Respect the environment
Organic first, every time. Compost what we cut. Design for less water rather than more irrigation. We would rather tell you your soil needs a season of repair than sell you a quick fix that fails in two years.
About us
A garden is the easiest
A garden is the easiest
place to meet someone.
Beppu Global Garden began as a patch of ground at Uchikamado where students and local farmers could try things out together. It is still that. The services on this site grew out of the questions people kept asking us on Sunday afternoons.
Why we exist
Sustainable farming, and the people who want to try it
Beppu is a city of hot springs, students and steep ground running down to the bay. It draws people from everywhere — and people who have moved a long way often want, quite badly, to grow something. That combination is the whole reason this place works.
On a Sunday you will find someone from Indonesia planting daikon for the first time next to a farmer who has grown it here for forty years. Nobody has to explain why that is worth doing.
0Gardening services
0Seed varieties grown
0Sapling varieties
0Towns covered
What we stand for
Three things we will not compromise on
Empower people
Every job ends with a handover and a care calendar, because the point is that you can run it without us. If a client stops needing us because they got good at it, that is the correct outcome.
Exchange, not instruction
Somebody's grandmother's method from Kerala or Vietnam is worth as much as anything in a textbook, and often works better here. The garden is where those methods get compared honestly.
How it grew
From one plot to a working service
1
A borrowed plot
A small piece of ground at Uchikamado, a handful of students, and local farmers willing to lend tools and opinions.
2
Sunday sessions
The weekly session became the fixed point: 4:00 to 6:00 PM, no booking, no fee. It has run in some form ever since.
3
People started asking
"Can you come and look at my tree?" "What do I plant on a north balcony?" The services on this site are the answers, formalised.
4
Seeds and saplings
We began propagating what actually performed in Oita rather than what the catalogues pushed, and selling it on.
5
Beyond the garden
School plots, café terraces, orchard consultancy and corporate greening days — all still funded around keeping the Sunday session free.
The commercial work funds the community work. Every paid garden we build keeps
the Sunday session free and open to anyone who turns up.
Sunday, 4–6 PM
What actually happens if you turn up
No membership, no fee, no experience needed. Wear something you do not mind getting soil on.
You get handed gloves
Someone will find you a pair and a job within about two minutes. There is always weeding, and weeding is a very good way to talk to strangers.
Whatever the season needs
Sowing in spring, watering and pest patrol through summer, the big autumn sowing, pruning and compost turning in winter.
Sometimes we cook it
When there is a glut, someone cooks. This is how most people first eat mizuna, or shiso, or properly fresh edamame.
Free diagnosis clinic
Bring a leaf in a bag. We will look at it under a lens and tell you honestly whether it needs treating or just watering differently.
Seed saving
We save and swap open-pollinated seed. Take some home — it is free, and it is adapted to this climate rather than a national average.
Fireflies in June
The annual firefly-watching evening with Beppu's Kamekame club is the one date everyone remembers to come back for.
Who does the work
A small team and a lot of volunteers
Roles rather than a hierarchy. On a Sunday everyone is just someone holding a fork.
In their words
People we have grown for
Working with
We do not do this alone
The garden only works because other people lend it land, knowledge, hands and time.
- Local farmers — who lend tools, opinions and forty years of knowing what fails here
- University students — who bring methods from twenty-eight countries and test them on our beds
- Beppu's Kamekame club — partners on the annual firefly-watching evening
- Local schools — running their own plots with our support
- Cafés and businesses — whose maintenance contracts keep the Sunday sessions free
🎓 Students & researchers
Plot access for trials, dissertation fieldwork and student-run projects. Tell us what you want to test and we will find you a bed.
🏫 Schools
Set-up, teacher training and a term-by-term growing curriculum, priced per participant so it fits a school budget.
🏢 Companies
Volunteer planting days for teams, with survival monitoring for twelve months afterwards so it is not just a photo opportunity.
The gate is open on Sunday
Uchikamado, Beppu. 4:00 to 6:00 PM, every week. Bring nothing but shoes you can ruin.