Urban Gardening and Tea
March 21, 2025
Episode Notes
Good morning, Les.
Good morning, Ed. How are you doing today?
I'm doing great. What's new?
Got my haircut.
Looking sharp.
Thanks. How about you? What's that?
Uh, that's a cup of tea.
Earl Earl Grey with honey and milk.
Now, you Japan, but you're drinking English tea.
Yes.
So, you don't have Japanese tea. I love all tea. I drink all tea. I I drink everything variety. But in the morning, typically I drink British tea. Um, but if I had to if I had to run off a quick list of my top 10 favorite Japanese teas, I would say hojicha, roasted green tea, mugicha, poly tea, matcha, soicha, what? What else? What have I missing here? Regular ocha.
Yeah.
And then udona, which I guess would be technically Chinese tea, but
I used to live in the country.
Yeah.
And my supervisor was grew his own tea.
Wow. In a garden like in his apartment.
It was in the country so it was behind his house.
Oh yeah. I got a little little tiny garden beside my house. here.
Okay.
Yeah. Little little urban gardening.
Yeah.
What are you growing there?
Um, every year is a little different. Uh, but I've now got an apple tree that I planted about four or five years ago.
Right on.
It has it has yet to produce. Um, the first year it had one apple.
Right. Right.
Um, which we ate and was Great. Then the next year it had three or four and they all got eaten by birds.
Sure. Yes.
And then the next year we had about 10 and about five of them rotted and fell off. Probably because they got eaten by bugs and things so they they went bad. But I've heard that apple trees maturity is around five or six years.
That's right. Yeah.
That's when it should just explode with a lot of of uh apples. But we'll see. I also have um I have a rose bush on one corner which kind of protects everything. Okay. Yes.
Big tough rose bush that produces beautiful flowers. And then I've got a a bed with a wall that uh for climbing. Um and every year is different, but usually cucumbers or uh cucumbers, green peppers, eggplant, um that type of thing. Peas.
They're a lot more than me.
Um and then I've got blackberries which I grew uh um which got a little bit crazy last year and we got way too many and uh they were amazing but I had to cut them back and I think I cut them back too much and killed them which is weird but we'll see.
That's too bad.
Yeah.
Yeah. A little gardening.
I um I was really lucky. I one of my students I I talk about gardening home gardening with him because he's got his own garden.
Yeah.
That was my son going to work
and uh
me too. I I've got a student who's the same. We talk about gardening.
And he told me that he gets muga, which is the Japanese ginger.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
The funny thing was he brought me a root. It was about this long.
Yeah.
And he said, "Plant it." And I planted it on my ver and lo and behold, four months later, I got a plant.
Wow. And did you
What?
Did you eat it? Did you get to eat it.
I was really lucky. Two of them came up that that you see that the muga makes the main body of the plant and then separate from that a flower comes out two or three months later,
right?
And that turns yoga and I could eat two of those.
Cool.
Yeah.
Fresh.
So I've got one on my uh veranda.
Yeah. Yeah. My my student and I we talk about urban gardening. Um actually I have one student who lives in an apartment and he grows things on his ver.
Okay. Yes.
Or on his balcony, I should say. And so, and he does really well with potted plants, but mostly he grows tomatoes and herbs.
Tomatoes is one that I should be doing. Yeah,
tomatoes you can do well in pots. Herbs are easy to grow in pots as well. Then my other student has a rental plot, a little rental garden.
Yep.
And he grows all sorts of things, potatoes and onions. ions and garlic and uh things like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Homegrown. It's the best.
I got another friend who's an urban ninja.
Really?
Yeah. And what he does, he he I can't tell you his name because it's a secret, but he secretly plants flowers all over the city in like any anywhere where there's this little brown patch of dirt that nothing's growing in, he'll just plant some flowers there. And he has he has little signs he puts in that say the name of the flower and then it says planted by urban ninja
yeah
I think I want to come up and visit your town
to see that
it's fun they pop up all over the place.
Sure. Love it.
Anyway, um I'm gonna have to get going here. I'm I've got a really busy morning today. I got a lot of work to do.
Good luck.
