Returning Home and Discovering Mashua Tubers

I recently returned home from India, and today I finally got to dig down under the remains of my Mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum) plants to find their hidden treasure - the elusive tubers!

Anyone whose ever grown potatoes will know the thrill of digging up your first spuds of the season... you never know quite what you'll uncover until you dig deep and eagerly claw back the earth - where you had planted just one little potato there now lies many beautiful, delicious little jewels! There's always something miraculous about that, and I had the same feeling when digging up my Mashua tubers this morning.

Having enjoyed eating the leaves all summer and watching the plant clamber wildly, growing many meters high and wide, finding the tubers just felt like a bonus. I threw a big one straight in the oven and waited 45 minutes, wondering what it might taste like.

When it came out, the first thing that struck me was its distinctive smell - very sweet, my family all agreed it had a certain vanilla like scent. The flesh was soft and juicy, like a Jerusalem Artichoke and it's taste was not unlike it's smell - sweet and aromatic. The skin however must be the bit that some find less palatable - it has a curious raddishy kind of hotness that might take some getting used to... but until then you've always got the sweet fleshy inside to enjoy.

A great success - perhaps my favourite plant I've grown so far. For more on the Mashua, see the full article near the bottom of my page.

I received my mashua tubers from a plant swap by post and would love to share them with others in this way. If you have nothing to swap then a few quid would be greatly appreciated.

The Blue Sausage Tree - Decaisnea fargesii

Who says that sausages don't grow on trees?

Also known as the Blue Bean - the names refer to the bizarre fruits, that really look like they're from another planet!

The blue sausages you see are indeed edible! Open one up and you will find lots of large black seeds covered in slimy flesh. My favourite way to eat them is to open the pod like a broad bean and take a mouthful of flesh and seeds, then spit out the seeds, which are very hard. The flesh has a sweet and delicate flavour, it reminds me a little of watermelon. It is more of a novelty fruit than a staple crop but it makes a fascinating and beautiful little tree.

I feasted on lots of blue sausages at the Plants for a Future sight in Cornwall. They're ripe in September, and the tree is often heavy with fruit. I saved the seed and have germinated many little seedlings in July - they are 10-15cm tall now and have done really well given the short growing season I gave them.

This tree grows quickly up to about 4m x 4m, sometimes it can also form a shrub.  They are easy to grow, being very hardy, but need a moist soil with reasonable drainage. It's better to offer them a little shade and compromise fruiting than to allow the ground to dry out in full sun.

If you're interested in growing the blue sausage tree, I'd be really happy to provide you with seedlings. I have grown them in root trainers so they should grow away really well. Probably best to plant them outside after the last expected frosts though, as they're still very young.

As always I'd be delighted to swap a plant with you, or for a small sum of your choice! They're self fertile so you only need one tree.

The American Persimmon - Diospyros Virginiana

You've probably seen the big Oriental Persimmons (aka. Sharon fruit, kaki, Diospyros kaki) in the supermarket - they need a lot of sun and warmth to ripen well and are normally shipped in from the Mediterranean or parts of Asia. But not many are aware that we can grow a similar fruit successfully in Britain.

The American persimmon is very closely related to the kaki but doesn't need the same kind of long hot summers to ripen the fruit. The fruits are much smaller - about the size of a cherry tomato but can be born in profusion. It's still early days trialling this fruit in the UK, but they should do well in the southern half of England, since they ripen well in London and the Westcountry - sometimes needing a frost to bring out their full sweetness.

When they're ready though - they are said to be rich and delicious - Ken Fern raves about them in his book Plants for a Future.

Quite an easily grown tree - it will grow well in most well drained soils (it dislikes waterlogging). It grows moderately fast, up to 15metres in the UK and bears fruit at just a few years old. For the best fruit production, give them a warm, sheltered site. Once mature it is a very hardy tree (down to -35C) but it can be a little tender in its first couple of winters, so best to give it some protection/grow inside during this time.

  The species is dioecious - the trees are either male or female - though some say thatthe female tree can produce seedless fruits in the absence of a pollinator. Probably best to plant both male and female trees for good crops though. 

I was lucky enough to find a huge and beautiful female American Persimmon (20metres tall) growing in the botanical gardens of Paris in September - in full fruit.

