Taro is very common in people's fields here in my part of Japan. I'm pretty sure it's known as "sato imo". The plants get quite large. People just plop them in the ground and leave them. There is some next door and I never see the owner attend it. He just left it in over summer and now it's quite big. My wife's family love it and often have it in miso soup and hotpots.

Growing up in South Africa our Zulu farmers would spoil us with hot cooked taro. The name there is amadumbe. Fabulous memories

Not only is Mark a great gardiner, he is also a wonderful violinist, beautiful Mark, beautiful.

@sharonc1858

Жыл бұрын

Didn't know that!

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Lol... Thanks Mark! 🙂👍

@wretchedrue7859

Жыл бұрын

KZread needs to add a laugh button 😂

@christinaoliveryoung6019

Жыл бұрын

@@wretchedrue7859 YES! A measly thumbs up just doesn't convey the hilarity!

I didn't know taro was a bog plant. I LOVE taro everything

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Yes, I don't think it's necessarily a "bog" plant as it is mostly cultivated in normal fertile soil (particularly commercially) but I saw Taro growing in water during a farm stay in Vietnam back in 2016 so ever since I wanted to give it a go. Cheers 👍

@sharonc1858

Жыл бұрын

I didn't either. I didn't know you could eat them either. Maybe we have something different that looks like them. I'll have to check on that, my husband should know. His Mom taught him a lot about this sort of thing.

@Gardeningchristine

Жыл бұрын

@@sharonc1858 there are also apps that can sometimes tell you what plants are. You download the app, point your phone camera at it and… it tells you what the plant is. Although sometimes it doesn’t work or it gets it wrong. I use SEEK, but there are many out there.

@mealbla7097

Жыл бұрын

@@sharonc1858 some can be eaten some cant. Best way to know, is to plant taro from the grocery store

@mealbla7097

Жыл бұрын

@@Selfsufficientme you might want to try water lotus. They make an edible root and beautiful flowers, then edible seeds

Here’s a big fat Taro & Arrow thumbs up Mark, you bloody champion 👍

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Lol... Thanks mate 👍😁

a BIG THANK YOU for all these positive vibes 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! 👍 🙂

I really appreciate your positivity and creativity. I've had many disappointments this year with my garden. But I'm going to try and adopt your attitude more and keep pushing forward

@adedow1333

Жыл бұрын

It's been a weird year, true enough!

@luvmy5515

Жыл бұрын

I csn relate. I had a bumper crop of tomatoes and cukes but everything else just sucked. I live in north central Ohio and we can get all 4 seasons in a week.

@erroneous6947

Жыл бұрын

I have some very happy and fat critters running around. Lol. I don’t mind sharing. Did anyone know foxes eat blackberries? Or squirrels love strawberries? I told them they’re fine until society collapses and I get hungry for meat. Till then we have a peace treaty.

@goldengryphon

Жыл бұрын

@@erroneous6947 I feed my swamp rabbits for the same reason. I put a low fence around what little garden I had left so I might have *something* to harvest, but they got all the squash and peas/beans. When SHTF, they can go in the pot, leaving a few to roam for later. As long as they don't bother the chickens, I'm cool with it. Yeah, foxes aren't known as omnivores, but they are like dogs/wolves in that they are more omnivorous than you might expect. It's still fun to see them eating berries, though. Squirrels are a problem in some areas and Brunswick Stew is a well known way (in Georgia/South Carolina) to keep them in line. I'm sure you can keep your peace treaty going even when you start culling, as long as you don't get overenthusiastic and wipe out your local population. I'm using a lot of the enthusiasm for learning, trying, doing I get here along with the "Just try it" attitude from David The Good and seeing what happens. I figure that the worst case is I get something to eat, learn a lot about my garden and what I might want to try next, and learn more about what I really want to grow.

I grow tarrow and arrow head in my swale in front my house. It completely takes over and provides good coverage for the small animals to make a home with. I have tons of lizards and frogs that sing all night long. Great plants but I don't eat them their just for landscape.

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Great stuff! 👍 🙂

@Tsuchimursu

Жыл бұрын

it's a good backup if you ever need a quick side dish! x)

@supertech104

Жыл бұрын

Not so sure. The swale they grow in has sewage discharge going to it. They grow well but I don't know if they would be safe for consumption with the media they grow in. The plants are mainly for helping with the natural breakdown of the sewage and they also make nice landscaping.

