Correct storage of Fruit & Veg
Posted by Phytopath on Oct 30, 2011
When you shop for fruit and vegetables, do you bring the produce home and put it in the crisper section of the refrigerator?
I do.
Well apparently there is a correct, or optimum way to store mixed fruit and vegetables (short term), because they are not all compatible.
Much like companion planting, perhaps we could plant our vegies into beds that are the same as the compatibility groups for storage. That way, we would know to store the vegetables together that grow in the bed together. Just a thought.
Here’s how it works.
Fruit and veg are divided into five different groups according to storage temperature.
This in part, is to stop one food group tainting another with its odour.
Another important factor in short term storage is the relative humidity.
The five storage groups are:
1. Temperate fruit and veg that are not cold sensitive. Storage temperature is zero degrees Celsius.
2. Fruit and veg that are moderately cold sensitive. Storage temperature 7-10 degrees Celsius.
3. Tropical fruit and veg that are cold sensitive. Storage temperature 13 degrees Celsius.
4. Pineapple. Store at 20 degrees Celsius.
5. Un-refrigerated storage. Produce in this group include; garlic, onion, potato and nuts.
Another thing to consider with storage is Ethylene.
Ethylene gas is a hormone that plants produce.
It can hasten the ripening process of some fruit, turn broccoli yellow and cause cut flowers to die quicker than expected.
Some fruit give off a lot of ethylene (perhaps you could liken this to some people who eat a lot of beans) and some vegetables are very sensitive to ethylene. So do not store them together.
Below is a list of ethylene producing fruit for each of the groups.
Group 1. Apple, apricot, fig, kiwi fruit, nectarine, peach, pear and plum.
Group 2. Avocado, honeydew melon, guava, passionfruit, rockmelon (cantaloupe) and tomato.
Group 3. Banana, cherimoya, guava, mango, pawpaw, plantain, rambutan and mature green tomato.
Group 4. Pineapple. 
A few Gardening Video’s for You
Posted by Phytopath on Jun 3, 2011
WOW WHAT A LITTLE GEM THE CUCUMBER IS.
Posted by Phytopath on Apr 27, 2011
I received this as an email and thought you might enjoy the read.
1.Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.
3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.
4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminium to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.
5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite.
Works great on wrinkles too!!!
6.. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!
7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.
8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.
9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!
10. Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.
11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.
12. Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but is won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.
13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!
Pass this along to everybody you know who is looking for better and safer ways
to solve life’s everyday problems..
Crop Rotation
Posted by Phytopath on Apr 18, 2011
Crop rotation is practiced by some home gardeners in their vegetable patch. Other people think that it is a lot of ‘hogwash’.
The idea is to rotate the types of vegetables grown in any one vegetable bed, so the same type of plant is not grown in the same ground too often.
To follow this idea you need to know which family each vegetable belongs to.
For example, tomato, chilli, eggplant, capsicum and potato all belong to the family Solanaceae, so these plants should not be grown in the same bed or piece of ground over consecutive years.
Commercial vegetable growers know that certain soil-borne pests and diseases can reduce yields, especially in potato crops and other root crops.
Scientific research has found that Brassica plants leave behind a residue that can kill or suppress unwanted soil organisms.
Tests on many different Brassicas, have shown that the volatile substances in Brassica plants can kill or suppress such diseases as Rhizoctonia and Fusarium.
The volatile substances found in Brassica plants are isothiocyanates (ITCs).
The concentration of these ITCs can vary from plant to plant and also vary from different plant parts i.e. roots, leaves and seed.
It makes sense then, to plant a Brassica crop as part of a crop rotation plan.
Crop rotation can be practised with just one vegetable plot or a three bed system or a four bed system. If you have the space there is no limit to how many vegetable plots you use in a rotational plan.
Some rotations are based on the nutritional requirements of the plants. The thought being that tomatoes are a hungry crop and root crops are not: so you would follow a crop of tomatoes with a crop of carrots, beetroot or radish for example.
