My Daily Life (Vegetable and Fruit Picking)

I think everyone likes it, and my children also love vegetable and fruit picking. We enjoy harvesting seasonal vegetables and fruits such as mandarins, apples, strawberries, blueberries, as well as edamame, bell peppers, eggplants, and sweet potatoes.

Recently, we stayed at Hoshino Resorts Yatsugatake during the summer holidays and picked various summer vegetables. We harvested tomatoes, eggplants, shiso leaves, bell peppers, and cucumbers. Each family was allowed to pick 3 to 5 items, but we struggled to count them because we ate them right after picking them.

We harvested tomatoes in a greenhouse. The temperature and humidity were high inside the greenhouse, and we were searching for fresh, large tomatoes. Even though some children from other families started feeling unwell, my kids were munching on tomatoes until the very end. It was great to see them so healthy and lively.

We picked 3 cucumbers. The children ate one each, and the remaining one was split in half. It disappeared into their stomachs in an instant.

I had planned to barbecue the eggplants for dinner, but they ended up eating them all raw, saying “Delicious, delicious.” It’s rare to enjoy raw eggplants this way, so it felt like a wonderful experience. They even shared a bite with me, and the eggplant had a refreshing, apple-like sweetness. It was juicy and delicious.

We were able to harvest 20 shiso leaves, so there were some left. We took them home and added them to natto (fermented soybeans) for a meal.

In Tokyo, opportunities to experience fresh vegetables and fruits have become fewer. I hope my children can experience nature in its true form as much as possible.

Yoshiko Kuno