A Passion for Edible Root ExplorationAn Interview with Rhizowen Radix

Photo by Radix of a selection of Andean Root Crops

There are few plant people whom I admire more than Radix Rhizowen so I was giddy when he agreed to let me grill him about his hobby of growing and eating rare root crops. I'm pretty sure that the first time I encountered this intrepid unearther of all things tuberous was when I was googling something like oca. I was transported into the hilarious, well researched and fascinating world of his blog radix4roots.

For a floraphile like myself, it is highly enabling and I disappeared down the rabbit hole of his tales for as long as my children would permit. I was also compelled to try and source some of these fascinating roots for myself - no easy task. Crops like oca, yacon (which spell check keeps trying to change to bacon by the way) and the Apios are just not commonly grown and those examples are of more well known rare root crops. However, in 2013, there were posts on Nephrolepsis cordifolia - a fern with edible tubers, Aandegopin, and Soh-phlang. That's not to leave out Mashua - the marmite of roots - as he calls it owing to its mixed taste reviews.


So where does this intrepid root explorer reside? Radix over to you.

I garden on the outskirts of Liskeard, a small town close to the edge of Bodmin Moor, which is in Cornwall, the most southerly county in the UK. We're at about 50 N, but the weather is mild due to the presence of the Gulf Stream. Mild is, of course, a relative term and it can be cool and wet on any day of the year. The defining characteristic of our climate is its unpredictability, although it usually rains a lot. Grass often grows year round in Cornwall and there is even a little tea cultivated here.


Radix4roots - Whoopee for Wapato

I've always enjoyed growing plants and eating has an enduring fascination for me, so exploring the world of edible plants is just a combination of these two powerful themes in my life. Root crops are among the most satisfying crops to grow - something about excavating them is like unearthing buried treasure - that denouement never loses its appeal for me. Unearthing roots is probably an instinctive behavior; there's some evidence to suggest that the harvesting (and cooking) of wild roots and played an important role in human evolution.

Reading your blog is like taking a botanical world tour. Would you say that there was a region that has given you more material and if so why?

I would have to say South America. The range of edible roots tubers cultivated there seems to me to be outstanding. Anyone who is familiar with the book 'Lost Crops of the Incas' will be aware of this. Although my interest in Andean root and tuber crops predates its publication, it certainly did nothing to divert me from my chosen path. That said, there are many fascinating species lurking in Asia, Africa and elsewhere that deserve further investigation. I subscribe to the view that one should do the necessary research and try and match the plant to one's growing conditions, but you don't know until you've tried: prepare to be surprised on a regular basis. Plants and their unknowable antics are the perfect antidote to smug self-congratulation. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ulluco from radix4roots and a related article Crap Crop of the Incas: My on-off-on affair with high altitude Andean crops

In the A-Z of roots that you have grown, what would you say is your most and least (can I guess) favourite, as well as the rarest and strangest root you’ve grown? Any surprising success or failures?

My list of favourites fluctuates with what has currently caught my interest. During oca season, I become ocasessive and as I hunt for the seedling volunteers; I actually find I can see them before my eyes as I go to sleep. Now that oca seed production has been cracked, it can only be a matter of time before a day-neutral plant turns up. When it does, oca's future will be assured and I'll probably move on to pastures new. .


Radix4roots - Mauka: Expansa by name, Expansive by Nature

I like mauka for its sheer rarity, rather unusual plant architecture and surprisingly hardy disposition. It doesn't taste too bad either. Ulluco almost never fails to frustrate and disappoint. I’d love to have another go with anchote (Coccinia abyssinica) as it grew surprisingly well in an appalling summer and seemed to tuberise at a sensible time.  My dream is to create a properly reliable, hardy, cool weather tolerant sweetpotato. Correction: that's one of my dreams.

Why do you think this sort of amateur plant experimenting and development is important?

Amateurs (read enthusiasts) can make progress by collaborating to create new crops and sharing their successes and methods with like-minded individuals, wherever they may be. Take oca - growing several thousand plants from seed is well within the realms of possibility and will certainly increase the likelihood of a day-neutral mutant turning up. A group of enthusiasts can share this burden and participants can enjoy the fruits (or roots) of their collective labours.


Radix4roots - Yacon: Don't try this at home

This must surely be a golden age for motivated amateurs to develop new varieties and domesticate new crops. How their efforts are to be protected from hostile expropriation remains to be seen.

What project is capturing your imagination at present?

