Gunma · ShimonitaNo.1009★★★Open in map →
Shimonita Negi
— Gunma's short, thick winter leek
A leek grown in one small basin in western Gunma, short and thick where other leeks are long and slim, fierce raw and sweet once it is cooked. The town it is named for sits at the end of a timber-stationed private railway.
- FromTakasaki Station
- ~60 minJoshin Line to the last stop
- Get off atShimonita Station (Joshin Dentetsu Joshin Line)
- On foot
- Shimonita Negi
Where it is
20 more notes in Gunma · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- The timber terminus buildingwooden station house at the end of the Joshin Line, picked for the Kanto station hundred
- The yard behind the platformswide sidings left over from the years the line carried freight
- Nakamachi-dorithe old through-road out front, and the street the leek festival takes over
- Honseiji and the Tengu-to headquarters sitestops on the town's own walking course through the old quarter
- Hotaruyama Parka hillside park above the town, reached on foot from the station
How to actually get there
- Takasaki Station, platform 0 → Shimonita Station (Joshin Dentetsu Joshin Line, about 60 min; the terminus, no changes).
- Look over the timber station house and the wide yard before leaving the forecourt.
- Out to the old road in front, which the town's own walking course follows through the old quarter.
- Return the same way to Takasaki; ask about the last departure when you arrive, not at the end of the day.
- Joshin Dentetsu from Takasaki to the end of the line
- Takasaki Station, platform 0 →(Joshin Dentetsu Joshin Line, about 60 minutes)→ Shimonita Station, the terminus. One train, no changes. The line is single track and services are spaced out, so read the timetable before you fix the day.
- Back to Takasaki on the same line
- The same Joshin Line runs east to Takasaki, where the Shinkansen and the JR lines are. Staff are on duty at Shimonita through the day, so ask about the last departure when you arrive rather than at dusk.
About the place
Shimonita lies in a basin at the western edge of Gunma, ringed by ridges, with the Kabura River cutting through it. The leek grown here is a single-stem kind that does not divide, and the white part swells past four centimetres across while the stem stays stubby. Getting it there takes about fifteen months from sowing, with a lift-and-replant stage in early summer that few other crops ask for. The soil has to carry clay and grit; light volcanic ground will not give the shape. Almost all of it comes off the terraced fields east of the town.
How to enjoy it
The leek is a cold-season crop: harvest runs from the end of autumn into winter, and outside that window the town has little of it to show. The Shimonita Negi Festival is timed to the peak and takes over Nakamachi-dori and the konjac workshop grounds. Services on the line are not frequent, so a morning arrival leaves the afternoon open.
Background & history
The oldest trace of the leek is a letter dated 1809, in which an official serving a shogunal retainer in Edo asked a village headman for two hundred stems, and quickly. That standing in the capital is why it is still called the lord's leek, though the sources disagree on how the nickname really began. Cultivation came down from the slopes to the flat ground at Mayama, east of the town, in the Taisho years, and that district is still the main growing area. The railway reached the town in 1897 and the line has ended here since.
Before you go
- Cash
- Joshin Dentetsu is a private railway, separate from JR, so a JR ticket or rail pass does not cover it. Buy at Takasaki. Carry cash as well, since the smaller counters in town do not all take cards.
- Before you go
- The leek belongs to the cold half of the year, so a summer visit will find neither fields in crop nor stock on the shelves. Mornings in the basin turn cold once the season starts. The festival day fills both the street and the trains.
- Another way
- By car it is a short run off the Joshin-etsu Expressway at the Shimonita interchange. Joshin Dentetsu lists free rental bicycles at the terminus and allows bicycles aboard some daytime services, which opens up the valley beyond the town.
- After you get off
- Shimonita is the last stop and the point itself, so the timber station house is the first thing to look at. Step out of the ticket gate and the old through-road runs straight ahead into the town.