A Lockdown Garden

In a house on Yangmingshan (陽明山), Josei Kamei grows a garden with carrots, sweet corn, tomatoes, passion fruit, okra… The story of how this garden came about is wholesome and also an unexpected result of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Taiwan.

“I was a bit bored so I found something to do”

After his landlord’s helper, who used to care for the garden in Josei’s backyard, left for the Philippines due to the unpredictable pandemic, the garden started to become overgrown with weeds. Josei decided to start caring for it. “I decided one day that I wanted to start growing my own vegetables. I had no idea how to, so I looked on Youtube.” With the extra lockdown at home time on his hands and with the help of the internet, he began to de-weed his garden and hired a gardener to turn the soil. From there, he also learned what plants were in season or which ones would grow well in Taiwanese weather. His first seedlings were planted about half a year ago; “some green-leafy vegetables”. This was a brand new learning experience for Josei since he had no experience growing plants in the past.

In the past month, Josei has attempted to make his garden more accessible and practical by putting down paving for walkways through the garden. He says that the garden and constant need for care have helped him with the stress and sedentary life that the lockdowns have to offer. “I’ve got something to do now; something to look forward to. You plant a seed and then you check up on it afterward and it gets bigger and bigger. Eventually, you can harvest and eat it.”

He has also found a lot of benefits regarding health in growing his own garden; “I’ve got a lot of time just being at home so every day I’ll be out in the garden in the sun. It’s nice because gyms are closed so it’s good exercise and I got a nice tan as well.” After only tending to his garden for a few months, Josei believes its harvest will be more than enough for himself and his family and he plans to share the fruits and vegetables with his neighbors.

His favorite out of all his plants are the tomatoes. He describes their growing process with excitement, “they started off as seeds and they kept getting bigger and bigger and now we have a whole bush of tomatoes.” The first tomato seeds were purchased at a local flower market but now Josei buys his seeds off an online site that delivers them straight to his home. As an experiment, he planted some rotten tomatoes in his garden that also grew into a plant.

Since he was a chef in his earlier years, Josei will be able to incorporate his skills into his cooking when he harvests more vegetables or herbs. “We use a lot of herbs because my girlfriend is Thai so we use a lot of that to cook Thai dishes.”

The main struggles Josei faces are “insects and pests”. “When the plants are very small they just get infested— that happened a lot actually.” His attempts to curate a natural remedy with online recipes, involving ingredients like garlic and dish soap, have not been successful but he still is on the lookout.

Josei’s lockdown garden has been an unexpected positive that arose from the pandemic. It has helped him with the struggles of staying home— providing a form of exercise and activity, and also creating an opportunity to bring friends, family, and community closer together with each harvest.