@Tsuchimursu

Жыл бұрын

@@supertech104 oh, that piece of context makes a difference...

@deneseburrell

Жыл бұрын

@@supertech104 people have used human waste for fertilizer for generations; they use it in Asia today, which is okay as long as you let it break down naturally or heat it to temps high enough to kill any pathogens. They're trying it in Africa now and nobody's dying~

Hey Mark glad to see you're not getting bogged down with planting Tarrow and Arrowhead. Great video thumbs up.

I love it when you do these little experiments. Keep up the great videos!

@teresaroman3348

Жыл бұрын

Me, too.

@tamararoberts9307

Жыл бұрын

Yes! He amazes me with his experimental projects! So inspiring ✨️

A big thumbs up for the music added. Love your videos!

Gardening is all about successes AND failures Mark (and we all know you’re not afraid to show your less successful experiments, it’s one of the reasons we all watch you ) , I’m sure you’ll find a way to get better crops of this nature in the future. I have complete faith in you , great video as always 👍🇬🇧🇦🇺

Haha had a good laugh at the taro hand grenade moment. Great content as always. Didn’t even know you could do something like this. Thanks!

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thanks Daniel! Luckily, it didn't explode... 😁

These plants are both top of mind here in the far northern USA. We can treat taro/elephant ears/colocasia escualenta as a summer decorative plant, you dig them after a frost takes the leaves and store the tubers - really similar to dahlias. My tubers last year roughly doubled total volume just our short growning season. The locally indigenous 'arrowroot' is harvested around now in the autumn, just before the freeze. The plant that grows here is also called wapato - sagittaria latifolia is most common specific species. It gets a little bigger than what you harvested, and is various shades from white to purple!

@Rumade

Жыл бұрын

Sagittaria latifolia is the variety I have in my pond! It hasn't done particularly well, I think the spot my pond is in is perhaps a little too shady

I grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year. We love the leaves better than lettuce in the heat. Will definitely grow more next year!

Cassava is a staple right throughout the Pacific , it is also called Tapioca ! You can grow from cuttings , just poke them into a mound , as the usa will says , they are the best. I like the creamy yellow one , but the white one is also nice .

@mandykathryn9005

Жыл бұрын

I have cassava..

We cook taro leaves as well. In a pot cut taro leaves finely fry off gently with onion and add coconut cream to cover and simmer for at least a hour to avoid an itchy throat Second, on top of tinfoil use the taro leaves like wrapping paper and enclose onions, a thick coconut cream and corned meat. Wrap tightly to avoid spillage and bake at 180 for an hour and a half. Both are delicious. Your welcome 🙂

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Sounds fantastic! Thanks for sharing your recipes and methods for cooking Taro. Cheers 👍 🙂

@_JanetLouise

Жыл бұрын

Yes, cooked properly it's better than spinach!

@leoscheibelhut940

Жыл бұрын

To add to what @Nanny Prep already said, in the Philippines, one of my favorite dishes was taro leaves, taro root, onion, garlic, cooked in coconut milk. For protein you can add any fish, chicken, etc. My favorite is with dried fish. It rehydrates from the coconut milk, delicious served over rice.

@sheraaz_panda_life

Жыл бұрын

Lol, sounds like Fijian dish 😉

@hoperules8874

Жыл бұрын

@@Selfsufficientme just a concern for those who may be sensitive to calcium oxalate--it is water soluble from the plant, but that just puts it into the water/liquid portion***it does not stop being calcium oxalate because it was cooked😥get a kidney stone--then you'll know **the liquid must be tossed to removed the calcium oxalate from the final product

Cassava is good up there too Mark, Taro is SOOO nice boiled with coconut cream, and the stem's and leaves can also be eaten , BUT MUST BE COOKED PROPERLY , as it has a strong acidic (could be like arsenic) substance in the green parts of the plant , so needs to be cooked out . once it is it is very nourishing flavor ,green vegetable .

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the extra tips on cooking! Yes, I'm yet to try cassava - I must grow some... cheers 👍 🙂

@USA__WILL

Жыл бұрын

@@Selfsufficientme cassava is the best

@erikjohnson9223

Жыл бұрын

CaOxalate. Unless perhaps it is in contaminated soil, there shouldn't be arsenic.

