Rick Valley

I really like linden leaves! But they're best in the spring. I'll gladly snarf a bunch of them, or add them (chiffonade cut) to an omelette, or blend the YOUNG leaves in a green drink with mint, lemon balm and linden flowers.  Y'know, you don't eat bolted lettuce, do ye? Everything has a season. (mine is Habanero

As a hepatitis veteran, I'll not try chestnut whisky but sign me up for about anything else chestnutty. Another memory: When we lived in Irondequoit NY, before the total suburban metasticizing, the closest store to find an ice cream sandwich at had a big chestnut tree; I'd gather what I could and roast them in the fireplace, just setting them on the firebrick.

I have been really wary of credit card debt, yeah. I use my debit card most of the time, and have a reserve emergency account in a different credit union. So far, so good.

I grew up in the NE: New York, Ohio, and moved into the East Coast, New England, Maryland. I'm used to going t the Farmers Market and getting fresh roasted chestnuts, or roasting them in the fireplace. It's always fun to leave one un-pierced, so it POPS!
If you have the time,  roasting, peeling and maybe slicing them into cassaroles and stir fries. Or boil them and make cream of chestnut soup. But most definitely: Turkey Stuffing on Thanksgiving, with Celeriac and red pepper slices* that's un poco picante pero dulce. *slices must be of a size to have a reasonable stuffing texture: not too big but distinct, not minced. Dammit, I've planted chestnuts all over, and here in Eugene I don't know any trees to gather from. I'll just have to buy some.

I own outright, the hardest way I can imagine. I was madly in love, and my partner had a new job she loved and then she saw a former millworker's shack on a half-acre for sale cheap. She paid cash. Then she found out she had lung cancer. She left it to me. So I began making the wreck habitable as I was pushed out of my job as Land steward at Lost Valley Education Center (East of Eugene in Kesey country.) I used most of my bankroll getting a new roof (beyond my capacity to do that work w/o big help) So I'm still looking at unfinished drywall in places. I concentrate on the 1/2 acre agroforestry system. My son is living in Beaverton happily working in a CAD job, so if you want to live in Eugene some day and want a homestead on a quiet cul-de-sac, we can talk. I plan to live to 90, but that doesn't agree with what's been going down in my family. (at 74 next month, I'm the patriarch of my family, and I've been dead once already, back in the 80's. (shout out to Life Flight!)

Most edible bamboo? I covered that one pretty good for N. America., I thought. There's some differences in taste. between species, but not as much as between fresh bamboo shoots and not-so fresh. What are my other favorite bamboos?  I did go into some of the color variations as well. Being that one person interested was in Tennesee and did not know canebrake bamboo- well there's native bamboo in the S. Appalachians as well, which has a living tradition of Native American basketry. If any of that sounds  interesting you might look into it (politely) Not all of the Cherokee were marched off to Oklahoma, some remain in N. Georgia and still have bamboo.

Other uses of bamboo: fences: Japanese bamboo fence traditions are shown in plenty of "coffee table" books. The Japanese tea house tradition is likewise well-covered in many flashy foto coffee table books.
I think I mentioned briefly the bundled bamboo domes I have made: I used the pattern of the rods that support a dome tent, but larger by several orders of magnitude. When I did a big one for a festival, I added a "visor" over the front, so
'. the site crew was able to add a rain tarp over the musician's area, and quite a few lights . It held up well for the entire long weekend. all the lashing were binder twine, or light sisal rope. It's fun to take a pickup load of bamboo canes and build something that size, light enough to raise up with people power, and have it for the center stage for of a crowd of thousands.
Another possibility would be teaching kids to build shelters they could use for camping, although there might be problems with bug proofing the shelters. Safety around cutting tools would be crucial as well.
I have envisioned an outhouse system with a trench-spanning hut, and rapidly back-filled and moved down the line, so as to not depend on depth for capacity, and have things all in the more active levels of the soil. That one I've never tried.  

