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MN: Now, you started to grow plants at a very young age. How old were you when you started to grow plants?

AK: When we were living in the hotel. Yeah, I don't know how, I guess I was about ten or twelve. In the parking lot inside the hotel, and I noticed that nobody used the corner, so I don't know who the owner was, so I start digging up the ground there and start planting things. And nobody said anything, so I just kept on planting.

MN: What did you plant?

AK: Gee, I don't know. Anything that was easy. All I had to do was just throw the seeds in there.

MN: Where did you get your seeds?

AK: Well, there's a lot of, most of the stores had small packages of seeds of lettuce and carrots and things like that, simple things.

MN: But when you first started, did somebody give you seeds to start planting?

AK: I don't know where I got the seeds. Maybe my dad got the seeds for me. He was glad I was doing that instead of doing something harmful. That's the best thing for me, so that's how I got interested in plants.

MN: What was the first flower that you grew?

AK: Zinnia, I think it was, or dahlia. Dahlia was easy 'cause it was a bulb. All I had to do was water and it'd bloom. And later on I start looking at the seed catalog, and bought this and that and tried, and a lot of 'em I didn't know how to grow 'em so it didn't survive.

MN: How about cosmos?

AK: Yeah, maybe that was the first flower I grew. It was a tall one. I still remember it was a pink one and it was tall.

[Interruption]

MN: What did your mother do with the vegetables that you grew?

AK: Whatever we didn't need, we shared with the people in the hotel.

MN: What kind of vegetables did you grow?

AK: Mostly to eat, I think, carrots and... I tried everything, but then I don't remember everything. I remember the easiest one was daikon, some kind of a nappa, I think. That's about all I remember.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.