For growing the taro, you might want to treat it like a bi-annual crop. The ones that grew on my parents property were like yours the first year. The second they became monstrous. If you have the room might be worth a two year crop rotation.

Aloha Mark! Next taro harvest, when you cut the stem off, cut off a little of the corm with the stem. Leaving about a half an inch of corm on the stem and then replant like that. Also, when you harvest, hand clean the roots off if you can. You keep more corm on, more to eat! 😁 🤙🏾

Thank you for being here and sharing your experience with us.

Next time, add some watercress in your taro bed. You can put watercress in your salad, nice peppery like the rockets. Not bad taro harvest for a small bed. Yes, plant in the garden beds too. It will taste a bit different taro grown on dry land and mud. It's not the stem, Mark, it needs a basal plate. on it. We usually grow taro that way. Plant some taro around your duck pond or areas that flood in your tree area. Good to see ya, matey :)

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for all that info Mary on growing Taro and also great idea about watercress! 👍🙂

Another great video ,its all about the learning not the total harvest although a big harvest never hurts either.👍

Really appreciate the music in this one, bravo

I thought that I had watched all your videos until you mentioned that duck one from a year ago, I was shocked. We can't have that now can we. I'll be doing a thorough check after this to make sure I don't miss any

Reading all these comments is interesting. I always only associated taro with the Pacific islands. I never knew it grew in so many places.

Theres a natural boggy wet kinda area next to our house & I always discard cat poops from the garden into the bog, what I've noticed is that the taros that gets poop on them grows really massive 😂😂. I'm 160cm & they get as tall as me

💡I like the way you are experimenting with the Taro by attempting different propagation methods as well as having it in the "full sun" and believe that your next crop of Taro will do much better.

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thanks Richard! 👍🙂

Taro loves to be a bit crowded so you could easily stick a ton of or even all of the shoots back in the original bed. I also recommend using taro as an edible ornamental since it’s at least in my opinion it’s quite an attractive landscaping plant. I recommend a variety called ‘Illustris’ which has beautiful multicolored leaves but is also almost as productive as regular edible taro.

@goldengryphon

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the hint! I love eating pretty plants. It makes it lovely to be out in the garden. I'll go looking for some starts!

Your show is never disappointing. Thank you. I'm always learning something

I have planted arrowroot and taro in containers much smaller than your but had an better yield . My personal suggestion is plant them on ground and water occasionally,it doesn’t have to be muddy . Much love from India 😊

Thanks for showing that experimenting is a part of gardening!!! 👍🏿

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thank you Karen! 🙂👍

Can't grow rarrow but that is my favorite piece of music. Brought tears to my eyes.

4:44 The perks of having hens... 🤣 They're so silly they always made me laugh.

It’s really nice to see what you do with what you grow! Everyone has had a small harvest of something. Mine usually goes in a stir fry.

I remember when you planted those. It's cool to see how they did!

Taro leaves are yum cooked with lamb , onion , tomato & coconut milk in like a little parcel

The cinematic shots at 3:37 could've been out of a movie... Cheers Mark looks like the Aussie garden is going well

I love taro. You cook it in coconut milk and add some palm sugar and a pandan leaf. We even cook the soft stems and eat them as vegetables.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge Mark, I have learnt so much from your content. Thank you for the tips, experiments and "a ton" of great examples. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for your support Miguel! All the best 👍 🙂

I've seen Taro grown in containers that have been placed in a water source and have done very well. An old milk bottle or nursery container would work just fine. Maybe ill give it a go myself.

The wild taro that just grow up in my yards can grow as big as your thigh. I prefer the ones your size, but some of my neighbors like them so I just let them take those whenever they want (they're just growing there on the ground by the banana trees, I never planted them, they're already there along with the bananas when I bought the land). I just sometimes harvest the leaves as snacks for my fish (I have two cement fish ponds in my backyard). Btw I love the way the elegant classical music playing as you're prying the dirtiest looking muds, LoL. Ironically enjoyable to watch. 🤣👍

Taro n arrowhead? Now I have to research what they are😄 thx

I LOVE taro! Cool plant to grow. PS love the music choice. Instrumental version of the flower Duet from Lakme. ☺️

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while. looking forward to watching it.