Well- seems like I made it past my fatigue at being the "Bamboo Guru" (it's been years I just couldn't) If there are more questions I'll be able to take them on. Questions like "can I plant bamboo in my pasture for the horses?" I hope he didn't try it. (I don't mean to have this posted, I am just a bit surprised with what I just dropped for 3+ hours)

Planting bamboo in a pasture will feed any cattle, sheep, goats, horses or hogs and not be able to spread or thrive, even in a summer rainfall climate (China and Japan are east coastal countries, right?)  There is a native American bamboo: "Canebrake" it grows in Tennesee and around the battle of New Orleans (if you know the song, the Brits "ran thru the canebrake where a rabbit couldn't go" You might be able to grow bamboo of large size in a grove, with rotational grazing, but generally when the animals get a taste for bamboo, if you're cutting, say, a thirty-foot culm of Phyllostachys nigra, and have experienced livestock, they'll be on it before it hits the ground, so cut the branches off and get the poles to seasoning in the barn asap.) If you have smaller bamboo, the animals quickly learn to push it down and have a picnic. (small: less than 2.5 inch diameter) During shooting season, keep the animals out of the bamboo. When you harvest poles, trim the branches asap, open the gate, and the animals will crowd in to eat all the leafy bits; on wet soil, the branches can sometimes get stomped into the muck, and improve drainage, with judicious management. Never run hogs in your bamboo during shooting season.

I had a bamboo nursery for 25 years, until a quadrupal sh*t storm struck and I changed my entire life. Most Edible bamboo: One that will grow in your climate AND does not have shoots that are nasty tasting. If you are in a mild enough climate (mainly subtropical) you will be able to grow at least the hardiest bamboos of the Bambusa genus. Otherwise, if you are in Cascadia/BC and have irrigation potential to substitute for summer rainfall, the Phyllostachys genus has a bunch that get big and taste pretty good. The hardiest of that genus that gets big enough to make harvest worthwhile is P. aureosulcata with frequent zig-zag canes and a variety of color forms, the type having a yellow sulcus: the flat stretch of internode above a pair of branches. If you are in a rainy summer climate, like Japan/China, you can let'em rip. That's where most of the hardy bamboos are from. (with the exception of Canebrake bamboo, which is an Eastern US species) With good soil, a humid climate (or a high water table) and no #!!% big rodents, the bamboo will grow. Unfortunately sandy soil makes for sandy bamboo shoots=more care in washing them before cooking. In the Willamette, with irrigation water in the summer, I can grow shoots that can often be 2" in diameter, max @ 3 or so: the general size of say, an anti-aircraft gun round (and likewise pointy on the top end.) The milder the winter the more varieties you can grow. None of the smaller (but hardier) clumping bamboos from Szechwan and nearby are big enough to bother with for shoots. For some reason, the best tasting shoots are not necessarialy from the best pole varieties by any means. And most all bamboo shoots must be cooked, unless you're a panda.
IF you are in at least the mild sub-tropics, you can grow some great clumping bamboos that have BIG, tasty shoots. If your climate is say, like Indonesia, you can even have good poles for building and eat the shoots too. Depending on variety, and your soil type there will be choices. Here in the Willamette, the primary pole species are the various color forms of P. nigra, which, naturally, comes in black, green, green with brown mottling, green with brown stripes (which sometimes puts up stems that are half-black, half green) The hardiest Phyllostachys aureosulcata, which has many color forms and frequent zig-zag stems- very ornamental and tasty too, but the stems are not super-strong, and being rough to the touch they are quick to get really smutty mildew in the rainy season. (I could see making a really cool room divider for an oriental restaurant with them) As I have never had a large, heated conservatory,  I can't suggest tropical species, but if , say, you're in Bali, you are in BIG LUCK. Yummy sweet bamboo shoots the size of a destroyer round! With a long harvest season! Never been to Bali myself, I can't thrive in the tropics. Most of my ancestors sailed the North sea in open boats: the Willamette is about as tropical as I can get.