming this weekend, from Friday evening, which will be great to have, you know, some extra hands on the farm. And we've set up a day on Saturday for people to come out and help us put in maybe the last fences of the hill side. We'll see. But it's one of our last expansions. So yeah, we've got an

automatic translation on the Facebook alert said you wanted people to come and volunteer to climb fences was the automatic translation that was like, that sounds really fun. Yeah, yeah. Well.

We have some great comments. Enrique says, when you planted your first plant, did you know that you would be doing it for years? Or was that just a love increase day by day?

I love Yeah, yeah. I had no real plan. I knew that I liked I liked it. I really liked this this hill. You know, and really, to be able to come out here and you know, I usually worked here after I taught English in elementary school so I would cycle over and plant potatoes with my with the neighbor here and yeah, I really just got kind of got addicted to it. And so little by little. Yeah, it's something I just grew to really enjoy. Not without its hardships and its losses and it can be tough. Japan and nature in Japan is a real powerful force at times. So yeah, we we definitely we definitely have picked picked it up though. I think

I'm showing the view in the evening, as you're finishing your farm work. This is from your Instagram page. So how can you not love that view is yeah,

just on Sunday on Easter Sunday was the full moon full Pink Moon. And we get full moon rise from this side because it's east southeast facing. So we get to see some really spectacular skies and we also get a really great sunrise. So it's a good place to be.

Yeah, we have another comment from Davao storytime. Thanks for joining Dave. He says, I love the frisbee golf or tea shop idea from the old car.

Yeah, yeah, it's, we got to do something with it. You know. So, frisbee golf. And it's a, it's a sport activity that I really enjoyed when I lived in the States. And we kind of made up courses at the college that I went until eventually we we got into a little bit of trouble playing in the center of campus. So they ended up building us a course. And that was something we did a lot after school. So I'd like to get some of the baskets up on the hill and have another, you know, another recreation activity, you know, yeah.

When I was on the lemon farm, just this weekend, they said do watch out where you're stepping because of the snakes, right? Do you have hazards, natural hazards around your area, too.

We, you know, I think going into Golden Week is when I first started to see some snakes and in the pathways now that we're doing more tours, try to you know, keep up with the grass. Just so where people are walking because snakes they like they like to be in tall grass and around. But makishima on this side of occasion because we don't have a lot of water and we don't have a lot of we don't have any streams or creeks here. You don't see as many snakes but they definitely they definitely are here. Maybe in June, they might go after the chicken eggs. So that's something we have to be careful about.

I think one time Kaori reached in to grab one of the eggs and on the end of the egg was a was a snake so Wow. She screamed and I didn't know why she was screaming I ran over and to see it. Sure enough. It was a I think it was a maybe like a common like field snake. You know a rattlesnake not a poisonous one. But they can. I think I saw Chuck had a post recently. He had a poisonous snake in his hand. I don't know if it was alive or not. I don't know. I didn't get the full story. But yeah, they're pretty scary when I lived in sheep and Shuzenji near the river. I used to see those all the time. Right by the river. So I think they lived under my house too. So I was

your sheep are up there in the forest. Yep. Are they not bothered by snakes? Or

like one year a snake? Or maybe the A? What is it? Murder Hornet. Somebody's watching. Yeah, I think one one took a bite or a sting on the nose and the face swelled up, then I couldn't figure out what it was. But a few days went by and it went down so maybe maybe they got into something over there. But yeah, it was it was I had no idea I couldn't explain why all of a sudden the front lip is you know, swollen double the size. So it's either snake or B but they seem to be okay. Yeah.

Now you you have a variety of animals but you really liked the sheep. And the sheep is really interesting and how both you and Cody are able to use the wool for her business and the dining as well as they eat all the weeds. Tell us tell us about the sheep. You're gonna share them.

Right? Yeah, we just did two On Saturday, we had to male and female that we did on Saturday, the people from my work came by and helped me shear on Saturday, and we got to done in about two or three hours. Then we, yeah, we'll take the wall, either Kaori's company will wash it once, and then she can either dye it, and we can hand spin it, or we can do felting. So these are some of the things we're using. And right now, with spring, there are a lot of different variety of grasses growing on the farm. And so the sheep are our number one, a, you know, number one fan in terms of, you know, eating something that's coming off the farm, they love any of these grasses that we have.

