Russell Apotheker

I'm going to use this space to document the process of growing anchote from seed to harvest. Hope this is useful to anyone else who chooses to grow it!

The seeds look almost like a thick flat cucumber seed ( which kind of makes sense since it's in the Cucurbitaceae family). I filed down a tiny part of the shell since they are so hard and soaked them for 24 hours in warm water before planting them about .5 inch in a mix of sand, perilite and coco coir. The shell was not very thick so i just lightly sanded it down.

Its been a little over 2 weeks and the seeds are just starting to pop up now. I am going to keep them under grow lights until around the end of May in a space thats pretty cool, no idea where I am going to plant them outside yet though.

Anybody growing this root that's native to Ethiopia? I was browsing expiremental farm network and picked up some seeds that are now germinating.

https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/products/addi-anchote-white-hanchotte

Have you had any success? Trialing this right now in Northern Vermont. I suspect they will die back to thw ground but hopeful the roots will survive under mulch and snow pack.

Snapped this picture earlier today. There were about 15 or so honey bees on this patch when I passed by. It's getting pretty chilly here and beyond mint and sunflowers, there's not a ton of options so maybe it's better than nothing for them.

We have "diversity sunchokes" that we received from Oikos before they shut down. They are in full flower now and we have seen a total of 3 honeybees on them. Not nothing, but also nothing to write home about. Will be curious what if any viable seed comes from them as they are a big mix of varieties.

Not sure if pears can be susceptible to scab but we have a few apple trees that suffer from scab and have some fruit that looks just like this. We've been able to manage with foliar sprays of nettle, burdock and fish emulsion.

We're growing another upland rice this season called Loto. We ended up having cucumber vines running through it and they seem to get along well. I imagine squash vines, maybe winter sqaush, could also work. The only thing I was nervous about was squash beetles, but they really didn't bother anything.

Zone 4b here. Hops are in their 3rd year and while this year's setup may look chaotic,  I think we're finally on our way to a more permanent solution.

I grew bines up about 4 feet then ran them up string to the opposite end of the building gently sloping up. Along the way they run over an old metal drum (more on that in a second) and through my new Jerusalem artichoke plantings. The artichokes are definitely holding their own as a support for the hops. The drum collects rain water in the lid for long enough to act as a water spot for our honey bees which are using the hop leaves as a platform to land on and drink the water. But the water seems to be evaporating fast enough that no mosquitos are attracted to it.

The rest of the bines I let go this year instead of cutting back to see what would happen and they're making a pretty epic ground cover. The only think that's not working great is our marshmallow which is getting a bit yanked down...but also hanging in there.

This setup is south facing so I'm guessing that might be helping to keep any powdery mildew at bay. Also the hops are called alpha aroma, not sure if they might be a less susceptible variety.

Just my 2 cents on what seems to be working here.

So amazing how they use camouflage of mimicry

We caught this beeline robber fly in our sunflowers the other day, and have also let a ton of  wild flowers and plants come up in our garden. Curious if anyone knows if they have favorite plants?