Cheers. Have a good day.
See you later. Bye-bye.
Good morning, Ed. How are you doing today?
I'm doing great. What's new?
Got my haircut.
Looking sharp.
Thanks. How about you? What's that?
Uh, that's a cup of tea.
Earl Earl Grey with honey and milk.
Now, you Japan, but you're drinking English tea.
Yes.
So, you don't have Japanese tea. I love all tea. I drink all tea. I I drink everything variety. But in the morning, typically I drink British tea. Um, but if I had to if I had to run off a quick list of my top 10 favorite Japanese teas, I would say hojicha, roasted green tea, mugicha, poly tea, matcha, soicha, what? What else? What have I missing here? Regular ocha.
Yeah.
And then udona, which I guess would be technically Chinese tea, but
I used to live in the country.
Yeah.
And my supervisor was grew his own tea.
Wow. In a garden like in his apartment.
It was in the country so it was behind his house.
Oh yeah. I got a little little tiny garden beside my house. here.
Okay.
Yeah. Little little urban gardening.
Yeah.
What are you growing there?
Um, every year is a little different. Uh, but I've now got an apple tree that I planted about four or five years ago.
Right on.
It has it has yet to produce. Um, the first year it had one apple.
Right. Right.
Um, which we ate and was Great. Then the next year it had three or four and they all got eaten by birds.
Sure. Yes.
And then the next year we had about 10 and about five of them rotted and fell off. Probably because they got eaten by bugs and things so they they went bad. But I've heard that apple trees maturity is around five or six years.
That's right. Yeah.
That's when it should just explode with a lot of of uh apples. But we'll see. I also have um I have a rose bush on one corner which kind of protects everything. Okay. Yes.
Big tough rose bush that produces beautiful flowers. And then I've got a a bed with a wall that uh for climbing. Um and every year is different, but usually cucumbers or uh cucumbers, green peppers, eggplant, um that type of thing. Peas.
They're a lot more than me.
Um and then I've got blackberries which I grew uh um which got a little bit crazy last year and we got way too many and uh they were amazing but I had to cut them back and I think I cut them back too much and killed them which is weird but we'll see.
That's too bad.
Yeah.
Yeah. A little gardening.
I um I was really lucky. I one of my students I I talk about gardening home gardening with him because he's got his own garden.
Yeah.
That was my son going to work
and uh
me too. I I've got a student who's the same. We talk about gardening.
And he told me that he gets muga, which is the Japanese ginger.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
The funny thing was he brought me a root. It was about this long.
Yeah.
And he said, "Plant it." And I planted it on my ver and lo and behold, four months later, I got a plant.
Wow. And did you
What?
Did you eat it? Did you get to eat it.
I was really lucky. Two of them came up that that you see that the muga makes the main body of the plant and then separate from that a flower comes out two or three months later,
right?
And that turns yoga and I could eat two of those.
Cool.
Yeah.
Fresh.
So I've got one on my uh veranda.
Yeah. Yeah. My my student and I we talk about urban gardening. Um actually I have one student who lives in an apartment and he grows things on his ver.
Okay. Yes.
Or on his balcony, I should say. And so, and he does really well with potted plants, but mostly he grows tomatoes and herbs.
Tomatoes is one that I should be doing. Yeah,
tomatoes you can do well in pots. Herbs are easy to grow in pots as well. Then my other student has a rental plot, a little rental garden.
Yep.
And he grows all sorts of things, potatoes and onions. ions and garlic and uh things like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Homegrown. It's the best.
I got another friend who's an urban ninja.
Really?
Yeah. And what he does, he he I can't tell you his name because it's a secret, but he secretly plants flowers all over the city in like any anywhere where there's this little brown patch of dirt that nothing's growing in, he'll just plant some flowers there. And he has he has little signs he puts in that say the name of the flower and then it says planted by urban ninja
yeah
I think I want to come up and visit your town
to see that
it's fun they pop up all over the place.
Sure. Love it.
Anyway, um I'm gonna have to get going here. I'm I've got a really busy morning today. I got a lot of work to do.
Good luck.
Cheers. Have a good day.
See you later. Bye-bye.