So they're a big part of that. And instead of taking those grasses and throwing them out, or incinerating, which is often common, here as well, or using some kind of herbicide, yeah, the sheep love it. And they, they took full advantage of it, and they help us clear the land in the beginning to, you know, and then they, they then fertilize they, through their manuring they're providing that, and then we're able to go back through and start to think, okay, what can we grow next? Either for them or for, you know, our customers? And what can we grow for, and improve, you know, either new trees or new plants and in the area. So yeah, it's, it's really great. And because of that, too, they because they clear, they also helped to keep the wild boars out, as well. Because once they've cleared that space, wild boars will be less likely to live in that space. We've, we've had to get rid of a lot of wild boar nest in the last several years, which will come in and eat, you know, pumpkin, sweet potatoes and everything else on the farm. So we're using them that in that way as well, which is really great.

Yeah, so interesting that you don't imagine sheep in Japan, but this is yeah, that.

So yeah, making like a simple brush here, I think is what Cody was making in the picture. And yeah, you can do needle felting. And you can also do the other felting to make either hats or maybe a vest or some kind of clothing, you would take soap, warm, soapy water, and then just rub that with the wool and a lot of the oils on the wall will start to break down and actually mold over on on top of each other. And that's the way to make like felt mats. And you can make also like a tar washy some kind of cloth so you could clean and then that could be once it's unusable, put it in the compost, and it'll break down. Or you can actually use it as a mulch around your newly planted citrus trees, for example. So it's got multiple uses, which is really great.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. So we just have about seven more minutes. Is there anything we haven't talked about yet that you wanted to touch on? Or what are your plans for going forward with the remodel like when do you expect? You're going to have something open that people can visit? Oh, no. We lost Thomas. Oh, no. Maybe his battery time. Oh, dear. Um, so thank you, Enrique. Great comment. It's amazing, bro. Such a beautiful place, right, and Davao storytime, the wild boar love pumpkin and sweet potatoes. They ravaged our batch last year. Yeah. But like Thomas was saying the wild boar do also as they're digging that is good for the soil. So that's another way nature is is helping to keep the soil healthy. I'm hoping Thomas will get back on. And join us again in a minute. But that might be all for today. It was wonderful to visit his farm. If you are in Onomichi area of Hiroshima. You should definitely get over there and visit. I'll show you the website for pitchfork farms. And then we'll sign off. I'm sorry, we've lost Thomas. You can find pitchfork farms on Facebook. And he and county. His partner, they often update their information on Facebook, and Instagram. Oh, sounds like he's back. Are you back?

Can you hear me?

Yeah, you're back. We thought we lost you.

Can you hear me?

I can hear you. Yes.

Well, I'm on the computer now. Okay, great. Yeah, sorry about that. I'm sorry. Oh,

no, I was just asking you anything we didn't talk about then you left. It was just too difficult of a question. So Yeah,

I had to get back to the farm, you know? Yeah, you know, right now, we, you know, we will, we will continue to have different events on the farm. So please check out our either Facebook page or check out our website, we are going to be offering tours this year, we were kind of limited to our markets, just because of our work schedule. But we will continue. And hopefully by fall, we can open up to the new property. That's our that's kind of what we've got in mind. So, you know, please check us out, either on our website, Facebook, Instagram, and you know, just keep farming is through the through the summer, try to beat the heat somehow.

Yeah. Do you think that your new idea of having the trees and the plants together, maybe not helping so much this year, but it will help in the coming years?

Yeah, into the future? Absolutely. You know, we look forward to when this place really starts to fill out with some of these new trees that we've put in. And I'm also experimenting with new varieties. And not just citrus, but just so many types, just to see what grows because these days, with the climate, we really don't know, you know, and in the greenhouse this year, I'm going to try, you know, when they go on sale at the home center, I want to get maybe some bananas, some early maturing banana varieties, probably do some papayas. Again, you know, give this place a little bit of a tropical feel, because it certainly starts to feel like that come July and August. And then, yeah, we're just gonna see how how things grow. And yeah, so

I saw your banana tree when I was there, I was surprised you could grow bananas.

