Johann's Garden

This is a list of edible species (as well as non-edibles I find useful) that I am growing in my developing permaculture-ish plot (Temperate climate, USDA Zone 8, Washington State, USA) which includes a small property of my own as well as two neighboring properties belonging to family members. Looking over this list it would seem that I could feed myself with this, but in reality many of these plants are still in their early stages of establishment, and not all of them are highly productive... In addition to this list there are other edible species naturally present on the property which are not included since they do not offer any meaningful production at this time. KEY: 🍇 = producing very good quantities each year 🍒  = producing lightly each year (either from lack of maturity or lack of capability) 🌱 = acquired, but have not yet planted out All unmarked have been planted, but are not yet producing ⚒ = potentially on the chopping block for removal for one reason or...

Y esterday I had the opportunity to harvest wapato for the second time.  I have been growing them in tanks for two seasons now.  Last fall I had a small harvest having planted only three small tubers at the beginning of the season.  This year's harvest was more sizable; still not too many meals worth, but if I compare the labor input to harvest ratio I'd say they were quite worthwhile.  Other than occasionally adding some water or manure to the tanks there was really not much work involved.  Also, harvesting was more fun than work.  I just stirred up the muck with a long handled garden tool and then collected the wapatos as they floated to the surface.     To the left is a portion of my wapato harvest next to a few sunchoke tubers.  You'll notice that there is quite a range in sizes.  The large egg sized tubers all came from a larger tank of water that was only lightly populated with wapato this season and the muck they grew in...

Earlier this year I worked at a retail plant nursery where I was able to get lots of free plants off the dump rack.  On one occasion I lucked into a number of ornamental canna plants.  They were being "dumped" because they carried a virus which caused visible streaking on the leaves (not to be confused with the natural desirable streaking of some cultivars).  Viruses are very common in cannas.  I figured I would take them and just grow them for a season to get experience growing cannas as I had not grown them before.  I repotted them in larger pots and grew them on for the season.  Now that the winter is upon us they are going dormant.  I dumped out the first of the five potted plants and cleaned the tubers.  It took a few minutes to remove all the roots which held a lot of potting soil, but once they were all off not too much soil was left to clean off the actual tubers.  I have read very good things about the edibility of canna tubers both ...