We have been busy on the farm lately. Strawberry season has ended but strawberry plants are being planted for the next season. Hugh has been doing a lot of the fertilizer stuff…. and then not telling me until after I’ve cuddled him.

My parents-in-law’s kiwi plot is not near their house, but on the other side of the village where most of the kiwi plots are. With help from others (hello to Jenny and Olivia who came and helped ^^) the kiwis are harvested over 2 days. Kiwis here are a once a year crop so now is the time to buy the freshest kiwis! Everyone wears an apron with a pocket to put the kiwis into and then when it’s full, the bottom of the apron unzips so kiwis fall easily into the crates. Kiwis are later sorted into sizes and shipped out.

Our rice was recently harvested so Hugh filmed a little bit on the combine harvester and then later we filmed our neighbours harvesting.

You may have noticed that there were young farmers in the video. I mean younger than the average age of 70 here… It’s quite unusual to have young guys farming in the countryside. The majority of young people move to the cities and the only ones left farming are old people. These guys however, are making a documentary and have traveled the world researching farming techniques and have come back to the countryside to farm. We all wish that younger people would start moving back to the countryside and are hoping there is a movement where better techniques are used so that people can have a more comfortable life in rural Korea.

This video shows the farm getting ready for strawberry season (November to May). While other produce is dying off as the weather gets cooler, the strawberry plants are getting ready to produce super sweet strawberries.

Strawberries in Korea are very sweet but my parents-in-law’s strawberries are particularly sweet because they put a lot of effort into making sure they are extra sweet. Some other farms choose quantity over quality so their strawberries are not as sweet: be careful! The strawberries from our farm end up in department stores in Gangnam, but of course the middle man takes a big cut. The strawberries go to market first before department stores. It would be great if there was a way to sell directly and get a bigger profit but it’s not really that possible, because strawberries expire quickly and it’s a whole other business, on top of working on the farm, to do that. We may be selling some directly to some cafes and restaurants who order a lot, but the majority go to be auctioned off and then sent to department stores. The boxes usually have my father-in-law’s name on them too. Sancheong (our region) strawberries are now known to be the best in Korea, sometimes cafes have signs boasting that they have desserts with Sancheong strawberries.

I noticed our neighbours had called in extra help to get the onions harvested. Luckily my inlaws were just harvesting potatoes in a green house so the rain didn’t bother them.

These types of rainy days can be quite nice. The rain is light and there is no wind, so I can walk around with an umbrella and not get drenched. It’s nice and peaceful.

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(Click captions for English subtitles)

The main crops are strawberries and kiwi fruits, but those aren’t in season right now. These are all vegetables that we grow for ourselves, so most of what we eat is from the farm. Though one time Mr Gwon told me everything on the table was from our farm, but I held up part of an octopus and asked where the octopus plants were… We still need to buy things like meat.

Also, potatoes are really easy to grow. My mother in law always laughs in disdain when on TV there will be people selling and promoting “organic potatoes”. They are always organic because you don’t need to do anything with them here! They just pop out of the ground. Don’t believe anyone trying to sell you organic potatoes at a higher price.

On the weekend I noticed a lot of farm work was being done. There were a lot more people in the fields and I soon discovered that in order for the onion crops to be harvested family, friends and other workers are called in to help. We rode our bikes around and filmed some of the onion harvesting and some other farm work being done. We didn’t want to shove the camera in people’s faces so we mostly filmed at a distance.

Things that have also changed since our last countryside video: the concrete channels besides the fields have been cleaned out and now flow with water, wheat has been harvested and rice is now being planted in those fields, strawberry plants are left to die, potatoes are in season and being harvested, chilli plants are being grown, and kiwifruits are getting bigger but not full size yet.

I feel bad for the rejected strawberries that just get made into jam! The good quality strawberries get packed nicely and shipped off to department stores.

It is coming to the end of strawberry season. It’s so warm now that we can’t send strawberries through the post like we did before. During colder months it is easy to send boxes of strawberries overnight to friends, but not now. We will still be growing strawberries for a little longer but they will all be jam strawberries. Anyone can pick jam strawberries as well because it doesn’t matter if they get crushed.