Growing 400 Onions in Japan: How I Garden Without a Backyard

Why Japanese Gardening Looks Different

Pulling a crisp carrot from the earth or snipping fresh herbs for dinner offers an unparalleled satisfaction. However, my gardening journey here in Japan looks vastly different from the lush, sprawling backyard gardens I knew back in New Zealand.

The differences start right at the foundation: land.

From New Zealand Yards to Japanese Reality

In New Zealand, especially outside the major cities, a house traditionally comes with a generous section—a proper, usable yard. Moreover, even in urban areas, homeowners expect a small lawn and maybe a corner for a veggie patch as standard. My father always had space for his tomatoes, potatoes, and a decent row of onions.

Japan, particularly where housing density runs high, tells a completely different story. In contrast, Japanese homes treat space as the ultimate luxury. Builders construct homes right up to the boundary lines. Meanwhile, developers often reduce the concept of a “yard” to a tiny concrete- or tile-covered space barely big enough for a small washing line.

In the case of my own home—absolutely nothing at all. I live in a snug, wonderful place, but the outside world meets the pavement.

Consequently, this reality pushed me to get creative. It led me to discover the wonderful, uniquely Japanese system of rental garden plots—or kashi-batake (貸し畑).

The Three Rows of Dreams: My Kashi-Batake

Instead of a backyard, I rent three small rows in a community garden space just a short bike ride from my home. It offers an incredibly pragmatic and organized solution to the lack of private land. For about 30,000 yen a year (roughly $200 USD), I secure my little slice of arable land.

It’s not much, but it’s enough, and it’s mine for the planting.

This annual fee makes my gardening an interesting balancing act: hobby or genuine method of saving money? The answer encompasses both. However, the frugal side requires meticulous planning.

Therefore, I aim to maximize the return on those three rows. This is where my strategy deviates completely from the casual gardening I observed back home. If you have a large backyard, you can afford to lose a few plants to pests or over-plant and share the bounty.

In contrast, with a small, rented plot, every square centimeter must count.

The Onion Strategy: Farming for the Freezer

A simple, cost-saving principle drives my current operation. Specifically, I focus on what I can’t easily substitute or what saves me the most money over the longest time.

Right now, that means onions. Currently, I grow around 400 onions. This sounds like an absurd amount for one person. Nevertheless, it represents a calculated investment.

I’ll harvest some around March. Then, the main crop will follow in May. This staggered timing allows me to extend the use of my limited space and ensure a continuous supply.

Additionally, this changes the game completely. Unlike many vegetables, nature designed onions for long-term, low-tech storage. I can hang them in a cool, dry place and they will last for about six months.

After that, I spend a day slicing and dicing the rest, portioning them out, and freezing them.

As a result, with my stored and frozen supply, I effectively don’t need to buy a single onion for a full year. Given how frequently I use them in Japanese and Western cooking, this creates massive, consistent savings. Furthermore, these savings easily justify a significant portion of my annual plot rental fee.

What Works and What Doesn’t

The small plot forces brutal efficiency. If a vegetable doesn’t perform well, or if its supermarket alternative simply works better, I cut it from rotation.

My successful crops this season include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Chinese cabbage. These cool-weather crops thrive in the current climate. I expect to harvest the first planting around mid-December, just as the weather starts to get too cold for substantial growth.

Immediately after, I’ll follow them with a new planting of seedlings to ensure a mid-spring harvest. Additionally, lettuce, turnips, and potatoes round out my rotation. Potatoes always deliver reliable yields, though they demand a major space commitment.

Meanwhile, I learned valuable lessons from failure: Carrots. I tried carrots and grew too many. Unfortunately, they created a preservation nightmare. The effort to clean, prepare, and store them versus the cost and quality of a store-bought bag just didn’t justify the space.

My homemade carrots tasted fine. However, the uniform, flawless carrots available in any supermarket here simply work better for general cooking. Therefore, I cut them from the rotation.

My Secret Weapon: The Indoor Seed Room

The money-saving aspect of this endeavor goes beyond the harvest. Indeed, every experienced gardener knows the hidden cost lies in seedlings and starts. This is where my tiny seed room at home comes in.

I maintain a completely indoor, controlled environment where I grow all my own seedlings. Specifically, I start my cabbages, broccolis, and onions from seed, rather than buying expensive trays of young plants.

The sheer volume of plants I produce has long since paid off the initial investment in seed trays, lights, and heat mats. Moreover, this approach saves me considerable money and ensures I always have robust, healthy plants ready. Then, I can drop them into my rows the moment I pull the previous crop.

As I transition from the late autumn/early winter harvest and move into my big spring planting, my little seed room will once again bustle with life. Hundreds of tiny seedlings will germinate under grow lights. Each one represents future meals and continued savings.

A Three-Row Victory

My Japanese garden isn’t a leisure activity. Instead, I run it as a micro-farm built on efficiency, storage life, and a clever work-around to a housing reality. Ultimately, it represents my small, three-row victory against the cost of living and a wonderful, tangible connection to the earth, even if I have to ride my bike to get to it.

For anyone in Japan facing similar space constraints, kashi-batake offers a realistic path to fresh vegetables and real food savings. Indeed, the key is treating those rented rows not as a hobby garden, but as productive farmland where every plant earns its place.