http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/30082010/79/central-windsor-senior-grows-rice-empty-lot.html
WINDSOR, Ont. — Growing amid the weeds and rubble of an empty downtown lot are rows of rice.
It’s a world away from the rice paddies where 72-year-old Qinsi Yu grew up in northern China, and so unusual for downtown Windsor that he has to show surprised friends where he got his golden sheaves of rice.
“This year, very good,” Yu said Friday.
Last year, the quality wasn’t so good and his former rice field in a different lot was mowed down when the grass was cut. Yu lives in an apartment building so he has to find his rice fields where he can. He says he cleans up garbage in the lot so this year’s crop wouldn’t be cut.
He planted the white rice as research to show it could be done and wishes there was more interest in growing rice here. He says he’d like to send a sample to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “This year, I prove Canada can produce rice,” Yu says.
His rice patch is about the size of a small desk. There are three pots and some plants growing up from the hard ground. Without the water of a traditional rice paddy, it’s Yu who transports about four pop bottles worth of water daily from his sixth-floor apartment to the nearby lot.
Windsor did its best to provide tropical heat and humidity this summer but there wasn’t enough rain.
“I come here every day ... check,” he says before stooping to pull some weeds.
Yu got the rice seed from sister who grows rice in China. He planted the seeds first in pots in his apartment and moved them down to the empty lot in June. He’s already harvested some and the rest should be ready in about a week.
Qi Li, a settlement counsellor with the YMCA’s Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program, was at the rice plot Friday to help interpret and ask questions of Yu, who speaks little English. He came from Jinan City in northeastern China to Canada in 2003.
Li hadn’t seen Yu’s rice plot. “I’m really surprised,” she said. “I think it’s good.”
She said he estimates he’ll harvest about two kilograms of rice. It would taste fresher than the rice he could buy at the store but he won’t get a taste this year. He’s determined to save all the rice as seeds for a larger crop and share a taste then. “Next year I plant a lot,” Yu said.
WINDSOR, Ont. — Growing amid the weeds and rubble of an empty downtown lot are rows of rice.
It’s a world away from the rice paddies where 72-year-old Qinsi Yu grew up in northern China, and so unusual for downtown Windsor that he has to show surprised friends where he got his golden sheaves of rice.
“This year, very good,” Yu said Friday.
Last year, the quality wasn’t so good and his former rice field in a different lot was mowed down when the grass was cut. Yu lives in an apartment building so he has to find his rice fields where he can. He says he cleans up garbage in the lot so this year’s crop wouldn’t be cut.
He planted the white rice as research to show it could be done and wishes there was more interest in growing rice here. He says he’d like to send a sample to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “This year, I prove Canada can produce rice,” Yu says.
His rice patch is about the size of a small desk. There are three pots and some plants growing up from the hard ground. Without the water of a traditional rice paddy, it’s Yu who transports about four pop bottles worth of water daily from his sixth-floor apartment to the nearby lot.
Windsor did its best to provide tropical heat and humidity this summer but there wasn’t enough rain.
“I come here every day ... check,” he says before stooping to pull some weeds.
Yu got the rice seed from sister who grows rice in China. He planted the seeds first in pots in his apartment and moved them down to the empty lot in June. He’s already harvested some and the rest should be ready in about a week.
Qi Li, a settlement counsellor with the YMCA’s Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program, was at the rice plot Friday to help interpret and ask questions of Yu, who speaks little English. He came from Jinan City in northeastern China to Canada in 2003.
Li hadn’t seen Yu’s rice plot. “I’m really surprised,” she said. “I think it’s good.”
She said he estimates he’ll harvest about two kilograms of rice. It would taste fresher than the rice he could buy at the store but he won’t get a taste this year. He’s determined to save all the rice as seeds for a larger crop and share a taste then. “Next year I plant a lot,” Yu said.
