Balcony mint is unstoppable

ベランダのミントが止まらない！　モヒート用に、だれか新鮮のミントがいりませんか？

Does anyone need fresh mint for a mojito?

Balcony cutting garden brings mint and flowers indoors

ベランダの庭からの切り花がすてきです。室内は、ミントもいいです。史火陶芸教室の友だちが作った花瓶をよく使います。ガラスの花瓶はペンシルバニア州のリサイクルショップで買いました。

I like the idea of using balcony plants indoors. This mint and bright flower are from my cutting garden.

The ceramic vase was made by a friend and fellow student at Shiho ceramic studio, the glass one picked up at a Pennsylvania thrift store.

Mint flowering in the late afternoon sun

突然、ベランダのミントに紫色の花がたくさん咲きました。午後遅くの日光に、葉は金と赤い色になります。秋の瞬間です。

My mint is suddenly full of purple flowers. And in the late afternoon sunlight, the leaves turn gold and red. It’s a fall moment.

I love having herbs on my city balcony: for cooking, for scent, and for variety. Mint is ridiculously easy to grow, and I hope the seeds travel and plant themselves somewhere nearby.

Even a small garden can have many layers

みんなは小さいなベランダに１００種類 以上の植物があると聞いて、驚いています。このクローズアップの中に、盆栽が三個、多肉植物が二個、それからミントもあります。スペースが小さいけれど、可能性は大きいです。

People are surprised when I tell them that I have at least one hundred plants on my small Tokyo balcony. It sounds like a lot, but actually it’s easy to accumulate. Even a small garden can have many layers. I was aiming my camera at the fairly large bonsai in the center, made by my friend Matthew. It has two types of grasses, two types of mosses, and a fern. Some neighboring mint is stretching above that singularly planned assemblage. And at the bottom left are two small succulents in a flowerpot with drawings from my mother-in/out-law. There’s also a trunk and leaf from two neighboring bonsais. That’s at least ten plants in this one close-up.

Planted mint on balcony during nuke crisis

切り花としてもらったミントが根をのばして、育ちました。ミントの強い匂いはぼくたちを放射能から守ってくれるでしょうか。

Two weeks after the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis, I looked at the thick roots growing at the base of the mint cuttings, and wondered what to do. I waited several days.

The first week, the Fukushima nuclear plant’s reactors, 220 kilometers to the north, had a series of spectacular hydrogen explosions. The second week the reactors assumed the role of toxic volcanoes, venting and spraying. The third week, we mostly hear about leakage and contamination into the land and sea.

In the second week, fearful of the rain, I harvested all of my snap and snow peas. In retrospect, this seems unduly cautious. Until now there’s been no evidence of dangerous radiation levels in Tokyo, so I finally decided to plant the mint in the balcony garden.

I considered making one giant clump, but then decided it might be more fun and more fragrant to spread it around the length of the garden. Since it’s a small garden, I need to combine ornament, scent and function. Wondering if I should make mint tea, or mojitos when they bush out?

realized that the mint cuttings were getting thick with roots sitting in the glass of water in the kitchen.

Apple mint plant from “My little garden in Japan”

植物は、人と自然よりも、人と人をつなげることが多いようです。 面白いですね。Twitterの@mygardeninjapanさん、アップルミントをありがとうございます。ベランダからベランダへ。

It’s funny how plants connect you even more with people than nature. Thank you Twitter’s @mygardeninjapan for this apple mint. From balcony to balcony!

I recently met up with Twitter’s @mygardeninjapan after exchanging many online comments and thoroughly enjoying his detailed documentation of his balcony garden in Yokohama. Along with @a_small_lab and Tokyo DIY Gardening‘s Chris, we had a bento lunch in a temple garden and then a fascinating walk around the Omotesando danchi.

It was very kind of @mygardeninjapan to give us these small wooden pots with mint plants from his garden and hand-made signs with illustrated care instructions. His ladybug logo reminds me of his blog story about his efforts to attract ladybugs to his balcony garden. I am looking forward to growing and eating this mint in my balcony.