Wasabi Part II

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:

http://frogeyeswasabi.com/Updates.html

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.

Wasabi Part I

Let me preface this with the following statement: Growing wasabi is hard. Very very hard. Allow me this as well; I still haven't figured out the best means to grow it, and I'm still learning. With that out of the way, let me get into what this post will be about. This will be a brief overview of what wasabi is and some basics of how it grows.

Wasabia japonica is a member of the cabbage family. It's most frequently associated with sushi and sashimi. That being said, you usually don't have it when you go to a Japanese restaurant. What you're eating is most likely a mixture of horseradish, mustard, and some green food dye. Now, that's not necessarily bad, I like horseradish and mustard, but there's nothing quite like the real thing (this is part of the reason I advocate real vanilla over vanillin). But in this case real wasabi has a substantially different flavor. I've only ever had it once, but it was spread very thin on some grilled salmon. What I could pick up had a really wonderful flavor, hot, but not as hot as horseradish.

But that brings us to another discussion, “Why don't Japanese restaurants have real wasabi?”, or, “Why haven't you tried more than a thin spread?”. Well, it really boils down to this: real wasabi is $125.00 per pound. It is the second most expensive spice per pound in the world, after saffron (Crocus sativus, $500-$1,500/lb) and ahead of vanilla (Vanilla spp., $70/lb). Not only is it prohibitively expensive, but, when prepared, only has an 18 minute window where it has any flavor. And finally, even if you can afford it, it's pretty hard to find in the United States.

In Japan, wasabi is generally grown in paddies (down-paddy of rice). It prefers cool fresh water, and is said to have the best flavor if grown in these conditions. That being said, wasabi can grow well in regular soil as well. You want to have it grow in a very compost heavy bed, with some sand. You really want to make sure it drains well. Another equally important point is that you need to know about growing wasabi is light requirements. This is a shade loving plant. Direct sunlight for more than 3 to 4 hours a day will kill wasabi, or, if you're lucky, severely stunt it's growth. It's native to shaded creek beds in Japan, and even domesticated wasabi requires similar growing conditions to it's ancestor.

“That sounds great, but is there any way I can try it or even grow it?”, In short, yes! There are people that do sell seeds (I recommend going to Google), but there aren't many, and there aren't many varieties to choose from either. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are at least 18 varieties of wasabi that I know about. Some of the more interesting varieties include Sabumi and Simane Zairai, which have purple and brown flesh, respectively (this is opposed to the regular, familiar green wasabi). There are alternatives to growing it by seed, though there are differing levels of success that you might have with these methods. Perhaps one of the most successful is to propagate via rhizome offshoots. This might even have a better success rate than seeds, however you need to get a “parent” plant first. If you do have a parent, it will bud off smaller rhizomes that you can separate and replant. Tissue culture is another way that you can propagate wasabi, however you need some specialized equipment for that. You're probably better off with seed or offshoots.

Wasabi does have predators, as well as diseases that afflict it. My main personal attempt ran into a major snag due to a massive fungal infection. But not all is lost, as I'll talk about in Wasabi part II next week, I'll also talk about the common varieties, as well as hopefully having some links for seed purchase and local places you can buy wasabi roots.

Below is a link to an amazing Washington State University publication that has helped me write this article, as well as taught me much about what I know concerning wasabi. It has much more information that what I have talked about here and if you're very serious about trying to grow it, I cannot more highly recommend giving it a read:

cru.cahe.wsu.edu/cepublications/pnw0605/pnw0605.pdf

Also, as another plug for Jeanette Sedell's photography, she has new pictures up from the trip to Sarracenia Northwest, go check them out:  
http://jeanettesedell.deviantart.com/

Sarracenia Northwest

On the 14^th of July I went to Sarracenia Northwest. It's a small carnivorous plant nursery in Eagle Creek, Oregon. I live in the Portland Metro Area, on the other side of the west hills, so it was about a hour drive. Upon arriving I was very very impressed. They have a very small area that they work with and they utilize it in an absolutely amazing way. Not only did I feel like this would be a great example of small area agriculture, but I also figured it'd be a nice opportunity to talk about one of my influences.

