Oca - The Plot Thickens

I spent this morning planting out oca varieties at a secret location in the Tamar Valley. Secret in the sense that I doubt I'll be able to find my way back there again without assistance. I'm not renowned for my infallible sense of direction and it gets worse when I'm driving. I was merely tailgating Dave, my guide and assistant for this escapade. Luckily he knew where he was going. I'm borrowing a plot on the field that Dave and fellow members of HaMAS (no, not that Hamas) use for their community supported agriculture project.

They're a motley bunch (the ocas I mean), mainly ones I've grown from seed, plus a few old favourites and others raised by Frank van Keisbilck and Debs & Carl Legge. I thought there were about 120 of them, but it turns out there were 133.  This probably makes this the most biodiverse patch of oca in the whole of the Tamar Valley. And there's still the small matter of a few more as-yet uncatalogued tubers sitting outside my back door - the fruits (or should I say roots?) of the volunteer seedlings of 2012. The grand total must therefore be approaching 150. This is far too few to really get oca breeding off to a flying start, even though I struggle (read: fail) to maintain them properly and keep accurate records. If some philanthropist with a horticultural bent would like to support my efforts, I'm open to offers; I would certainly be delighted to adopt a more systematic approach to record keeping and give oca breeding the attention it so richly deserves.

I'm intending to lift all the varieties together in the autumn, but earlier than usual, to see whether any of them show signs of precocious tuberisation. I keep saying I'll do this every year and then I don't manage it. I'm pretty sure I've come up with various other excuses to over the years, some of which may even have been genuine. I'm blaming my failure to do so last year on the very wet weather. When I finally got around to harvesting the 2012 crop, scenes reminiscent of the Somme ensued. Intellectually I knew that I wanted a day-neutral oca, now I know it in a damp, numb-fingered and mud-caked sort of a way - I'm not even sure that I've got the mud out from under my fingernails yet. No, the fact is, we need varieties that tuberise at a sensible time of year. The simplest and possibly best way, to my mind at least, is to sow thousands of seeds and select the best plants for further evaluation: my efforts are just the beginning of the beginning as far as I'm concerned.

What 133 oca tubers look like planted in a field. 

Dave kindly offered to dig the trenches (oca, not Somme-sized), which he did with great enthusiasm; my job was to place the tubers carefully in them, backfill and label them. I suggest that, should the gods be kind and a harvest obtained, Dave be served a splendid ceremonial oca meal in recognition for his heroic efforts; if it weren't for him, I'd be out in the field right now, planting ocas in the pouring rain, which if you haven't tried it, is surprisingly unenjoyable. In fact, just as the last tubers went in, the rain began to fall in the kind of quantities that make gardening thoroughly unpleasant; what had been fine tilth quickly transformed into sticky, boot-clogging clay - the plot literally thickened before my eyes and beneath my feet.  My work being done, I retreated to the car; Dave had left a short while earlier due to another engagement. A good morning's work and I eventually found my way home - which in itself is something of a result.

Yacon: Don't Try This at Home

If you thought I was late harvesting the maukas, get a load of this: the 2012 yacon harvest only just being lifted. This really isn't the done thing and I cannot recommend it as a sensible course of action if you want to keep your yacons going from season to season. Nevertheless, they seem to have survived. It was also an opportunity to have a look at the roots of the hybrid yacons (Smallanthus x scheldewindekensis), whose story is told here and here. True yacons are on the right, hybrids on the left. That's a matchbox for scale.

The hybrids have produced long, carrot sized and shaped storage roots, which fan out horizontally in all directions, somewhat like an iron-pumping Eremurus bulb. They're much smaller in diameter than proper yacon roots and not as sweet, with a slightly more resinous taste. Oh well. It was probably a little unrealistic to hope for anything better, but there's no reason why they couldn't be used in a yacon breeding programme to add some new qualities to the genepool. In the Grand Yacon Winter Wipeout of 2010 for instance,

Hybrid yacon roots

they survived, whereas the true yacons didn't, perhaps indicating some extra cold tolerance not found in the true species; that would be well worth having. And unlike the Jerusalem artichokes, they don't seem to blow down all the time when it gets windy - quite impressive considering their stature. Maybe those horizontal storage roots act like guy ropes and give them extra stability.