If you borrowed four gardening books on crop rotation from a library, I am certain you would find four different suggestions for crop rotation.
My thought is, as long as you do not grow vegetables from the same family in the same place two seasons in a row, you are well on your way to breaking the breeding cycle of soil-borne pests and disease.
Here are a few rotations that I have come across.
- Legumes (peas and beans) followed by alliums (onions, chives etc) followed by brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower etc) followed by everything else.
- Legumes followed by leafy greens followed by fruiting crops (tomatoes, corn etc) followed by root crops followed by a fallow season over winter.
- Legumes followed by Brassica followed by root crops followed by cucurbits (cucumber and melons) followed by Solanaceae family.
- The Royal Horticultural Society recommends legumes followed by alliums followed by leafy vegetables plus tomatoes followed by root crops and then fallow with manure.
As you can see, there are many variations. I suggest you pick one to start with and see if it works for you. If not, pick another one.
If you have a different rotation from those listed above leave a comment below.
Chickpea
Posted by Phytopath on Jul 5, 2010
Some friends came to visit me on the weekend and because it was an unexpected visit, I had not bought or baked any nice nibbles to enjoy over a cup of coffee.
But I always make sure to have a packet of water crackers in the pantry and a can of organic chickpeas. It only took ten minutes to caramelise some garlic and add it to the drained chickpeas with a little lemon juice. Then place it all in a blender until it is well blended and presto – a lovely homemade dip to go with the water crackers and coffee.
Of course we all had to have some because I had loaded it with garlic. As long as we all smelt the same, nobody could complain.
So how do you grow chickpeas? In case you would like to make your own hummus or felafel.
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is also known as Garbanzo, Gram, Bengal gram, Egyptian pea, Dahl and Chana.
It is an annual plant growing to around 30 cm (1 foot) tall with compound leaves and tiny white or blue tinged flowers. The fruit is a small pod containing one or two seeds, each with a structure or growth that looks like a beak.
The plant prefers to grow in light (sandy), well drained soil that is fertile and enriched with organic matter, in full sun.
Prepare the site by adding organic matter to the soil before planting and then rake the ground to create a fine tilth. Water the area well prior to sowing the seed.
In areas where the climate is similar to the Mediterranean, the seed can be sown in autumn and winter. In warm temperate climates, sow the seed after frosts have passed. In a cool temperate climate, sow the seed in pots, in early spring and keep in a glasshouse until frosts have passed in late spring. If you live in the sub tropics, sow the seed after the wet season has passed.
Broadcast the seed on to the prepared beds and lightly cover with soil. If you prefer to sow the seed in rows, plant them 25 cm apart with 50 cm between rows.
Germination may be helped by soaking the seed for an hour before planting.
Keep the growing area weed free while the young plants are establishing. Once established, the plants are not very demanding of water but do benefit from a good soak just before flowering and again when the peas begin to swell.
The pods should be ready to harvest after four to six months. You will know when the time is right because the leaves and pods will turn brown, but make sure you do not leave it too late because the pods will split and release the peas.
Cut the stems at the base and tie a bundle together to hang upside down in warm, dry place. Once the seeds are dry, store them in air tight containers.
Leave the roots of the plants in the ground after harvest, to supply nitrogen to the soil for the next crop that you intend to plant.
Powdery mildew may be a problem for the plants near the end of their growing season, so treat as you would any other plant that is susceptible to powdery mildew.
Nutritionally, chickpeas are high in protein and contain phosphorous, potassium, iron, calcium, zinc and most B vitamins. They are also low in fat and contain dietary fibre.
The young shoots and leaves are also edible and can be boiled or steamed and added to curries and soups.
Chickpeas are made in to stews and soups throughout Europe and in India, they are boiled, roasted, fried, sprouted, ground into flour (besan) and stewed into dhal.
In Israel and Egypt, the chickpeas are made into flat cakes known as felafel.