I suppose oca is.  Other interests are hybridizing squashes and developing reliable chillies for our climate.

Radix4roots - Ocabliteration

My aim is to have a wonderfully rich, diverse and productive suite of crops that will thrive here with minimum intervention. Nothing new or original in that, but I suspect that in the future we'll need a wider range of food plants as climatic fluctuations make old stalwarts less reliable. This may involve developing new varieties of old crops (like oca) or domesticating new ones.  There's no point waiting for commercial concerns to do this, we need to act now.  Aside from anything else, I find this work feeds my intellect and my imagination in a way that few other activities do.


Radix4roots - Achote: Out of Africa

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Interested in getting to know roots and their enthusiasts better? Come on down to Radix Root Crops on Facebook.

Edible Landscaping Community - Condo Complex

A big rock that was dug out when putting in the path. Also visible left to right: temporary planting of peppers, gold leaf anise hyssop, lovage, kale. 

The condo board agreed that their landscaping - which consisted of some rough lawn, a few shrubs teetering on piles of dirt and perennials crowded in front of their entrance sign - needed a bit of freshening up. Resident Patricia suggested they try edible landscaping.

Now, it is my suspicion that though everyone was more or less fine with the concept that they let Patricia go ahead with her unorthodox plan because she has an infectious enthusiasm. Sonia figured this meant some nasturtiums but was happy that it ended up being "more than I imagined."

The core team: Krystal, Sonia and Patricia standing in a path designed with an inverted mirror image pattern.

I met with them for the first time on a cool morning just after the snow pack had melted to be confronted with a patch of barely lawn covered in gravel from snow clearing that I was assured would be vacuumed up shortly. It was perfect: full sun, lots of access and lots of space. We discussed some possibilities then I went to work.

It needed to be neat, attractive and contain edibles that were not too far off what people would recognize as edible. A mixture of common cooking herbs like oregano, thyme and sage, perennial edibles like monarda, anise hyssop, sorrel and lovage and some complementary temporary plantings like nasturtium (just as Sonia thought), kale and chard found their place on a flowing framework.


Some perennials, such as Echinacea, that were rearranged in front of the sign spilling over to create bee habitat foraging on the other side too, and some low growing herbs. 

I suggested that we use sheet composting as a method to build the garden bed as they didn't have any serious weeds. It requires less work, less materials and doesn't remove the existing fertility or overly stir the soil's weed-seed bank. I think they were okay with the 'less work' plan. Soil and mulch was ordered and plants were sourced. Some came from Aster Lane Edibles - the biz - and some from local nurseries.


Krystal with a purple carrot from one of the resident's gardens.

Dig day was a beautiful day in late spring. The shape of the garden was cut a week or so beforehand. Though I provided drawings, I like to finalize the shape on the ground. Subtle (and not so) changes in elevation and other idiosyncracies can be better incorporated this way. I find it helps to remain flexible during the installation phase. For example, the perennials in front of the condo sign were very crowded, including a clump of iris that had been infested with borer. These had not been included in the original design but were easily incorporated in pleasing geometrical patterns, that enhanced the design, on the day. Also digging out the paths revealed a huge rock which became a focal ornament.

The core team of Crystal, Ashley, Patricia and Sonia worked tirelessly throughout the day removing half dead junipers with roots that seemed twisted to the centre of the earth, lugging endless wheelbarrow loads of soil and mulch and finally planting. I love it when clients work with me. This was truly a community effort!


Delicious empanadas made by Patricia from fresh kale and chard from the entrance garden.

Those little starts grew quickly in the plentiful rain and good soil. When I returned, even I was impressed by how wonderful the garden looked. There was a lot of love being dug into this garden. I asked them what the rest of the residents thought of their new garden. "Appreciation is high but participation is more of a challenge but people are slowly getting on board with lending tools and planting their own gardens," said Sonia.

"Communication is key. People don't know what to pick and when. I didn't know what everything was," said Crystal, who refers to the Anise Hyssop as Bee Palace - this must be my favourite nickname for the plant because the bees really do love it.


The kids know where the strawberries are.

"People are interested in food," said Patricia referring to the many new gardens that are popping up all over the complex. "They are putting in their own gardens." The remaining mulch and soil was offered to the rest of the residents. Many of whom were making good use of it.


Mint in another garden that has sprung up in the condo complex taking over a place that other plants found difficult.

