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  • From: loren luyendyk <loren@sborganics.com>
  • To: Permaculture Listserve <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] root-based agriculture
  • Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 03:30:25 +0000


I am growing oca (Oxalis tuberosa), mashua (Trapeolum tuberosum), yacon
(Polymnia sonchifolia), and achira (Canna edulis). In our climate (Santa
Barbara, Ca.), yacon, mashua, and achira thrive, with irrigation. Oca not so
much- it grows but doesn't make consistent large tubers. Oca does really
well in NZ though, where they call it NZ Yam. I think it needs more rain and
richer soils.

Of those, yacon is my favorite by far. Eaten raw it tastes like a cross
between an asian pear and cucumber, or a really sweet juicy jicama. Mashua
is my next favorite of the bunch, cooked it is kind of like a sweet soft
radish. Oca is pretty bland but palatable. Achira is not the tastiest, the
starchiest root in the world I hear. They all have medicinal and/or
ethnobotanical uses.

As far as I know these all handle a little frost, and grow well in
summer-rain temperate areas. I planted some Canna achira in the high desert
(18-110 deg F swings yearly) and it is handling the heat and the cold quite
well.

I am willing to sell a few yacon and achira tubers if shipped within Ca.
They go dormant around December-January. Contact me off-list if you are
interested. Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Sebastopol Ca sells mashua.

Loren Luyendyk
805-452-8249
Permaculture Design and Education
ISA Certified Arborist #WE-7805A
www.sborganics.com
www.globalpermaculture.com
www.surferswithoutborders.com


> Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 22:38:02 -0400
> From: jhayes79@comcast.net
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] root-based agriculture
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my Samsung Epic™ 4G TouchToby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
> wrote:Great stuff--and Alan K is a genius. But it looks like auto-spell
> check got in there: "mash" should be mashua, and "bacon" is yacon. Both are
> available at various nurseries, as is oca and, a little harder to get,
> ulloco. I love 'em all. Full of magic polysaccharides, hormone-like
> substances. and other good nutrients.
>
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
>
>
> On Sep 12, 2012, at 5:04 PM, mIEKAL aND wrote:
>
> > What is the most successful root-based agriculture in the world? It
> > all comes from the Andes in South America. Like the ones who gave us
> > the potatoes, now give us oca, mash, achocha, ulluco, bacon, chichi,
> > mauka, topotopo — one crop after another, none of which are known
> > pretty much by anyone who gardens in the United States. That means we
> > have the opportunity to take what is an Andean, high-altitude,
> > sustainable food system — not based on meat, but based on roots. And
> > we can incorporate it as part of the native food system that was here
> > and develop an organic, sustainable food system that's tested out by
> > hundreds, if not thousands of generations of people.
> >
> > —Alan Kapuler
> >
> >
> > The plants Alan mentions are very hard to find in the US. It would be
> > good to compile a list of nurseries that have this material available.
> > I got oca One Green World a few years ago.
> >
> > ~mIEKAL
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