There are two main types of chickpea, white – which is really a tan colour and black – which is dark brown in colour.
Dried chickpeas need to be soaked for eight hours or overnight in cold water before use. After soaking they will double in size and then they are ready for use in cooking which will take another hour and a half. I reckon it is easier just to open a can.
To make a quick hummus add two garlic cloves, two teaspoons lemon juice, one table spoon olive oil, and a 400 gram can of drained chickpeas to a food processor or blender. Blend until you get a smooth paste (add some of the liquid from the can of chickpeas if the mix is too dry) and then decant in to a nice bowl. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the top and serve with pitta bread or water crackers.
I would post a picture of the finished product but my visitors and I ate it all.
Yummy
Seed or seedling – which is best?
Posted by Phytopath on Jun 4, 2010
Planting seed directly into a vegetable patch is the quickest, easiest and least expensive way to grow vegetables. But what are the downsides to direct sowing?
Local climatic conditions will pay a big part in your decision to direct sow or not. If the soil is too cold or too hot, the seed will not germinate. If the seed is subject to cold and wet conditions, it may rot in the ground before it has a chance to germinate. Seeds planted too deep in the soil will not germinate, or if they do, they will be weak and spindly and probably won’t survive. Birds or ants may take off with the newly planted seed or simply scatter the seed onto the path or some other place where it is unlikely to germinate.
This certainly doesn’t sound easy, does it? The vegetables to grow from seed are the ones that do not like to be transplanted and ones that will germinate and mature within the growing season you have at your location.
Here are some suggestions for vegetables to direct sow in the garden (provided your climate is suitable): beans, beets, carrots, collards, corn, cucumbers, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard, okra, peas, peanuts, pumpkins, spinach, squash, turnips and watermelons.
Soil preparation is the key to success for direct sowing of vegetable seed.
Prior to sowing, add organic matter to the soil. It enriches the soil and improves structure and water holding ability. The soil microbes will also appreciate it.
If you plan well ahead, grow a green manure crop over late autumn and winter. Turn this in to the soil before spring planting begins.
Not all seeds are planted at the same depth. As a rule of thumb, seeds are planted at a depth which is twice the diameter of the seed at their largest point.
For very small seed, just press them in to the surface of the soil. Make sure the seeds do not dry out, it may affect germination.
Try not to over-sow, or plant too many seeds. It will make more work for you later, when you have to thin out the seedlings.
Seedlings: Try not to over-sow, or plant too many seeds. It will make more work for you later, when you have to thin out the seedlings.
This may sound ridiculous that I have used the same sentence for both methods of sowing seed, but it is applicable to both methods. I can recall seeing the amazed look on the face of some of my students when their small punnets of seedlings looked more like a forest of grass than a punnet of vegetable seedlings. And yes, I made them prick them all out, for not following the instructions given. They thought more was better.
Seedlings can be started from seed, sown in punnets or pots, or they can be purchased from your local nursery.
To grow vegetable seedlings yourself, you need to make sure that you have the time to nurture them and the space to store them until they are planted in the ground.
If you are a family of one, you might like to consider buying a pot of mixed seedlings from the nursery. This will save you the hassle of buying many different seed packets, only to sow a few seed out of each packet. I mean, really, how many zucchini do you really want? One plant is enough for one person, otherwise you end up cooking, freezing and drying the zucchini, then when you check the plant again, there is another four or more fruit, so you start making zucchini cake, zucchini fritters, zucchini relish…..you get the idea.
If you live in a climate where the growing season is too short for some vegetables to mature from seed, then seedlings are best. If you decide to grow your own from seed, make sure they can cope with transplanting from the container into the ground. Some suggestions are: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, silver beet, lettuce and tomatoes.
Vegetable seedlings that require a little more care are: celery, eggplant, onion and capsicum (peppers). Seed which do not like root disturbance, but may need to be started early in the season, indoors, can be grown individually in containers like empty toilet rolls. Those seed are: beans, corn, cucumber, okra, peas, summer and winter squash and watermelon.