Sonia took me around to show me some rain barrels that were being attached to the sides of the housing units at the end of redirected downspouts. They also showed me some more garden spaces that were filling in with flowers and food. We spoke about plans for expansion next year.


Patricia's raised bed garden in another part of the common ground growing some onions.

That first garden was a seed that was planted and grew into a community effort to make beautiful use of their common ground. I am honoured to be part of it.

Garden to StomachA holistic approach with the Higgs

Plums plumping up in the holistic orchard.

It’s always great when people who you meet on the internet live close enough that you can pop by for a visit. This is the case for the Higgs that live a little over three hours South-west of me. I can’t remember our first conversation, whether it was about rare fruits, mycorrhizal associations, raised beds, reskilling or fruit tree propagation or perhaps it was some happy union of all those things. Mike is one of those rare growers who stares tradition in the face and decides whether or not it’s being honest. He’s a researcher and an experimenter reading about past and present gardening trends, then trying them out in his garden to see if they accomplish the goals of feeding his family without unnecessary work. 

They draw inspiration from a variety of sources including John Jeavons (growing fertility and nutrition), Emilia Hazelip (low soil disturbance), Massanobu Fukuoka (work with nature and do as little as possible) and Mel Batholemew (intensive planting in raised beds).

Tell us about your farm:


There orchards and other tree plantings include many unusual fruits and nuts.

North of the Saint Lawrence, in South-Eastern Ontario’s rolling hills is the Higgs farm: a diverse planting of fruits, nuts, perennials and vegetables. Planted in mulched circles are an abundance of crops from perennial ground cherry to young heartnuts surrounded by tumbling squash. Laid out in staggered rows is the formal orchard, now inspired by Michael Phillips’ The Holistic Orchard, that includes rare fruits for these parts such as quince, medlar, persimmon and beach plum. Just beyond is a row of willow and poplar, propagated by softwood cuttings, that is being grown to produce ramial woodchips for the orchard and craft material. It is banked by a mulched and Dutch while clover covered berm to capture the water and direct it to the willow roots instead of it draining away downhill. Just in front of the big bay window of their home are a series of raised beds with fruit crops like haskaps and raspberries and traditional vegetables like potatoes, beets, carrots, and parsnips. There are also more rare items such as perennial wheat and rye from Tim Peters.

In the beginning:

Cutting trails in their back forest shortly after they moved to their new country home in 2008, they found a beautiful, unblemished yellow apple. “It was a potentially superior apple from one of the wild trees.” Mike wanted to propagate it but knew that he would need rootstock. "Getting some was a problem because there's little available in Canada for the small grower. Learning how to graft and produce more rootstock wasn't as big a problem although few bother with these skills anymore." He begin to research and One Thing Lead to Another. This is the title of his blog where he details experiments on how to propagate plants by techniques such as trench layering and root cuttings among other things.


Raised beds with veggies, some small fruit and a propagation bed for root stock.

Joyce’s early attempts at vegetable growing were also frustrating. Turning up the soil in what had been an old grazing field for llifestock awoke every thistle imaginable from slumber. It took hours to weed around a few strawberries. “This was not what I had signed up for,” said Joyce. Then they learned about square foot gardening  and mulching. They consider mulching an extremely essential and often overlooked part of gardening “Look at this soil,” Mike says as he pulled back the weed excluding mulch to show moist workable soil. Joyce now shares what she has learned in a column in The Link, a magazine ‘celebrating a creative lifestyle’ in the area. She also sells some plants and preserves at the farmer’s market.

The Orchard:


Concentric mulch circles of pea gravel for drainage and to prevent critter nests and mulch to encourage beneficial fungal associations. 

Though they have planted trees throughout their ten acres including butternuts and red maples in the back bush and fruit and nut trees such as mulberry, sea buckthorn, University of Saskatchewan cherries, hazelnuts, heartnuts, hardy kiwi, Virburnums, rosehips along the embankment in front of their house, up the driveway and in the fields, their holistic orchard catches the eye right away. With the help of a WWOOFer, the conventional orchard of staggered rows of young trees was modified this year based on the holistic ideas of Michael Phillips. It was mulched with an inner ring of pea gravel for drainage and to give rodents no nesting material and an outer ringof ramial woodchips to foster mutualistic fungal relationships important to tree health. The mycorrhizae get food in the form of carbohydrates from the plant’s photosynthesis and the plant gets access to water and nutrients from an expanded root system. Plants may then be healthier and more resistant to drought.


Willow cuttings beside white clover planted berm.

