English Diary: Allotment or Jardin Partagé in Tokyo 20220518 #2-96

Hello everyone. Welcome back to my channel. My name is Mai, and this is Nomadonomado’s English diary for the 18th of May 2022.

This morning I went for a walk with my dad to the park nearby, and on the way back, we found the sharing garden for growing vegetables.

Community garden or allotment, I should say, is very common in Montreal, Canada, where we used to live. Montreal is a big city, and many people live in small apartments which don’t have enough space to grow plants. Allotments, which is called Jardin partagé in French in Montreal, allow those gardening lovers to grow vegetables and flowers easily by themselves.

I remember my dad told me that he was interested in growing vegetables. So, I thought it would be nice if my parents could rent the space to do gardening because their balcony is too small to grow any plants.

However, I have to say it’s not cheap. As soon as we came back home, I researched the sharing garden. We had picked up the leaflet from the garden that we passed by.

It’s because here is Tokyo, the densest place in Japan, but even so, it’s way too expensive in my opinion. Growing vegetables in allotments is a luxury in Tokyo.

I did further research and found out that there are allotments which are organised by the government as well, which is much cheaper even though it would be a bit far from our house. But it’s very competitive. There are so many people who want to have one that you have to win the lottery. Also, they only announce and call for applicants of the year in January, so it’s too late for us to apply. We need to wait until next season anyway.

Alright, that’s all for today. Thank you for listening as usual, and I will be happy to receive your comments, feedback and questions. Additionally, let me remind you that you can find today’s script in English on my website, nomadonomado.com

Thank you very much again, and I will talk to you soon. Until then, goodbye!