So which is best, seed or seedling?
The best method is the one that suits your gardening style and climate.
Tips for new vegetable gardeners
Posted by Phytopath on Jun 1, 2010
My veg patch
Are you new to vegetable growing? Not sure where to start, but want to save money and the planet? Grow your own vegetables.
It can be nice to think big but when it comes to trying something new, baby steps are best.
Start small, either a small section of garden or purpose built vegetable patch, or even large pots or half wine barrels. You can expand the area for growing vegetables when you have gained some confidence.
Start simple – grow vegetables that are super easy to grow. One of the easiest is radish. If you don’t like radish, still grow some. You will feel good at achieving success, and then feel even better when you can give away home grown produce. Expand the range of vegetables that you grow, when you gain more confidence.
Ask for help, either on-line through forums or social media sites, or in person. Join a local garden club or volunteer your labour to a local community garden. You can definitely learn by getting involved and experiencing hands on activities, especially from keen gardeners.
Look for, or offer yourself in a labour exchange. It is often more fun to garden with another or in a group, so find some friends and organise a working bee in each other’s gardens for a few hours a month.
Watch the path of the sun across your yard throughout the seasons, and then choose an area which receives about six hours of sunlight per day. This will be acceptable for most vegetables.
Make sure the site for your vegetable garden has easy access. The paths need to be wide enough for a wheelbarrow and flat enough for a wheelbarrow. Old blankets, carpet, hessian and sawdust can be used.
Make the vegetable beds narrow. It is not good for your back, to reach too far into a garden bed for planting, weeding and harvesting. It is not good for the soil structure to step on to the vegetable beds. The best width is the distance you can comfortably reach with an outstretched arm, times two, because you can walk around to the other side of the vegetable bed and reach into the bed, opposite of where you just where. If that didn’t make sense, imagine gardening with a friend, both of you opposite each other with the vegetable bed in between. Now, both of you reach toward each other with an outstretched arm, like you are going to shake hands – that is the ideal width of your vegetable bed.
The size of your vegetable patch will be determined by the size of your family. Allow one square metre per person for leafy greens and another two square metres for seasonal vegetables. If you are a family of four, your vegetable patch would measure approximately 12 square metres.
Plant spacing’s can be important. Follow directions on the back of seed packets or ask a friendly gardener at your local nursery or on-line.
Planting in rows is not necessary but convenient. Mix flowers, vegetables and herbs together. It looks good and confuses insect pests.
Good luck in your new venture. Stay tuned for information on crop rotation, companion planting and composting.
Leafy Greens
Posted by Phytopath on May 14, 2010
Salad burnet
People are becoming more aware of health issues and are taking responsibility for their own health. As a result, there has been an increase in the consumption of salads.
Growing your own leafy greens can create a sense of satisfaction and supply you with an array of fresh daily produce.
When making your own salads, try mixing a few different varieties of salad greens and experiment with the combinations of flavours.
Some easy greens to start you off are: lettuce, baby endive, baby rocket, mibuna, mizuna, baby tatsoi, sorrel, salad burnet and even dandelion.
There are many different varieties of lettuce, some forming a heart and others with loose heads.
The best known and most widely used lettuce in Australia is ‘Iceburg’ (called ‘crisphead’ in the US). It doesn’t really have a taste (As a child, I remember sprinkling sugar on the leaves and rolling them up, just to give them some flavour) but it is crunchy. It is known as a hearting lettuce and is dense and firm. It has good keeping qualities and is useful for shredding or cutting into wedges.
Butter lettuce is a loose head variety with soft leaves that have a buttery feel and a mild taste. Mignonette is another variety of butter lettuce with tightly furled leaves, green or red-ish in colour and a slightly bitter flavour.
Loose leafed varieties include coral, which is available in green and red, and has leaves with tight frilly edges and a sharp flavour, and oakleaf, whose leaves can be harvested individually as needed, also in green and red.