When I asked why he liked holistic orchardist Phillips’ approach, Mike said, “When I read the word balance, I said, ah-hah. That’s what it’s about. If I get rid of all the aphids, the ladybugs have no food and they disappear as well. If I want ladybugs to keep the aphids under control naturally, I need some aphids." Around the concentric circle plots of trees is a wildflower meadow to increase biodiversity in order to attract a permanent population of pollinators and predatory of pollinators and predatory insects. Along with Coreopsis and Echinacea, the so-called weeds such as mullein, oxeye daisy, bladder campion and Queen Anne's lace flourish in this unmown area. They have also included nutrient accumulators such as nettle and comfrey to act as a source for chop-and-drop mulch, compost teas and soil drenches. 


Squash growing near a heartnut in the open field. Note the mulch under plants.

Away from the orchard, in the uncut areas of the field, he is even experimenting with planting unruly vegetables such as squash and tomatoes in ways that minimally disturb the soil.  For example, squash is planted by laying down a thick layer of wetted and compressed grass clippings followed by a layer of partially finished compost and then a 3 inch layer of mature, plant-based compost for seeds to germinate in. As soon as the seeds are upping and growing, more mulch is added. The squash vines wander where they want beyond their mulched cradle.

This technique aligns well with the Organic Creed of feeding the soil. In order to avoid too much importing of materials, Mike is looking into plants that produce high biomass such as sterile Miscanthus giganteus, and fast growing woodies to coppice like poplar and willow.

Plans to expand: 

Lining the wrap around porch are pots of all shapes and sizes with plants and cuttings growing until they are big enough to join the lush gardens below.

One detail that I was particularly interested in was the trenching bed where he produces more rootstock to graft on rare scion wood. In a raised bed (constructed of pressure treated wood lined on the inside with vapour barrier to keep the wood and soil from being in contact)* he lays the bare root stock tree on its side, coaxing the branches upwards. Hopefully these branches will root enough that they can be detached as whole trees. "The beds are filled with pure plant compost which is very rich. It's also very friable which allows trees to be dug up easily and without damage." 


Propagation bed for root stock and more.

You can tell he is developing a feel for when a plant part will sprout roots. He speaks of dormancy and the energy burst that occurs when plants emerge.. He points out suckers coming from the rootstock of various trees with obvious glee.

Food Forests


Nice thornless blackberry being prolific

I asked him what he thought about food forests. “I’m interested in getting what’s out there in here,” he said as he points to the garden then pats his stomach. “Food forests have some problems in cold climates. It is different from warm regions where food can be grown all year round, even parts of Europe. Here, we have to store nutrition to take us through the winter. Perennial vegetables are heavy on greens that don't store well, and those that do may be difficult to harvest. The vegetables that store well are mostly annuals - root vegetables, squash, beans and corn. These are the vegetables grown by Carol Deppe, author of The Resilent Gardener."

He also talks about the importance of finding ways to incorporate staple annual vegetables into permaculture designs in our climate. Another part of the Higgs equation is that they are really interested in using what they grow and growing what they need.  Using the square foot gardening techniques advanced by Mel Bartholomew, Joyce intensively plants exactly the quantities of carrots, beets, turnips, and parsnip that she thinks they will need through the winter.

They own several canners, an oil press and a hand grain mill. The basement has a couple good-sized cellars for storing vegetables – Joyce showed me some nice looking daikon radishes in sand from last year – and canned goods.


A precocious seedling hazelnut producing very early.

Though Mike’s fruit and nut tree collection continues to grow, he is scaling back the vegetable varieties he uses to those that he thinks are most useful for winter and store well. 

I asked him about grains and he gave me an interesting answer. “I had discarded the idea as I didn’t want to till the soil and unleash the thistles as well as being dependent on fossil fuel or having to learn about horses but then I read about perennial grains. If they can produce a useful crop without soil disturbance, they could be useful for the home grower.”

One thing leads to another really does sum up their gardening journey to date. To quote Mike, “It’s a process of discovery, of finding ways to do conventional things in unconventional ways that are regenerative, tread lightly on the land and are minimally disturbing to Nature”


Mike examining some of his sprouts.

More Links (and some I've repeated because they are so good):

http://www.groworganicapples.com/
Ramial Woodchips
Mycorrhizal Fungi
One Thing Leads to Another (Mike Higgs blog)

* Here is a pinterest on raised beds but I'm sure you can find numerous designs. I’ve begun to make a propagation bed myself, lined with harvested softwood trunks infilled with leaf mould and other organic matter.

