More people growing vegetables for food safety, healing purposes

TOKYO — An increasing number of people are growing vegetables on balconies and even on a rooftop garden at a railway station to ensure food safety and for healing purposes.
   
There are now vegetable cultivation sets that come with a pot, seeds and culture soil.
   
On top of JR Ebisu Station in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward overlooking Tokyo Tower and Roppongi Hills, there is a 500-square-meter vegetable garden for rent in a corner of the roof, where a lawn and flowerbeds spread.
   
Called ‘‘Soradofarm,’’ it was opened by East Japan Railway Co, or JR East, last fall. The annual fee is 93,000 yen for a three-square-meter site and 117,000 yen for five square meters.
   
Half of all applicants for membership are successful.
   
‘‘I came here to sow seeds as it is getting warm,’’ said a 75-year-old widow whose husband underwent rehabilitation therapy on the railway station’s rooftop before his death. By touching the soil, the woman said she feels as if she is talking to him.
   
She said the broccoli and potatoes that she grew from fall to spring were ‘‘so tasty.’‘
   
Nao Sato, 31, a resident staffer at the Soradofarm garden, told her, ‘‘Why don’t you grow mint next time?’’ The membership fee covers seeding, vegetable seeds, fertilizers and rental tools.
   
Because of the convenient location of the railway station, the rooftop garden attracts various people, including residents in the neighborhood and commuters.
   
The ‘‘Garden Island Tamagawa Store’’ run by Protoleaf Corp, a culture soil manufacturer in Tokyo, is also crowded with people interested in vegetable gardening.
   
Protoleaf spokeswoman Tomoko Nishiyama said, ‘‘While flower sales are dropping slightly, seed and seeding companies are increasing the variety of vegetable seeds and seeding.’‘
   
A package of culture soil suitable for each vegetable, such as tomatoes and ‘‘goya,’’ or bitter gourd, and seeding can be directly planted there to save space. When the vegetable is harvested after one year, the package can be disposed of.
   
The store is preparing a kit for beginners containing a planter, soil and fertilizer and gives advice to customers about seeding suitable for cultivation on balconies.
   
Indoor mini-cultivation sets are also handy. Tokyu Hands’ Shinjuku store in Shibuya Ward set up a special corner for such sets until mid-April.
   
In March alone, the store sold 310 sets to grow green soybeans from seeds and 170 sets to grow enough rice for one of rice bowl.
   
A Shinjuku store official said, ‘‘There have been cultivation sets for a long time, but they were mostly for flowers. But since last year, cultivation sets for edible things have been on the rise.’’