Sarracenia

Upon arriving I was very surprised to see that most of their growing is done in about an acre of land. It's in a pretty remote location (in the sense that Eagle Creek is a very very small community), but like all of Oregon, it is gorgeous (for the sake of full disclosure, there might be some bias in that last statement). In the images below, as well as the ones on their webpage and facebook account, you can see that their cold hardy plants are all in plastic kiddie pools, all covered in tarps to minimize UV damage. When I saw this I was floored by how simple and elegant the design is. There are a few fold out solar panels linked to water pumps to provide some water circulation, but that's about it. I was so impressed with this. So much so that I want to eventually emulate it for the purposes of creating a small collection of carnivorous plants. Their namesake plants, Sarracenias, their Venus flytraps, and temperate sundews all reside in these pools. Another side benefit of these pools is that they create habitat for frogs, and though I didn't see any myself while I was there, several people (including my wife who was with me) caught site of tadpoles.

Butterwort (Pinguicula)

For their subtropicals and tropicals they have several greenhouses. One of the larger ones houses their Nepenthes (also known as monkey cups). They are, by far, my favorite. They have large pitchers that come off of the central vein of each of their leaves. My first carnivorous plant was a Nepenthes (though I have no idea what the genus was) that my mom bought for me when I was little. I didn't know how to take care of it though, and it didn't survive long.

Nepenthes

One of the earliest things that started me into the world of plants, which really got me interested in carnivorous plants, was a book that I had in second grade. It was full of big beautiful pictures of Venus flytraps, Sarracenias, sundews, bladderworts, and butterworts. It blew my mind in a way. I had no idea that anything besides Venus flytraps “ate” bugs. In a way it might've really been the genesis of my love for plants. I was so excited to find Sarracenia a few months ago and so glad that they have an open house for people to come enjoy what they've accomplished.

Sundew (Drosera)

When everything is said and done, I am so amazed and impressed by what Sarracenia has done with their tiny plot of land. It's beautiful and I really recommend that you go to one of their open houses. The next open house weekend is this September; the 8^th and the 9^th.

A very special thanks to Jeff and Jacob of Sarracenia for all the great stuff they do.

Go check them out:

http://www.cobraplant.com/

At the time of writing this, they're also doing a summer sale, all of their plants are 15% off.

And here is the URL to sign up for their September open house:

http://www.cobraplant.com/openhouse

All photos are copyright of Jeanette Sedell, used by permission.
These, as well as other beautiful photos are (or will be soon) available on her deviant art photography page: http://yozora-no-tenshi.deviantart.com/ 
(edit 8/9/2012)

Jeanette Sedell's new photography account: http://jeanettesedell.deviantart.com/

Next week: Adventures with wasabi

A Dedication

     For my first post I have sat here and tried to think of what I wanted to talk about. I've been ho-humming about what I might want to discuss with the world. I even started on a different topic, one that I will revisit soon because it needs to be talked about. But for my very first post, it will be a dedication.

     My uncle, Lon Rombough passed away this last Winter. In a lot of ways he was an inspiration to me. In a lot of ways he still is. His death hit me much harder than I knew it would, and I keep thinking about how I just want to talk to him about all the work I've been doing lately. I want to impress him and ask him questions.

     But why does he matter so much to me? Let me start with this: I was going to go into botany many years ago. It was what I would tell people I was studying when I got to college. But life has a way of changing on you when you least expect it. Without going to deep into why, I stopped studying botany after 2 years of being in college; but I never really stopped loving it. Raising and studying plants is fascinating to me. There is so much of what I learned, of what I love that I still carry with me.

      Lon is a representation of what I could be, of where my life could've gone. He had many flaws, but he was a good person. A good husband and a good father. I want to be that to my children, I want to be the educator. He would never hesitate to teach, and though, like many who are experts at their craft, was not humble about what he knew, was still a great educator.

      I draw much inspiration from him, and I will carry it with me through life. He did, in the end, what I hope to do in my life, he left an impression on the world.

Lon's website and business (now run by Susan and Jeff Rombough, my aunt and cousin):

http://www.bunchgrapes.com/

Lon's obituary:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/statesmanjournal/obituary.aspx?n=lon-rombough&pid=155932032


Next time:  Sarracenia Northwest