Let’s not forget ‘cos’ lettuce, which is traditionally used in Caesar salad. It is also known as ‘romaine’ and has stiff, upright, elongated leaves, the inner ones being much sweeter than the outer leaves.
Endive, or curly endive (also called frisee) is a member of the chicory family. It is a loose headed variety with frizzy, curly leaves and a mild, bitter taste.
Radicchio, also known as Italian chicory is available as both loose leafed and hearted. It has a bitter taste that ranges in intensity depending on season and maturity. Use sparingly.
Rocket, called arugula in the US, has a peppery flavour that intensifies as the plant matures. Baby rocket has a milder flavour and wild rocket has a nuttier taste than the flat leafed variety.
Mizuna, also known as Japanese mustard, has long serrated leaves with a sweet earthy flavour. We grew so much of this at work a few years ago that one of our students took a truckload (mild exaggeration) home for her chef husband to be creative with. The result was, every student in the class received a jar full of mizuna pesto. It was scrumptious.
Salad burnet is a favourite of mine, not just because it tastes nice but also because it is a perennial in my climate and I don’t have to replant it every year. The leaves are small and compound and taste like cucumber. This gives you the opportunity to have a cucumber taste in your sandwiches through winter when cucumbers are not normally grown.
Dandelion is often overlooked because it is considered a weed, but it is a very useful plant. All parts of the plant are edible, so leaves and flowers can be used in a salad.
Growing your own is as simple as preparing a bed or pot for your plants and putting in some seed. Remember not to sow the seed too deep or they will not germinate and keep them well watered for fast growth and continuous harvest.
Some workable combinations are:
Rocket, pear and parmesan
Radicchio, pear and walnut
Mustard cress and pine nut
Experiment and let me know your results.
The Plant – Light Relationship
Posted by Phytopath on Mar 26, 2010
Rainbow
Most gardeners are aware of the importance of light for plant growth, but just how important is it?
Anyone that has ever tried to grow a plant in dimly lit conditions indoor’s, knows that the plant suffers and usually declines or dies. There is no such thing as an indoor plant. Plants grow outdoors, but we choose specific plants that are capable of growing in low light situations. These are usually plants from rainforest areas where the canopy is quite thick and minimal light reaches the forest floor.
Plants need sufficient light (intensity) to photosynthesize and different types of plants require different amounts (sun lovers vs. shade lovers).
Photosynthesis is quite an amazing thing. Chloroplasts within the plant (mainly in the leaves), absorb energy from sunlight, mostly the blue and red spectrum of light (where solar energy has its maximum output). Think of a rainbow and the colours in it, remember ROYGBIV? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Well, plants don’t much like the green part of the light spectrum so they don’t absorb the colour. It is reflected back from the leaf surface or passed straight through the leaf tissue, and that is why plants appear to be green to our sense of sight (unless you are colour blind).
This absorption of light energy is transferred into electrical and chemical reactions which in turn produces organic compounds such as sugar and starch, or carbohydrates (this is an over-simplified description) that the plant uses as fuel for growth.
The second important plant/light relationship is phototropism. This is when plants bend toward a light source. When a seed germinates and the new shoot heads for the sky, it had better not be under an overhanging rock. But what if it is? That’s when phototropism comes into play. Or have you experienced an indoor plant that leans toward the window or source of light and you have to give it a quarter turn every week or so? That’s phototropism.
Plants contain hormones (yes, they can get hormonal just like humans) and one hormone in particular is called ‘Auxin’. This is a growth promoting chemical, also known as IAA, you may have seen it on labels when using products for striking cuttings. Anyway, this auxin hormone is responsible for giving plants that lean-too or banana bend look. When the plant senses that it is receiving light from one direction only, the movement of auxin is initiated and all the little hormones move to the dark side of the plant. Because auxin is a growth hormone, the excess amounts on the dark side of the stem, causes that side to grow faster than the lighted or sunny side. Hence, a curvature in the stem. This can be a real problem for florists who like to work with straight stemmed flowers but keep them in a dark cool room with the door being opened frequently to expose light.
