I noticed earlier this week that the closest paddy to the road is flooded, and not from the rain that we’ve had a lot lately, so I thought it might be time for my neighbor to plant their seedlings that they’ve been growing in their garden. I stopped by yesterday after work, and was greeted by this little guy.
I saw his wife (my co-worker) working in her garden, and she thought that they might be able to get the first paddy planted by this weekend. The second paddy needs more work, the land is not cleared from last year’s crop, this one belongs to her cousin.
They’re trying something new this year, she is planning to plant some rice in her garden as well, so this is not the wet paddy, and I think it’d be interesting to see if it’d produce as good of a crop as the traditional wet rice paddy.
In Japan, it’s more high tech, the young plants that farmers have been raising in plastic covered green houses get put onto automatic planting machines, like the one pictured below (source: pacific-islander.blogspot.com).
Planting, photo by Pandabonium
Only if my neighbor has one of this, they’d finish in no time.
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May 16, 2009 at 11:25 pm
salalao
what kind of rice are they planting? sticky rice or jasmine?
May 17, 2009 at 8:47 am
Ginger
Hi salalao, they plant sticky rice, the white and purple (kao Khom) one, and planted a very small paddy at the end jasmine rice last year, but I’m not sure if they’re doing it this year or not. I was able to cover the whole process last year, but missed the beginning planting stage.
May 17, 2009 at 10:21 am
lady0fdarkness
wow.. for a minute i thought it was a rice paddy in Laos.. very cool how it’s in a garden in America. I wish my mom had this kinda land so she can plant a rice paddy too.
May 17, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Ginger
lady0fdarkness, it’s real nice to see it in stages, last year was a real treat for me, and I’m looking forward to visiting their paddies this year also.
May 17, 2009 at 1:02 pm
mozemoua
you are right, it is rice planting season. That means I need to call my aunts to see if they are starting to plant their rice yet so I can go take some pictures. They normally start at about this time.
May 17, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Ginger
mozemoua, they started a bit late this year due to the long winter, and good thing that the weather is not so bad right now, it’s not too hot so it’s good timing. We’ve a lot of rain this year so it doesn’t look like we’d be on water restriction like the previous years.
May 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm
mozemoua
Ginger, I haven’t been able to check at my aunt’s garden yet for I had been really busy and I am scared to go down to the garden by myself. ahaha. But then I hope to be able to go heck it out. I believe they normally start the planting in march. But I do agree we had a long winter this year. We’ve been getting a lot of rain this year too. Blah it’llbe raining this who weekend.
May 24, 2009 at 1:33 am
Ginger
mozemoua, I guess rain is not for everyone, but it sure makes gardeners and farmers happy.
May 18, 2009 at 1:20 pm
seeharhed
Ginger,
Wow!!! you guys sure have lots of land to grow rice. I thought most of the soil in NC area are red clay and I didn’t think would be able to grow rice there.
May 18, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Ginger
Hi seeharhed, my neighbor has quiet a bit of land, and the dirt here is red clay but surprisingly very rich because last year’s rice paddies were beautiful, especially this post here, I’d not have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself. He said that his friends here also grow rice, but I bet there are more rice paddies in CA.
May 19, 2009 at 10:31 am
seeharhed
Hi Ginger,
Yes!!! There are alot of rice paddies in Yolo County (just north of Sacramento). Majority of those rice are export to Japan and being sold at Costco. Thanks for the link to the pictures of rice field.
May 19, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Ginger
seeharhed, kind of surprised that the US export rice to Japan, but I guess there’s a lot of demand there since the Japanese eat rice and also use it to make sushi roll, I love that stuff.
May 30, 2009 at 5:18 am
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