A harvesting experience in Miyazaki! Our 8 chosen experience itinerates in farm-stay facilities where you can savor the bounties of the earth

“Did you know that fully ripe green peppers are sweet, just like fruits?”
“Have you ever gone to collect eggs from a chicken coop in the garden to make fried eggs for breakfast?”
Miyazaki Prefecture is blessed with a warm climate and abundant hours of sunshine, leading to it being known as Japan’s “sunny place.” It’s a treasure trove of ingredients, where diverse vegetables and fruits are grown throughout the year. Right now, the focus in this area is on combined farm stay/harvesting experiences, which enable you to enjoy flavors that are nonexistent on a simple sightseeing trip. The taste of seasonal foods, harvested with your own hands as you smell the scent of the earth and eaten there and then, is exceptional—very different to the vegetables that you buy at the supermarket.
This article introduces some carefully selected harvesting experience/farm-stay itineraries, which I recommend for “eating, sleeping, and filling your heart” in Miyazaki Prefecture.

One of the appeals of Saito City, Shintomi Town, and other areas where there is abundant agriculture is a genuine harvesting experience with professional farmers. “You can enjoy harvesting vegetables that are so sweet you can eat them raw, including fully mature red, yellow, and green peppers (November to June), and sweetcorn, which comes into season from the end of May to June,” explained Kazumi Hashida, who is committed to the development of green tourism in Saito City and is also the owner of farm-stay facility Asahi Tei Guest House.

I was able to see a polytunnel belonging to one of the Hashidas’ relatives, who runs a green pepper farm nearby.
“’Food education’ experiences, where you can taste freshly harvested vegetables on the spot as you listen to the stories of the producer, are very popular as educational trips. At the moment, our main business is harvesting experiences with farmers and interactions through home cooking, rather than offering accommodation for individuals—if people ask us in advance, we can provide guidance tailored to seasonal vegetables.”

On the farm stay, you can join in experiences of home cooking with a farm family and learn vegetable-related information that only professionals know.
As farmers are busy during harvesting season, it’s important that you contact them and book in advance.

Kominka Hinatabokko, which you can rent as a whole building, offers the real thrill of living in the countryside: obtaining the ingredients for your dinner from the garden.
You can harvest vegetables and tree-grown shiitake from the nearby fields, wash off the mud, and cook with them as they are to enjoy their taste. The experience of collecting fresh eggs from the chicken coop to use for breakfast is also very popular.
You can have fun cooking your meals on the irori sunken hearth in the house or the kamado ceramic stove outside, and chop firewood to heat the water for your bath in a fire-heated tub, known as a "Goemon bath"—leave behind your convenient modern life and enjoy the lifestyle of the past here.

Even if you visit in January, there are still cabbages, red-leaf lettuces, spring onions, daikon, broccoli, and other vegetables growing in the fields, and you’ll find chestnuts still in their burrs and a Japanese honey-bee hive under the huge chestnut tree. There are also kumquat, lemon, persimmon, chocolate vine, and banana trees here, so you can harvest different fruits in accordance with the season.

“Please collect the foods from over there to eat,” the owner told me. This is a stay inspired by the owner’s wish for staying guests to enjoy the bounty of nature.

First, check what’s in season in Miyazaki! For example, from winter to spring it’s green peppers and root vegetables, in early summer you’ll find corn and berries, and in fall you can enjoy chestnuts and rice—the delicious flavors that you encounter in the season of your visit can completely change, and that’s one of the appeals of a farm stay.
Plus, the key to making the best memories is good “communication in advance.” Farmers work with the weather and the busy harvest periods, so make sure you book and talk to them beforehand. The better you get on with your host, the more exciting your visit will be, so make it truly special!