Rural Korean Agriculture, or, What Do They Grow in the Mountains?

Above: rice drying outside

Peanuts drying

A persimmon tree, a big, old one . . . smaller ones are common in rural Korea

Sesame plants being dried to harvest the seeds (which are commonly added to foods or pressed for their oil)

A mountain rice field, which, I think, was partly hand-harvested to check its readiness.  The area's farmers were in the process of using a shared mechanical harvester to gather the rice from many small plots like this one

A cabbage/lettuce field between drying sesame plants

Peppers (gochu)--as you might think, the green ones are mild where as the red ones are usually hot/spicy (at least for a westerner like me).  These peppers are ever-present in Korean food--whenever you see red in food pics from Korea, this pepper is where that red comes from.  It is usually dried, ground, and used as a powder or is made into a paste/sauce