I remember being fed those white& purple things. Didn't know they were taro

Water chestnuts love the bog method

That's what I love about gardening, you can experiment so much🥰.

I love taro. In Africa they call it cocoyam and grow it in drier soil, but it's the same plant. It's one of the hardest plants to mess up I've had.

I never knew Arrowhead was edible......it grows in my pond.....and up into the ground along the spring feeding the pond.....perhaps I'll dig some up and give them a try sometime.

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

G'day Chris, I'm not sure if all arrowhead varieties are edible so make sure you check before cooking them up 👍🙂

You could use the bog for growing duck weed, it is a great extra food for chickens.

i think the ducks and chickens were interested in the water plants called "azolla" its like little water lily fast growing, u can feed ducks,chickens,cows,pigs,horse, etc. its very nutritious!!

@erikjohnson9223

Жыл бұрын

I saw duckweed (Lemma sp.), not Azolla. It is probably less productive because it doesn't fix nitrogen, but Azolla fixes nitrogen using a cyanobacterium (Anabaena?), which scares me because most blue-green algae produce rather nasty toxins like the non-protein amino acid, BMAA, which causes Parkinsonism (most famously in Guam, where the culprits were cycads and the wildlife that ate them). Duckweed is edible, though I would cook it to avoid nasty aquatic hitchhikers.

@banjo00

Жыл бұрын

@@erikjohnson9223 maybe ducks like it too. coz ducks likes to eat snails,slugs and other tiny insects right?

I love cooking the taro leaves too

Love all your videos. Can't wait for the next one!

Looking forward to see the next harvest of Taro

LOL! Playing in the mud, indeed!

Hi brother!! Thank you for everything!!! They are helping our family to grow our own food GRACIAS!!! We love you mark with self sufficient me !!

I live in the high desert. For plants that like a lot of moisture, I put them in a wicking bed so they are easier to keep moist.

Boiled taro and scrambled eggs is my favorite breakfast

Really like the new music in this vid! Very calming

You're a great teacher Mark 👍 I keep learning from your videos

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thank you Tamara! I appreciate you taking the time to give me such positive feedback 🙂👍

Finally ... been a long time waiting for your post plus still waiting for your renovation reveal.

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

I'll post a reno update on my second channel soon but progress has been slow... 👍🙂

I grew taro in containers. 1 per container. Similar growing material but not flooded. Instead I put the pots in a larger non draining container and kept that full letting the water wick up which I believe allowed for better oxygen with adequate moisture. It turned out pretty well. Whenever a sucker got to about 3 inches, I removed it and repotted it in an another identical set up. In a few months time, my overall crop quintupled. This of course was due to the climate here in Hawai’i and the serendipity of the correct variety for this type of growth. I still don’t know what variety it was. Hawai’i has over 200 known traditional varieties itself.

watching from south Brazil. 🇧🇷👊

Love to follow you in your experiments and learn about so many different ways to get gardens started. I'm also in a warm climate (Fla) and am always learning what to grow in this sandy soil or how to better the soil in the raised beds. Thank you for all your tips/advices, HIGHLY appreciated.

Arrowhead root thinly sliced and fried into chips/crisps lightly salted is delicious.

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Yum! 👍🙂

👍👍Awesome stuff mate, I really appreciate you sharing your journey 👍

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thank you Phil, cheers mate 👍 🙂

Taro leaves are awesome. Search for "Laing" (La-ing) recipe.

please to see you back love your channel

@Selfsufficientme

Жыл бұрын

Thanks Carol! 🙂👍

They say playing in mud good for you it's relaxing.

Thank you Mark, I am always getting an education about what y'all grow down under! THANKS!!!

Nice to see you Mark! Hope your house referb has gone well. My hens found that they loved my strawberry leaves, had to fence them off. I might just try and grow something like that here next spring. I would need to fence it also to keep the deer & chicken out. Great idea, Thank you for posting.

nice experiments ! more ! MORE !!!

Love that you have a go to see what happens and then share your project and outcomes. It's invaluable to gardeners and the reason we need to keep supporting you on Patreon. Learning from you saves me months and years of treading the same path to make the same mistakes myself and I also benefit from your knowledge, wins and best practice. Like Birdies beds - what a back and knee saver they have been. Worth every cent. Thanks big fella!

