Harvest Spinach Machine

Do I Dare to Eat a Peach? Fukushima Citizens and Farmers Struggle with Food Safety

Call it slipper security. To get clearance into the food radiation testing center at Fukushima Agricultural Technology Center, you have to change shoes three times. The first time, you get a black pair. The second time, after your heels are scanned by a Geiger counter and deemed radiation-free, you change into a pair of plastic house shoes emblazoned with a yellow nuclear symbol. And finally, before entering the testing lab itself, the indoor footwear urgency rating is kicked up a notch with a red nuclear label.

No precaution is too small when the eyes of the nation are on you. Since June 20, local government officials have been trying to make sure every kind of food grown, slaughtered or caught on a line in Fukushima prefecture has been brought to this laboratory to be tested for iodine 131 and cesium 137 and 134. All three radioactive elements were spewed into the atmosphere after the explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in March, settling across the bucolic countryside surrounding the plant in a tasteless, odorless and potentially toxic dust. The exact amount and degree of the contamination is still unknown, but the radiation has shown up in local foods like shitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, fish, beef, and spinach, among others.

Every day at the lab, government employees fan out to Fukushima farms to gather samples from the fields. In a clean, white room that smells like fresh cucumber and onion, workers in grey jumpsuits and latex gloves use long razor blades to mince everything from apples to beef to rice into a fine roux. The specimens are then ferried in small plastic containers into the lead bellies of the four-foot-tall analysis machines, where, after 33 minutes, the verdict comes in on an adjacent computer screen. Since June, as many as 5000 samples have been analyzed before shipping out to consumers around Japan.

Most have been well below the legal limit of 500 becquerels of radiation per kilogram. But is ‘most' enough? In July, reports surfaced that beef shipped out of the Fukushima region and distributed widely around the nation contained cesium levels well above that limit. The cattle, which the local government says had been tested externally for radiation, were evidently given irradiated feed. Today, beef shipments from Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Tochigi prefectures have been banned until new inspection plans for cattle are submitted and approved by Tokyo.

The Fukushima government initiated the testing program to prevent this kind of thing from happening. But with four machines, ten staff trained to use them and hundreds of miles of farmland to monitor, the task is overwhelming. (The center recently got the greenlight to purchase six more machines, which are made by the U.S. company Canberra, but is still waiting on their delivery.) Samples of local beef were being tested before the irradiated shipments were discovered, but radiation was not detected, says Kiichi Tairako, the general manager for the promotion of agricultural safety at the center.

Vegetables that Enjoy the Cool, Early Weather of Spring | Machine ...

There’s a tradition of planting the first peas on St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t always get to take part in that tradition because of the snow covering my vegetable garden. However even in years when I managed to get out there early, the peas I planted in April quickly caught up to the peas I planted in March. They might like it warmer than freezing, but they don’t like heat. So don’t miss the opportunity. Get out their and plant a crop of shelling peas or snow peas or sugar snap peas… Growing Snap Peas

Spinach is a cool weather lover and it grows extremely quickly – which means you don’t have to wait long to enjoy it, but you’ll also have to keep planting new spinach, to extend the harvest. Getting spinach to grow is easy. Keeping your spinach growing takes some finesse. But it’s worth it. Fresh spinach is crisper, tangier and more tender than any you’ll find in a cellophane bag. And it can grow in the shade of crops that will be taking off just as your spinach fades. Growing Spinach

Article borrowed from About.com, written by Marie Iannotti. Read the full article here.

LOVE asparagus and planted a huge area at an old house. Ended up selling the house a year later so I never got to have any. Planted a huge strawberry garden that same year and never had any of them either.

this year I have a tomato plant that was started from seed and given to me about a month or more ago. It was about an inch tall when given to me in this huge planter. I’ve been babying it ever since and put it into my kitchen window and am very shocked my cat hasn’t eaten it yet but the plant is now about 10 inches tall. I’m almost wondering if it likes it there so well that maybe I should try growing it inside. LOL Wonder if that would work.

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