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  • From: dhondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Planting ground nuts (apios americana)
  • Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2015 21:22:13 +0000

Probably a very good idea to restrict the groundnuts in a tub. We always grew them unrestricted and then they run almost 10 meters/30 feet per year in all directions producing one tuber every foot and a half or so. Almost impossible to harvest all when they grow amongst other crops.

We never had a groundnut flower and neither the Stachys affinis. But the Stachys only produces well if it gets full light and it even dies out when constantly overshadowed. Never flowered for us and since they grow only a foot high there is never a need to clip them here.

Better imo would be occas (Oxalis tuberosum) that makes a plentiful leaf mass low to the ground and quite late in the year.
Corn and pumpkin or squash definitely go together but we never found the right bean to do well in that powerful duo.
Corn and occa go well together too.
Jerusalem artichokes grow too powerful here to share their space with anything else although we had some "weed" oats growing at the edge of their bed.
John

On 07/11/15 05:19, Bob Waldrop wrote:
I planted ground nuts today. I had ordered them earlier this year and had forgotten about them, lol, and they arrived this week. I received 24, planted 23 and ate 1. I thought, "Well, if I am going to plant all these I better make sure they are tasty.

So I saved one and cooked it instead of planting it. I peeled it (although next time I am going to try them unpeeled), and it was easy enough to peel, the skin looked more woody than they turned out to be. I sliced them and fried them in bacon grease until they caramelized (which happened fairly quick). Dash of salt, and voila, and tasty treat. And it was tasty. No wild taste, no bitterness, a little sweetness. . . as the literature suggests, they do taste like potato, although I didn't detect any "nuttiness" to the flavor which some say they experienced.
The flesh, even after cooking, is more firm than a potato, but they were quite tasty. Fortunately I had already planted the other 23 so I wasn't tempted to slice another one up to fry with my eggs and bacon.

I'm attaching a picture of the cooked, caramelized ground nuts and a picture of the ground nut before slicing and frying.

I planted most of them in big tubs, which was suggested online as an easy way to harvest the tubers. But I planted a few close to clumps of Maximilien sunflowers, along a fence and at the edge of my Jerusalem artichoke patch. . Reportedly they have a pretty purple flower, so I thought they would enjoy climbing on the maximiliens and their purple, which shows up in August apparently, would be a nice counterpoint to the yellow of the sunflower.

There's been some talk about apios americana as part of a perennial "Three Sisters". Traditionally, they were corn, beans, and squash. We could maybe use them to design a perennial 3 sisters with Jerusalem artichokes, ground nuts (apios americana). Not sure what perennial could take the place of squash. We'd be looking for something low growing with a lot of foliage. . .

Eric Toensmeier (he of Perennial Vegetables fame) suggests Stachys affinis a/k/a crosnes or Chinese artichokes. That would be three plants producing edible tubers in one pile, so to speak, which would make harvest easy, just dig 'em up and sort 'em out. But reading online about the crosnes it says you have to clip them to 6 inches and never let them flower, which sounds like more work than I would want to invest, also, part of the purpose of squash in the three sisters is to shade the ground and thus suppress weeds.

I think I'll plant a few of my Jerusalem artichoke tubers this winter in the big tubs with the ground nut. And maybe by spring we'll have figured out a proper third candidate for the perennial three sisters.

Any ideas for a third candidate for a perennial three sisters?


Bob Waldrop, Okie City



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