@bendonaldson9026

Жыл бұрын

Hello Eileen

The leaves are edible as well. In Hawaii we place Fish, Pork & Taro or Sweet Potato in the large leaves, wrap in Banana Leaves and steam. Its called LAU-LAU. Really good.

Time to grow marshmallow! Such exciting results!

hello mark I'm from India and taro is very easy to grow here , you just need to throw them and they will thrive, i hope I could send you some taro to grow , because we've got really nice variety (a lot better than the Chinese one ) they grow in worst soil possible too 😂

Please keep us updated on how it’s going. I have a small pond I’ve been thinking of growing some food in, but I haven’t figured what to grow yet.

@nicknomski8399

Жыл бұрын

I remember a video / TV show with Bill Mollison growing water chestnuts in a little pond tub

@lisacastano1064

Жыл бұрын

I'm going to use a kids pool and grow lotus

Hi Mark, I love trying new things and then learning from it to put into action next time, for me that's one of the great joys of gardening, there's always new things to try. All the best, John, Hampshire, UK

That bog garden would be great for water chestnuts 🌰 always great seeing your experiments

Love your choice of taro harvesting background music Mark. What a nice start to my day, great video as always, thank you ❤️

I love that you experiment with different things. I am a container gardener as I live in an apartment, and I have had so many failed attempts that just didn't work out in containers, that sometimes I feel really disheartened, but every success feels like YAY!!!

I love the ASMR when you chopped the taro and arrow heads with light relaxing classical music background!

You are a delight to watch! Love your enthusiasm with gardening. I had no clue taro and arrowhead were bog plants!! I love taro chips. Happy gardening 👨‍🌾

When I was little I've noticed taro growing in canals (erm, those narrow open drainage at the side of streets) and creeks. I got trust issues with it at the time because of that lol but I absolutely love taro especially in sinigang. If I don't have sweet potatoes, I use taro in curry too. Dried taro leaves are awesome cooked in coconut cream/milk. Add dried salty fish or chopped fried pork belly in it as well as some bird's eye chili and you're golden.

Thanks for all the videos Mark! Just ordered my first couple of Birdie Beds! We’re gunna put them to the test in the Midwest! Love your KISS method to practical gardening for sustenance! Keep up the great work man!

Love the sound of your quail

Also those last words: Im quite happy with this minimum harvest. I´ve learned heaps. Inspiring

I have these in my yard and never knew that these have eatable root. ❤

I appreciate the use of the flower duet as your background music. Lovely melody to soothe the tension of "what'll it be like?!"

I love the music while you were harvesting! Just looked at getting taro the other day but wasn't sure how to eat it or what to make with it. Now I have some ideas!

When I was eating gluten free and corn free arrow root was super important as a substitute to corn starch that I wasn't allergic to, it's in some Asian dishes as a powder and changes the flavor if you don't have it. It was really exciting to see Chinese Taro, I live in Hawaii but I'm only starting to dig deeper into varieties and uses, I really enjoy eating taro I like the taste and find it really agrees with my system and makes me feel energized. By the way I love the way you grow and cook in the same video, it's really special to close the loop with things grown and cooked in the same garden/farm. Thank you for your videos they are my favorite garden videos. 🍲

Hi Mark, I looooove your videos, I love garden, flowers, grow, harvest.. Im from Bazil. Gos bles u so much.

We have taro growing all over the place in Florida and I never knew you could eat it. Its actually invasive. I pull it out of the ditch every summer. We call them elephant ears. Some get massive and others are small. Huh! Learned something new today Thanks Mark

The leaves are my favorite part of the harvest! Filipino recipes are a great way to prepare them

Taro is a good addition to vegetable soup.. it makes the soup thick and starchy making it a hearty meal 😋😋👌👌👌👌

The young leaves and the stems can be eaten too! Its scrumptious 😋

Great experiment to see! Close to my heart too as I recently experimented with taking an off cut from some taro we had at the back of the fridge and grew it in a pot in our greenhouse. We’re in a cold temperate area so I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it, but we got a decent harvest of taro. No big ones like you, but lots of golf ball sized ones.

In Hawaii we call taro, kalo and everything from the leaves down to the corm can be used to consume but just be sure to cook it properly or else it will give you a itchy throat . Much love from Oahu, Hawaii

I'm gonna try a couple of these in my pond