The third plant/light relationship is called photoperiod. Yes, you guessed it. It is the period of light a plant receives. Why is this important? Well it could be why your vegetables bolt to seed when you don’t want them to.
Plants are divided into three groups according to their response to the length of day.
- Long day plants (majority of vegetables)
- Short day plants
- Intermediate (or, ‘I don’t care’) day plants
The long day plants require 12 to 14 hours of uninterrupted daylight to produce flowers and set seed. These vegetables will not set fruit in the glasshouse during winter. Or if its flowers you are growing, they will not flower in the glasshouse during winter (unless you artificially light the glasshouse). Some examples of long day vegetables include: lettuce, spinach, silver beet, beetroot, potato, radish and flowers: Hibiscus syriacus, henbane and Rudbeckia bicolour.
The short day plants require long nights (or short days) to initiate flowering. The critical period seems to be 8 to 10 hours of daylight. Chrysanthemums are a good example of short day plants. They always flower around Mother’s Day in May (autumn) in the southern hemisphere, when the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer. To have Chrysanthemums all year round, growers place black plastic ‘curtains’ inside glasshouses to mimic an extended night period. This tricks the plants into thinking that autumn has arrived and they duly initiate flowering.
The intermediate group of plants will flower and set seed regardless of the length of day. Examples of day neutral vegetables are: peas, tomatoes and French beans.
So if you are still having problems with vegetables bolting to seed or plants not flowering, then there is another reason, for another blog post.
Arrowroot
Posted by Phytopath on Mar 11, 2010
Canna edulis
Canna edulis , known in Australia as Arrowroot and elsewhere as Achira.
The plant can be described as a soft wooded perennial or an herbaceous perennial, depending where it is grown. Growth is approximately 2.5 metres (around 8ft) high and the width depends on the spread of the underground rhizomes. The soft fleshy leaves arise from the somewhat soft, easily bent stems.
The general appearance of the plant is that of the ornamental canna (Canna indica), to which it is related. The flowers of arrowroot are red to orange/gold and smaller than those of the decorative variety.
The plant is thought to have originated in the Andean region because of archaeological remains from Peru. Commercially, plants are grown in Queensland Australia, Hawaii, Central and South America and the Pacific Islands.
I have found Arrowroot to be exceptionally hardy in the garden and easy to grow in my climate. They will grow in most soil types as long as the drainage is good. Poor drainage will lead to rotting of the rhizomes. Most gardening books advise that the plants need full sun for growth and will not tolerate shade but in my garden they are happily growing in the shade of mature Eucalyptus trees (see photo).
During the growing season make sure the plants have adequate moisture (don’t you love that term, ‘adequate’, what does it actually mean?). For me, I make sure the plants don’t get to the wilting stage. During winter, I do not water the plants at all.
Give them a sheltered spot otherwise the leaves can be shredded by strong winds which looks unsightly but has no affect on the goodness of the root. (It’s an aesthetic thing).
The leaves, root and seed are edible. The young shoots are cooked and eaten as a green vegetable and the immature seed are used in tortillas.
The root is used raw or cooked and is the source of Arrowroot. It is rasped to a pulp then washed and strained to get rid of the fibres. The starch easily separates from the fibre of the root and is easily digested.
In Peru the roots are baked for several hours until they become a translucent white colour and slimy or mucilaginous (sounds divine…) and sweet. In Vietnam Arrowroot is grown commercially to produce transparent noodles.
The dried root is high in starch, containing as much as 80%. It also contains 10% sugar and 1% to 3% protein.
I have grown up with ‘Milk Arrowroot’ biscuits available from the supermarket, so I am loath to dig up my beautiful Arrowroot plants that are growing in the garden. Besides, it sounds like too much mucking about to get the actual starch, before you even think about baking biscuits.