Small but perfectly formed proper yacon root

In any case, they are enormous plants, towering at three metres or more in height. I put this down to heterosis - hybrid vigour - which often occurs when plants are crossed. No seeds have been set to date, sterility being another common occurrence with hybrid plants; they certainly flowered profusely though, despite the miserable weather last summer. But this summer is going to be different, right?

Apios americana: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Hopniss

Although the weather outside is frightful, sowing seeds is so delightful - especially when they're hopniss seeds. These recently germinated. Due to an administrative error involving germplasm leakage over the floor, they're a mix of two varieties - 'High Point' and 'Deerfield River', which have featured previously on this blog. Although the triploid varieties occur further north than the diploid ones and are generally more vigorous, they're sterile, which leaves the would-be breeder up a bit of an evolutionary cul-de-sac. With these (relatively) northern adapted diploid varieties, it might be possible to come up with something better suited to our climate and then start crossing and selecting the progeny. While I have life and liberty, I will do my best to pursue the goal of productive hopniss.

Bulbous Belly Border 2) Triteleia laxa: a Basketful of Brodiaeas

On a recent visit to west Cornwall, the weather turned particularly nasty - with  a powerful, chilly wind and heavy, horizontal rain, punctuated by stinging hail showers.  Rather than walk the dunes near the appropriately named town of Hayle and enjoy the warm spring sunshine as had been our intention, I took cover in a large garden centre. With the rain steadily drumming on the roof above my head, I wandered over to the bulb stands, where all sorts of exotic (and insanely cheap) bulbs were displayed in brightly coloured packs.

My rooty radar immediately picked up on the presence of copious quantities of Brodiaea 'Queen Fabiola' a pretty blue-flowered Californian bulb, or more correctly a corm - and an edible one at that.  As the voles saw fit to devour the entire 2012 camas crop, I felt as though I deserved a consolation prize. These fitted the bill nicely.

This plant, more correctly known as Triteleia laxa, was an important food source for many native peoples in northern California. It seems that mixed bulb gardens of this and other edible species were carefully managed to maximise their productivity. Regular harvesting and soil disturbance increased the rate at which the plants produced offsets: a well-stocked bulb garden benefited from human intervention. I bet they looked beautiful too - imagine a veg garden composed of a glorious mix of  Dichelostemma, Perideridia, and Brodiaea, all in full flower. How they achieved this without mousetraps is anybody's guess.

Although on the small side, I've read that the corms are delicious, with a sweet, nutty taste, both raw and cooked. They are still gathered by the Kashaya Pomo people, who boil them, although in the past they were cooked in leaf lined earth ovens in a similar manner to camas.
Aside from numerous native names, Trietelia laxa has a few colourful English ones too: Ithuriel's spear, triplet lily, wally basket and grass nut. 'Indian potato' is also  a name applied to this and a host of other bulbs and roots too.

As all scholars of Milton's Paradise Lost will know, Ithuriel was an angel sent by Gabriel to unmask Satan in the Garden of Eden. The horned one was incognito as a toad, whispering bad stuff in Eve's ear. Ithuriel prodded him with his spear and he was forced to drop the disguise and hightail it out of Eden. And the link with Triteleia is? Perhaps something to do with the spear-like appearance of the unopened flower stalk. That and a vivid Victorian imagination, I suspect. 'Grass nut' is a more practical, if somewhat more prosaic name, as the thin foliage does look quite grass-like. As for 'wally basket', I'm at a loss to explain its derivation. Maybe someone can help me.

The variety most commonly available, in Europe at least, is 'Queen Fabiola', with attractive dark blue flowers. The name commemorates the Dowager Queen of Belgium, who has recently been embroiled in a tax evasion scandal that has rocked the nation. No more heroes anymore.... Fabiola is also the patron saint of divorced women and nurses - and why not? They need a patron saint as much as anyone else.

There are other varieties, which I've yet to see, but might gladden the heart of the avid corm consumer: take 'Sierra Giant', for instance - said to be polyploid (bigger corms as well as flowers, perhaps?) and 'Humboldt Star', which produces very few offsets, resulting in "huge" corms (yes please!). All of this suggests that there is enough variation occurring in the species to consider a programme of sowing and selection to come up with a fab new variety specifically for eating, assuming they are as good a food as the reports suggest. The packet promotes them as "miniature agapanthus", which is probably pushing it, but as well as being edible, they make good cut flowers. In fact, removing the flowers might lead to the formation of bigger corms. Unlike camas, where the main storage carbohydrate is inulin, Triteleia corms are starchy, providing the eater with useful calories with every thrust of the digging stick.

When the weather allows, I'll plant them in a little patch of their own at Oca Acres. As pocket gophers and various other tunnelling critters seem to enjoy them in their native habitat, I fully expect our voles and mice to quickly add them to their diet. I'll keep a few in a pot in the back yard, where the voles at least don't dare to show their faces.  I'm also considering planting a few amongst the cacomitls to see whether I can create my very own mixed species bulb garden and to hell with the clashing colours.

When it comes to reports as to the edibility of various obscure roots, bulbs and corms, I tend towards the scepticism of Missourians with their homeland's unofficial title as the "Show Me State". Before instigating a run on 'Queen Fabiola' stocks around the country, I felt I really ought to put the claims of their palatability to the test.  Please don't try this at home, because, as the packet says, "do not consume this product". But it also clearly states that "the bulbs (sic) are not chemically preserved". So, in the interests of science and with a spirit of enquiry,  I took a corm and peeled it. I then cut it in half; one half remained raw, the other half I boiled until it was fairly soft. I chewed on both and can categorically state that both halves seemed to be edible. The raw piece tasted like a raw peanut, not too bad; the cooked half was very similar to a potato and was deliciously moreish. Maybe Indian potato is an appropriate choice of name after all. I'm just hoping I get to dig a basketful of them this coming autumn.

March of the Maukas

It's March, so it must be mauka time. Not time to plant maukas as you might expect - no - time to lift them.  I didn't quite manage to accomplish this task before the torrential rains of winter took hold; the water table seemed to be lying close to or above the soil's surface for months and at one point the gate disgorged a babbling brook. As proper farmers with proper kit have experienced similar difficulties in lifting their potato crops in this area, I felt a little less humiliated by my deficiencies.

The rainy season has abated for the present, its replacement being a cold, dry, easterly wind, which has been blowing for a couple of weeks. As the ground now no longer resembles a waterlogged sponge, I thought a little bit of exploratory digging was in order, to ascertain the whereabouts and health of the mauka crop. I pulled back the fleece, which I'd draped hastily over the patch in a half-hearted attempt to protect them against the cold and took my spade and dug where the label (barely legible) suggested the first plant lay.

The first object that turned up was this decidedly impressive piece of swollen mauka stem, looking for all the world like a bloated, jaundiced witchetty grub. It's a chunk of CIP208001, my original variety which I grew from seed obtained from Centro Internacional de la Papa some years ago; coincidentally this was the most expensive seed I have ever purchased, mainly due to the very low viability they showed.  But I don't regret the expense and the 15 year wait: I finally have a mauka stem like the ones in the books.

I should point out that this wonder worm represents two season's growth - I also failed to harvest the plants at the end of 2011. A bit more digging yielded up this collection of pieces. Not bad, all things considered.

Mauka continues to impress me with its tenaciousness and good behaviour; I really ought to taste check it again to see whether I still like it as much as I did previously.  It seems probable that there will be enough for a proper meal of mauka if the yields from this plant are anything to go by - one up another ten to go.

Why Buy a Bayabang?

To which my witty retort would be - why not? Bayabang is a fern, Nephrolepis cordifolia, which has been on my wish list for decades. Also known as the tuber ladder fern, or sword fern, it is a relative rarity - a fern with edible tubers. The plant itself isn't rare, being found in a broad swathe of the tropics and subtropics from Hawaii and the Philippines to India and Nepal. It's a close relative of that well-known houseplant, the Boston fern (N. exaltata); where the climate is suitable, like Florida, it can become established outside its native haunts and be quite invasive. It's described by the RHS as half-hardy, so it might pull through a mild winter here in Cornwall. I like the name bayabang, which originates in the Philippines; other names include kupukupu (Hawaii) and pani amla (Nepal).

My recent interest in bayabang was rekindled when the paucity of quality television viewing led me to flick through one of my old notebooks from sometime in the last decade of the 20th century. My gaze fell on the page where I had scrawled N. cordifolia. In those distant pre-internet days, I had been unable to locate a plant, but I was pretty sure things would have improved in the brave new world of electronic communication. The same cannot be said of my handwriting, which, I'm sorry to report, has remained unchanged.

I hurried away to the interwebs to secure the biggest bayabang for my bucks. My first attempt failed, as eBay's hive mind seemed to think that "Sword Fern" showed I was a maladjusted loner with a penchant for plunging offensive weapons into innocent people; the transaction was denied. I suppose someone could be whipped to death with a frond, or crushed by a falling tree fern, but I doubt that Nephrolepis really constitutes much of a threat to the public. In fact, bayabang has a long history of use as a folk medicine and has many beneficial properties.

The value of its tubers has been investigated by researchers at Kathmandu University. They concluded that they are a rich source of carbohydrates and calcium. Seeing as they are a favourite snack of children, this is obviously a good thing. With bayabang, the portions are conveniently child-sized, with the tubers resembling small, scaly grapes. Perhaps tuberlets might be more appropriate a name. They're designed to help the fern survive periodic desiccation - N. cordifolia being frequently epiphytic or even epilithic.

I confess that I am a little chary of fern consumption. Bracken has a long tradition of being eaten, both its young unfurled fronds as well as the sinuous, starchy rhizomes.  I've never managed to extract the rhizomes in anything like sufficient quantities to justify cooking and eating them. The ground has always been far too rocky and unforgiving. As for the fronds - the dread word ptaquiloside rings in my ears, not just for its impenetrable pronunciation, but its fearsome reputation as a carcinogen; its presence has apparently been linked to higher incidences of stomach and oesophageal cancers in bracken-eating populations.

My bayabang plants duly arrived. On opening the box, I was assailed by that strange ferny odour that reminded me of the summer afternoons of childhood, whooping and charging through towering bracken stands. The sun did seem to shine a lot back then and ticks and Lyme disease were seemingly unknown. Happy days.

I potted up the offsets and I'm hoping that the little croziers unwind and ferny foliage fills the house before too long. Come the summer (soon, please!) I will try them outside.

As I manipulated the root sytems into their pots, I couldn't resist plucking one of those shaggy little grapes and trying it. It was crunchy, sweet and tasted distinctly brackeny. If not exactly epicurean in quality, I can see how kids might rehydrate themselves by devouring them as they tear through the forest. Trust me, I've tasted a lot worse in the world of edible roots, I really have.   

And as everyone knows (I hope!) ferns reproduce sexually by means of spores, which they produce in vast quantities. It wouldn't be too difficult to select for a fern with outsize tubers - there are already several horticultural varieties of N. cordifolia available commercially, suggesting that new forms appear quite readily. With such plants, the Radix project can spread indoors, onto the windowsills, into the bathroom and beyond. When the plants get too big, I'll knock them out of their pots and divide them, not forgetting to eat the tubers as I go.

Terms such as "edimental" are now all the rage - so I have no compunction in coining my own: pteridedible - a fern fit for food. I shall look forward to growing and harvesting my bayabang and exploring other edible ferns, of which there are a surprising number. And maybe I'll head out to the woods one day, crowbar in hand and have a go at harvesting some bracken rhizomes.

In a coincidence reminiscent of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's independent work on evolutionary theory, as I was researching this post, I came across this article on N. cordifolia on the Eat The Weeds website. It predates mine by several years, so it's far too late for a joint publication like Messrs. Darwin and Wallace's 1858 classic. I suggest you head over there and read what Green Deane has to say. You even get a video.

The Many Roots to Bedroom Bliss - Part One

It's Valentine's Day; in my youth this was an occasion on which tokens of affection were given to one's beloved - flowers and a card, perhaps. Nowadays the store windows seem to focus more on sexy lingerie and erotic fiction. Attitudes towards love and sex change over time and this may merely be a return to a more overt and honest celebration of an important aspect of human existence before the prudery of the Victorian era stifled it.

Arum maculatum Wikipedia

In the not-so-distant past, people were obviously not in the least bit coy about giving objects from the natural world suggestive or bawdy names. Plants did not escape their attention. Take cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum) for instance. This is also called lords and ladies, because of the apparent resemblance of the flower to male and female genitals. And the aformentioned pint is not what the milkman is supposed to deliver to your door on a daily basis: it refers to none other than a penis. The fact that a cuckoo doesn't actually have a penis should not hinder our enjoyment of the symbolism of the arum's upstanding member. Oh and if you're so minded, you can dig up the root and cook it: properly prepared, it's edible.

