North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>]

Melissa, I would put it in a spot which is reliably damp, and let it 
explore the moisture gradient, which it will. Be prepared for it to wander.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


Melissa Kacalanos wrote:
> Donna,
>
> I'd like to try apios, after all this discussion about it, but it seems 
> that the nurseries that sell improved varieties are sold out for this 
> spring, and only wild-type, unimproved kinds are for sale. What's your 
> LSU cultivar like? How does it compare to the wild ones, which I read 
> can have inconveniently small tubers? If your cultivar is significantly 
> better than those, could I buy a tuber off you? I'd like a tuber from 
> the original plant, not from a seedling, if it's possible to tell the 
> difference.
>
> I know better than to plant it in my garden, don't worry. How much water 
> does it like exactly? There's a squelchy part of my lawn, near a stream, 
> that it might like. I could plant in anywhere from the jewelweed patch, 
> which is quite wet, to the merely damp lawn.
>
> Melissa
>
> --- On *Thu, 3/25/10, Kieran and/or Donna /<holycow@frontiernet.net>/* 
> wrote:
>
>
>     From: Kieran and/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net>
>     Subject: Re: [NAFEX] apios americana
>     To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>     Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 8:55 AM
>
>     Michele, 
>          About 13 years ago I got a postcard in the mail that said,
>     "Dear SSE member, would you like to buy some Apios?"  It said they
>     were from the LSU breeding program, and I got 4 tubers for $20.  I
>     certainly got my money's worth.  They have not disappointed us,
>     though at times they have frightened us, much like the sunchokes and
>     the bamboo.  I take that back, they are not nearly as frightening as
>     the bamboo. 
>         I am intrigued that someone said they don't make seeds up
>     north.  That implies that Apios is another one of the native food
>     producers that the native Americans took north.  Donna