Though the summers are hotter in Paris, the fruits were almost ripe in September (so I'd guess would be ready by November in the UK)

I collected masses of fruits, and germinated about 30 seeds. This is far more than I intend to plant so have many spare. I've grown them in root trainers and they look very healthy at about 20cm tall, despite little feeding.

If you're interested, I can post out the seedlings in February in return for a plant swap or for a small price that you feel is suitable.

A commercial crop in America:
 



Check out plants for a future for more details on this tree:

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Diospyros+virginiana

Tropaeolum tuberosum - The Mashua

This is one of my favourite plants I've grown this year.

I did a plant swap with a lady in Scotland, I sent her some cuttings, she sent me some of these tubers. I love these kinds of exchanges, especially when you end up with something so fascinating!

The Mashua or Anu is a perennial tuber/salad crop from The Andes. It has a long history of cultivation there and is has been an important source of food for the indigenous people. Very productive - is said that one plant can yield up to 4 kilos of tubers!

  Related to Nasturtiums, the Mashua's leaves look and taste quite similar.

I have greatly enjoyed feasting on the leaves of my Mashua's through the spring, summer and autumn! The plants are so vigorous, they produce much more leaves than you could possibly keep up with, and with a mild peppery taste, they're delicious in salads - and being milder, I prefer them to Nasturtium leaves. They must be one of the easiest salad plants you could grow.

They also make super companion plants, as they release chemicals that deter insect, nematode and bacterial pests - though be warned they don't seem able to deter the cabbage white butterfly! One of my plants was stripped bare by a huge army of caterpillars.
 I decided no to interfere and watched my huge Mashua turn into a skeleton over 3 weeks. I attribute this to the fact the plant was growing right next to my house and so the birds were too scared to come and eat the caterpillars. Try growing near a bird box - the caterpillars will make great food for baby birds!

The only other slight snag you might have with Mashuas is they not entirely hardy. Though perennial, the top growth is frost tender and the underground tubers will generally tolerate temperatures down to about -5C if well mulched. To be on the safe side, it's best to dig a few tubers up and keep them in moist sand in a cold but frost free place before replanting them in the spring.This is little trouble given how care free the plant is the rest of the time.

Mashua are super easy to grow and will certainly thrive anywhere you grow ordinary vegetables and being shade tolerant, are very well suited to the forest garden. Be warned though - they are incredibly vigorous and can grow at least 12 foot tall in a season! Give them loads of space, some support to clamber over, a little love and then just enjoy watching them rocket away!

I'm happy to be able to provide tubers - please get in touch if you'd like some! I'm always up for plant swaps or I can send you a few tubers for a few quid! :)

As always, check out Plants for A Future for more info: http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Tropaeolum+tuberosum

*and check my update on 30th December about how the tubers taste!

Discovering Forest Gardening

Walking through the woods of our farm in midsummer - you couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of life all around - from the tiniest wood sorrel to the towering oaks - the air buzzing with insects, and in exuberant bird song you could hear the joy of all nature's bounty.

On my wanders I was awe struck by the perfect design - all the different organisms living together in a harmonious symbiosis, a verdant community that seemed so vital and healthy. So self sufficient - it had probably changed very little in hundreds of years.

Seeing all of this natural fertility I wondered why man felt the need to work so hard to 'create' places to grow crops... Why were we ploughing the fields when so much fertility abounds when you leave nature to do the work for you?

So I set out on an experiment. I scattered seeds of every vegetable imaginable all around our woods, I even planted strawberry runners in the leaf mould. Needless to say these experiments were naive! Nothing grew.

The vegetables that I had sown had long been cultivated to be grown only in the full sun and super rich soil of the vegetable garden. They just couldn't cope with all the shade and competition from the already thriving ecosystem.

But I wasn't deterred. Soon after, I discovered that many others had had the same idea about this way of growing crops in harmony with Nature - and had called the system Forest Gardening!

 In a Forest Garden a diverse community of plants are carefully grown together to create a self sustaining ecosystem of edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants.

Because Forest Gardening is such a different method of growing food to the conventional vegetable garden or ploughed field, it was necessary to find a new array of crops that'll thrive in this setting and also provide us with plenty of tasty food.

Luckily pioneers like Ken Fern and Martin Crawford have already put a lot of energy into researching the trees, shrubs, climbers, and perennial vegetables that suit the Forest Garden - and these are the fascinating range of plants that this blog is devoted to - Forest Garden Plants.

Wild Strawberries covering the ground between trees - just as they would in a natural woodland: