Micro-season 23 of 72 · Apr 25 – Apr 29

Last frost, rice shoots sprout.

Shimo yamite nae izuru

The final frosts have retreated from the paddies, and the first tender rice seedlings emerge into warming spring air.

Dawn breaks without the bite of frost for the first time in months. In the flooded paddies, impossibly green shoots pierce the still water like brushstrokes on silk, each one catching the soft morning light. The earth exhales warmth now, and everywhere there is the quiet industry of growth beginning.

Nature notes

Tree frogs have returned to the rice paddies in earnest, their evening chorus swelling as the water warms. Swallows swoop low over the flooded fields, drinking on the wing and hunting the first clouds of midges. The mountains have shed their last patches of snow, revealing slopes furred with the pale green of fresh bamboo grass.

In season

Fruits

Vegetables

Fish

At the table

01

Rice cooked with tender bamboo shoots and dashi, celebrating the last of the spring harvest before the shoots grow woody.

02

Tiny translucent icefish served alive and wriggling, a fleeting delicacy as their spring run comes to its end.

Cultural note

This is the time for nae-doko, the careful preparation of rice seedling beds that will supply the paddies for June planting. Farmers tend these nurseries with the attention of a calligrapher preparing ink, knowing that the health of these first shoots determines the autumn harvest. In some regions, families still offer prayers to Ta-no-kami, the deity of the rice fields, welcoming the spirit back from the mountains.

霜消えて 苗の緑や 水鏡

Shimo kiete / nae no midori ya / mizukagami

Frost gone at last— / the seedlings' green reflected / in the flooded field

In the evening stillness, a single heron stands motionless at the paddy's edge, waiting for what the warming water will bring.