tuffy monteverdi

Emirene Backues wrote:Not super common, but the easiest most versatile plant I grow is Seombadi/Korean Celery/Dystaenia takesimana.  This stuff is amazing.  Zone 6b temperate NE in the US- it is a perennial and overwinters without any difficulty, can brush snow aside and harvest lightly even in Feb or March.  It's now started to self seed and I'm happily giving seedlings away the my unsuspecting neighbors.  Mild flavor, depending of the age of the shoot and leaf it can be used in salads, stir fry, or soups.  Also while the groundhog and rabbits eat it, they don't decimate it like other plants (any brassicas, or squash varieties I try to grow that's not fully fenced).  Attached is a pic from early April this year after a very hard winter and not much else is green yet.

Fascinating!
I have not heard of this plant
Is the stalk as crunchy and juicy as regular celery or is it a bit tough and stringy (like other wild celery relatives).
Also, is it a problem to differentiate wild celery from the poisonous relatives: water hemlock and poison hemlock?

I love this thread!
So informative!

It’s shocking to me, but w all our animals and orchards, etc, we don’t have poultry yet. So in the process of getting ready, reading detailed threads like this from very experienced poultryists, is extremely helpful😊🙏

I’ve always had the idea to use the broody hens as “replacement workers” (why not? It’s a permaculture pattern in their genes and the extra chickens taste great).
So I’m Very glad to read about the different strategies.
Thank you 🙏

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Ellen Lewis wrote:...
Several people mentioned aloe. How do you use aloe as a vegetable?

Yes, I saw my own comment of some years ago: Aloe vera is easy to grow as a houseplant. But I don't eat it as a vegetable!
The most common use is on the skin, for burns, cuts and scratches.
It can also be used as a remedy for 'cold' and 'flu': mix half a jar of honey with one large Aloe leaf in a blender (it becomes a green foamy 'slime', but the foam will go down later). Use 1 tablespoon full twice a day (morning and evening). The honey makes it sweet, but still you taste the very bitter Aloe. Probably it helps because it's bitter (there's an old Dutch saying 'bitter in de mond maakt het hart gezond', 'bitter in the mouth makes the heart healthy').

I just want to throw some caution and info here about the use of aloe internally:

The gel inside the green parts has been shown to be healing for wounds, cosmetics, GI tract, and beyond.

HOWEVER, the green outer parts of the aloe leaf, the “bitter” parts mentioned above, are a GI irritant (certain compounds in it are somewhat toxic) and thus are basically a very effective laxative.
Concerningly, there are studies that show the green parts can cause GI cancers with prolonged exposure - (probably due to its irritating qualities long term). These studies have been done on rats, not humans, however the results are not ambiguous, they were clear.

This study uses whole leaf and doesn’t differentiate inner and outer leaf, which sadly was an oversight, but nevertheless:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3537128/

And this paper from the Williams Cancer institute goes into the mechanisms and the compounds responsible, with clarity and a little more depth:

https://williamscancerinstitute.com/aloe-vera-what-science-is-discovering-about-its-possible-cancer-links/

Anyway, one can effectively use the clear gel externally or internally, medicinally, it has very few of these irritant compounds, but the green parts might be best for constipation issues only, sporadically.
And there may be better plants or compounds for that purpose anyway, that aren’t associated with carcinogenesis.

A few of the asparagus crowns we planted died. The others seem great.

Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a brand new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?

For me and my area, I would recommend cucumbers!

Can you think of anything I've missed about cucumbers being easy to grow?

Wow! You are lucky!
What climate are you in?
cucumbers and Okra are the plants I’ve had the *hardest* time with in our Mediterranean climate. They seem incredibly fussy!

Easiest: potatoes and parsley (in shade), artichokes, celery (more shaded), nettles, chives, chard -pretty much perennial here and reseeds easily.

Thank you

I also found a really beautiful one: Ficus lyrata
It’s a tree though. But tropical. Not sure re ease of growth…

Photos from internet

Oh very cool! It’s a corm, related to arum plants!

Too bad it’s poisonous…could be neat to grow an edible corm inside..

Ah ok thank you
I’ll check those out.
Maybe a houseplant will thrive for me for once!

Thanks
Do you know the Latin name for zz?