New Book by a Great Gardener

Breaking News!

Stephen Barstow is one of my favourite people and his gardening style is very aligned with my own so of course I was excited that he was writing a book. Looks like a good one too:

Around the World in 80 Plants

Here is an interview from this blog with the author.

Finding Hidden Harvest

I have been searching for these people for a while. Sometimes I would hear rumors about folks interested in better utilizing our fragmented urban orchard but I had not been able to track them down or in any way substantiate their existence until Seedy Saturday 2012. Branches bearing a website enticed people with the simple phrase, “Got fruit, want fruit?” were placed among the vendors. I immediately asked the organizers who they were. An hour or so later, they appeared in front of the Canadian Organic Growers’ booth. At last I had faces and names to attach to the idea.

Meet Katrina Siks, Jason Garlough and friends:

Jason and Katrina are on the left with some friends (who I'm sure will do their share of harvesting) on the right.

What is Hidden Harvest?

Among the parked cars, businesses and homes of Ottawa are a multitude of trees that flower and bear fruit or nuts only to unceremoniously drop to the ground and be raked up for disposal. At the same time, organizations like Just Food are looking for ways to improve the availability of good quality food for everyone in the city including those in need.

Connecting this disconnect, Katrina and Jason are creating a hub where tree owners, volunteer harvesters and community groups like the Ottawa Food Bank can work together to share the bounty.

How was this idea born?

Katrina, a self confessed outdoors type, become inspired to be involved in community forests while listening to Merrickville's Diana Beresford-Kroger talk about the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, a non-profit organization that collects and archives native tree genetics from the wild. Diana wishes to conserve the genetic diversity of rare trees and plants including those that give medicine and food.

Jason was born on a farm where trees provided fodder, fuel, protection and food. He was puzzled when he arrived in Ottawa to discover that many urban folk saw trees – especially those that bear fruit – as a nuisance. After all, innovators are coming up with creative ideas to incorporate more food production into the city such as proposals to build multistoried, vertical green houses. They’re modeling the tree, he pointed out, which not only gives you food but is attractive, cleans the air, moderates climate, and requires minimal care.

They met at a Wild Edibles Course run by the knowledgeable Martha Webber. Though they enjoyed the trips out of the city to collect wild foods, it was even more enjoyable to collect grapes at the allotment gardens and to pick mushrooms from alongside the bike path. Gathering apples from old trees to make into cider, including one near the Canada Revenue Agency, got them thinking about all the other underused fruit and nut trees in Ottawa.

The idea of an Ottawa based project like Not Far From the Tree Toronto had been bubbling for some time. It just needed some people with the time and energy to do the organizing. What better time then when the city was facing the loss of up to 25% of its tree cover to the Emerald Ash Borer. Could what replaced these old trees help to feed the city instead of merely shade it? Before embarking on such an investment, a structure needed to be in place to care for the trees.

How does it work?

Through their website, tree owners, organizations, business and other interested parties can post about their needs and wants. “I have an apple tree.” “We’d like to host a harvest event” “Me too!” They will help connect together the right people and provide trailers, pickers, tools and training. The harvest will be weighed and sorted with 25% going to the owner, 25% to the volunteers, 25% to the nearest in-need agency and the remaining 25% making it back to Hidden Harvest for processing to help raise funds for the organization. 

This year, they are looking for lead harvesters to coordinate harvest events along with tree owners(s) and other volunteers in 3-4 neighbourhoods in Ottawa to start off. The locations will largely be selected based on volunteer support. 

Don’t have a tree? No problem as they will be researching tried and true cultivars to sell in the Ottawa area to be available sometimes this summer.

Tell me about the award from Awesome Ottawa.

It’s hard to explain what the Awesome grants are without resorting to the word awesome as the common thread for these one-time 1000 dollar grants. With this extra cash, Katrina and Jason plan on buying some bike trailers to help tote around their tools and harvest.

So when does it start?

The city of Ottawa has expressed their support and provided them with an inventory of 4000 known edible fruit and nut trees growing on city land including various apples, serviceberry, cherries, gingko – yes the smelly ones, Turkish hazel and more. The first harvest event is planned to collect serviceberries in June.

If you want to help, go to the Hidden Harvest Ottawa to register your trees, talents, community organization or interest and stay tuned for more details. You can also like them on Facebook.