i would like to grow edible bamboo

hallo,

i love water chesnuts and bamboo shoots from the chinky - can i grow them in my garden? I have lots of room, sun and shade but have no idea which varieties are edible. does anyone know? both for water chesnut and bamboo if possible.

thanks

karaman

 

I know bamboo has to be eaten only at the shoot stage, if it starts to go woody the fibres can stick in your stomach lining & swell up & kill ya.

Dwarf reed mace - Typha minima, is probably the nearest thing to water chestnut in the UK. You'd need a decent size pond. You harvest the corms from underwater when the plant has gone dormant in the winter, messy business.

 

When I first read
"i would like to grow edible bamboo"
I thought you were maybe thinking of keeping Panda bears.....!

 

I thought Karaman WAS a Panda. Seems to like his Chinese

 

Capney , Ziggy - I thought exactly the same when I saw the thread , you are heading for a Panda infestation problem with this one mate:D
Hello Karaman , sorry we cant be of help , I am sure a tropical plant guru will be along soon to give some advice.

(Ziggy - Moonlighting ! Wife and friends could not get it so 1 point to you . )

 

[quote='HarryS'

(Ziggy - Moonlighting ! Wife and friends could not get it so 1 point to you . )
[/quote]


Getting tricky to think of them without the title in the first few lyrics.

 

My Taiwanese mate assures me that bamboo can't grow in Britain because of our climate. So when I showed him some fine specimens growing happily, he then assured me it doesn't grow very fast here, and the shoots will harden almost as soon as they appear, thus making them unsuitable for eating.

He did get the first bit wrong though, so he might have got the second bit wrong too.

 

Had a look around, you can grow it for food in Usda Zones 5 thru to 11.

Marley Farley will let you know what Zones the americans have put Britain in.:D

http://www.ehow.com/video_5361453_growing-bamboo-eating.html

What the Lady didn't say is that bamboo contains Cyanogenetic Glycosides, chemicals that your body will break down into Cyanide & then kill you of death.

No wonder pandas just sit there not being interested in breeding, they've poisoned themselves.

Cook the shoots for 20 minutes to break down the glycosides.

 

hallo all!

karaman meand black in bulgarian (in memory of a dog that was treated badly over there) and its 'her' chinese if you dont mind, i'm sexist and i do.

ziggy searchfield - thanks for the water chesnut i will research.
clueless1 - thank taiwanese friend. ouch! not just poisonous but cyanidous, leave well alone methinks, just grow for looking-at purposes. But how come the bamboo in my chinky? what do they do to make it edible?

plants meant for warmer climate than UK - hot summers cold winters. area suffers from drainage issues so water not a problem, in fact excellent if the water chesnut can suck it up. digging up roots not an issue i love wallowing in mud being a piggie myself.

 

My apologies, her Chinese it is then

Cooking for 20 minutes destroys the Cyanogenetic Gycosides, just don't eat the shoots raw.

The same chemical is in apple pips, so don't eat too many of those.

Have a look at our Poisonous plants thread,
Here

 

What and risk Solanine & Mercury posioning !!:D

 

:D Just don't eat too much Tuna, the higher up the food chain, the more heavy metals the fish concentrates in it.