This amusing habit of naming plants for their resemblance to intimate parts of the human anatomy is not limited to our own culture - take that marvellous Mexican fruit, the avocado. The name is derived from the Nahuatl "ahuacatl", meaning testicle, which, let's be honest, has some validity as a comparison, colour not withstanding; their tendency to hang in twos only adds to the association - avocado pairs indeed. Strangely enough, the avocado is claimed to have a positive effect on sperm production. It's all about the folate, apparently.

So it comes as no surprise that various plants have been credited with helping to ignite or rekindle sexual passion. In fact, it seems that pretty much every plant has been used as an aphrodisiac at some time or other - even mashua! By aphrodisiac, I mean something that gets you aroused and enables you to stay physically and emotionally equipped for action until such time as you are able to seek relief in the arms of another. Or words to that effect.

And the often suggestive shape of roots, recently beloved of photographers, bloggers and TV producers, has led many of them to be considered aphrodisiacs down the ages.

So let's start with that standard component of the meat and two veg dinner: the potato. Next time you tuck into a spud, consider this claim, made by herbalist William Salmon in 1710: "they nourish the whole Body, restore in Consumptions and provoke Lust".

Lust - with a capital L. I was tempted to respond thusly to Mr Salmon: "cease forthwith this idle prattle, Sir, for which there is not one shred of Evidence",  but then I came across this:

Officials in Jersey have discovered an annual baby boom linked to the Jersey Royal Potatoes season. Since 1997 the Jersey Registry Office, which records births on the island, has recorded an average of 170 more babies a year born between January and March. The increase has been directly linked to the Jersey Royal Potato season, which runs from April to June, nine months prior to the baby boom peak.

Aphrodisiac expert, James Sotte, explains the phenomenon:

"Throughout history potatoes have been considered an aphrodisiac. Amazonian women ate them to stimulate their sex drive and in late 16th century Europe sweet potato tarts were recommended to increase sexual desire. The reason is that potatoes have the same affect on the body as chocolate; they increase serotonin levels. Insulin is produced when digesting potatoes, affecting the movement of amino acid from the blood to the brain, which stimulates serotonin production. Serotonin is the chemical that makes you feel happy and is similar to the feeling of being in love."

He continues:

"Jersey Royal Potatoes are a particularly powerful aphrodisiac for women because they have a smell from their unwashed, earthy skin which is redolent of the musky aroma of the male. They also contain complex carbohydrate, which is a great source of energy for the body. Energy is fundamental to sex drive in that tiredness and lack of energy deflates the libido. "

The cynics among us might be inclined to reach a different conclusion: increasing temperatures, day lengths and light intensity might have more to do with it than potato consumption. Yes, potatoes contain complex carbohydrates and these are a good source of fuel for activity both in and outside the bedroom, but the same could be said of crumpets. And could it be that most women would rather their lovers didn't smell like a pile of rotting seaweed, the favoured fertiliser for Jersey Royals? No, this is an amusing, not to say audacious, piece of marketing, but it can hardly be taken as proof of the potato's efficacy as an aphrodisiac.

And what about another pert stalwart of the dinner plate, the carrot? Carrots, famous for enhancing the eyesight of airmen on WWII night bombing raids, turn out to do even more good things for you after the sun goes down by "inciting coitus". Do my eyes fail me - is that a typo? Do they mean exciting coitus? Nurse, fetch me my glasses and a pint of carrot juice - I had no idea that carotenoids were so damn potent. No wonder I've always enjoyed growing Chantenay Hard Core carrots.

And now the humble beetroot has burst onto the scene as the latest love aid, to be swallowed in liquid form - small shots at regular intervals. Come on, you're kidding me, not beetroot?  I'm afraid so. Not only does it improve stamina for athletes, both horizontally and vertically aligned, but the cyclic Guanosine monophosphate it contains is just what hard-pressed men need to maintain turgor so they can walk tall and stand proud. Who knew? The Romans apparently - beetroot-themed murals have been discovered in the brothels of Pompeii, for example.

Most of the supposed hard evidence for plant aphrodisiac efficacy is nothing but flaccid anecdote pumped up with wishful thinking. Still, if you're prepared to stiffen your resolve and ride out some more of the absurd claims made by the promoters of these plants, come again - I'll be posting more on this subject at a future date.