I just wanted to vent a bit and ask if anyone else feels the same way.

Around here, there are hundreds of greenhouses, all covered in plastic, and hundreds of piles of old, dirty, UV degraded greenhouse covers (when the people don't decide to burn them- usually with the wind blowing towards my house). I ride my bike past fields covered with black plastic mulch- I just hope it is the new biodegradeable type- but I doubt it. My neighbors wanted to grow tomatoes. So they built a rain cover for them out of plastic. Everywhere I look, I see plastic in peoples gardens. Has everyone around me forgotten how to garden without it? Even the seed packets give instructions- "Start in February in a plastic tunnel."

I am pretty sure that preaching won't help, and the Agricultural Co-op (Japan Agriculture) seems to own large amounts of stock in the companies that make the greenhouse plastic (and pesticides, and herbicides...).

Maybe I should just write a book for people and explain that the natural season for strawberries in Japan is not in January!!!! (and people wonder why they cost $20 a pint)

Thanks everyone. I just had to vent a bit.

Happy homesteading!

Eric in Japan