Well, we it'll fruit in a flower. But to get a ripened fruit is it's not possible with this variety. But they're constantly putting out new varieties. And some of the varieties I think that they put in the home center would allow you to maybe some dwarf varieties would allow you to actually get a fruit from the banana. And I was at the one of the local seed and plant shops today talking about avocados. So but avocado trees are really expensive. In Japan, it's about 8000 yen for one tree, and you need to. So if you grow 10, you're going to need about Hachiman and

I am trying to grow avocado every time I eat an avocado, trying to grow that seed every single time never works

you so you need I don't know if you've seen but if you take like a cup of water and you put some prongs in it, and eventually it'll sprout my neighbor, she sprouted three for me this past year. And I put them in the ground just the other day. So

I spreaded one over the years like that, and then it died the first winter, so maybe something that you can bring in or Yeah,

yeah, maybe put it in the pot. And after about two years, but you know, depending on the area, I noticed that this year, our neighbor definitely had some browning from the on the leaves. So but only partially so she didn't lose it at all. And maybe as you think about where you plant it or where you put it, you know putting it in a really warm space or possibly next to some kind of insulated wall. So that insulation will then radiate off. Or maybe for our in our case, we might put it next to like a large tank of water because that will provide some you know, insulation for the tree itself as it's starting to grow. But after a few years, they should be able to maintain themselves. The two we the three we put in this year. Two out of three seem pretty good. And we put them next to one of our smaller greenhouses so if we need to wrap it up or maybe even considered adding some you know, insulation on it. At some point we might have to do that.

That would be amazing devil kados In my monthly box. Yeah. recommend to everybody sign up for one of Thomas's monthly boxes if you live in Japan. It looks like two or 3000 for a monthly box and you can ship it anywhere in Japan right?

Yeah, yeah. Going forward. We're going to be shipping using cool been. So yeah, but yeah, three, it's about 3000 yen. You can go upwards of 5000 yen for your box. So if you've got a larger family, or you eat, you know, a pound of kale Every day,

and I love how you wrap everything is that just for me everything in newspaper.

So we try to Yeah, we try to, it really depends on the on the customer. And it depends on the product too, I've noticed that we were able to get some of these paper bags as well. So we're going to start doing that. But sometimes we'll be able to wrap a newspaper and I really am hoping to find more links and more products. I know with tomatoes this year, I really want to get some, like, some kind of paper container that we can put the tomatoes in. So that's one thing I need to be looking at right now. Because pretty soon we'll be harvesting tomatoes too. So Oh,

can't wait for my next box. You also hinted there might be some sheets. My next box, I love she Yes,

I need to I need to check. Check the logs. And I think yeah, we'll be able to send those out. As

I said, we got some great comments here at the end. Jamie says, if she's in Hiroshima, can she look you up?

Yes, you can. So and if you want to come do a visit at the farm, you can book that online, that's fine. Or you can send us a message directly if you want to spend. And typically our tours run about an hour, hour and a half, and they include some produce. And if you're interested in staying and doing some volunteers on the day, volunteer work on the day, then, you know, we wouldn't charge for the tour and we just see if you can lend a hand and help us feed our sheep. That's that's all we ask.

So you can find pitchfork farms on Instagram On Facebook. And you also have a YouTube channel there. You

know, my wife does my wife has had. So you can she did that up until just this past year. And she's got, I think about 10 to 15 videos in Japanese uploaded and some of them focus on the farm. But the again, that theme that Isha could do clothing, food shelter. theme is really a big part of her presentation. So check that out. That would be great.

Yeah, awesome. Enrique says Thanks, Thomas was amazing to know your history. I hope to visit you in the future. Thanks, JJ, for connecting us with amazing people. I really love making new friends. Awesome. Enrique. Thank you. Dave says he wants to sign up for your monthly box. Awesome. Please. Yeah, that's a great way to get some stable support. Right. As a farmer.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You know, we've mostly, um, because nowadays with markets, you know, being kind of up in the air, sometimes they just get canceled suddenly. And we've, you know, put the work in already. We've ordered the seeds, we've ordered the fertilizer, so yeah, getting that kind of support is really great. It's, it's most of what supports the farm and continues, allows us to continue the activities we're trying to do into the future. So any, any support there would be amazing. Yeah, thank you.

Well, thank you so much, Thomas. There's so much that you're doing of course, so important for sustainability. We need more farmers in general, but we need more farmers who think like you in such a regenerative, circular way. So thank you for everything you're doing. It's wonderful.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. And thanks, you know, sure sharing our story with so many people. I think it's been really great. So thank you and yeah, see you again soon.

Yeah, I can't wait to come and visit and help on the phone when I can. Yeah, see you awesome. Thanks, everyone for joining take care see you next time.