Russell Apotheker

Starting to harden the seedlings off to go outside. They are getting bigger and starting to develop tendrils!

Of all the seedlings 2 have survived and are putting out true leaves now. I was away and I think the person looking after them may have over watered them. Good to note that the seedlings don't love very wet soil. I'm about 3 weeks from hardening them off and in the ground.

Mine never made it through the winter but started another 6 or so from seed and will be planning to take cuttings to hedge my bets this winter.

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.