So how have my own wasabi attempts gone so far? Well, not so great, actually. Wasabi is kind of hard to grow (speaking from personal experience). But I've heard that it becomes easy once you learn. The big issue seems to be getting the right soil mixture. I have tried to create a blend suitable for wasabi seed as well as the rhizome that I had growing. In one case I ended up with a batch of dead wasabi seeds, and the other a completely rotted away rhizome.
According the Washington State's
research, a good mix is 50/50 compost/sand. I think that my big
problem stemmed primarily from getting the mixture wrong. You want
to have a mix that allows for very good drainage (I think my ratio of
sand was too high). Wasabi loves water, but it specifically likes
constantly fresh water. Stagnant water allows disease to hold and
spread. In my case it was a fungal infection that took my rhizome.
I have heard that compost beds can also work very well, as long as
they drain well.
That being said, I was able to rescue
a leaf and root clump that had formed on the last part of the rhizome
that wasn't a black mush and start to grow it. It was doing well up
until recently when all of it's leaves began to wither. I have
potted it (it was previously in water, rather than soil) in an
attempt to get it to grow, but it's chances aren't looking good.
But, sometimes that's how life goes,
you need to take the good with the bad. The seeds that didn't
germinate might've been my fault as well. Wasabi seeds need to be
cold treated before planting. This is easy to do by putting them in
the refrigerator for a couple months. I cold treated my seeds, but I
neglected to check to see if they had already been cold-treated
(though I'm pretty sure they were). Small mistakes like this can
cause your seeds to never germinate.
I'm still committed to making this
work. And as I continue to try I will update the blog with new
techniques and information. I love growing exotic plants, things
most people don't touch or don't even know about. If I find a golden
and easy to reproduce method I will share.
My next attempt will probably be to
order offshoots from Frog Eyes Wasabi. They are an Oregon based
wasabi farm who is, as far as I know, the largest wasabi growers in
the Northwest. Their product can be purchased at several stores in
the Portland area, including New Seasons Market and Uwajimaya
Beaverton. It comes in several times a year, but generally isn't
available at all locations year round. At the bottom of the post I
will have their ordering page. It's good to note that they carry
both the Daruma and Mazuma varieties of wasabi. They both have
different flavors, and Daruma is also more disease resistant.
Good luck and good growing everyone!
Next week we'll take a look at Vanilla.
Frog Eyes Wasabi's pricing and ordering
page:
As a sidenote: I don't really want to
talk about this kind of thing very often, but I wanted to apologize
for the week delay in this post. I'm a university student and was
swamped by my last summer class last week. My hopes for this blog is
to try to keep to a once a week update, usually on Monday or Tuesday.
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