edible water plants

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by bazman, Jul 10, 2008.

  1. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    Hi All

    I was wondering if anyone knew of some good info and websites on growing edible water plants, I have just ordered some from green harvest and was looking for some info on adding them to my dam.

    The two main plant's a brought are

    Sacred Lotus - Nelumbo Nucifera
    Hardy Pink Waterlilies - Nymphaea (not sure if they are edible)

    What have you done in the past when adding new plants to a dam? do you add compost? how deep? in a pot? any general info would be great.

    My dam can be seen in the background of this photo
    https://www.biochar.net/swale/drain_dam_2.jpg

    Baz
     
  2. susann

    susann Junior Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    Hi - this is a good general site for info: https://www.water-gardens-information.com/water-lilies.html

    Apparently you can eat tropical water lillies (Nymphaea) "In Kakadu people eat the stems, the root and the flower head. The stems are peeled back for eating and taste a bit like celery. Find the seeds inside the old flower seed heads and crunch them up - they taste creamy." (https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1983635.htm)


    My only experience was growing hardy water lillies in a 60cm bucket on a balcony! They were the best flowers I've ever grown.
     
  3. shortly

    shortly Junior Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    I dont know any specific web sites but you might want to look at Sagittaria - the duck potato's several of these are reasonably good, a lot of work to ger a feed though, Eleocharis dulcis - water chestnut, Ipomoea aquatica - kangkong,
    Limnophila aromatica not sure if this has an accepted common name? &
    nasturtium aquaticum - watercress this and nelumbo are by far the best for taste and the amount of work involved.
     
  4. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    Baz,

    As for humman nutrition, I am not sure, but as inclusions,water lilys do flower beautifully. Where you are, at a guess, the native magpie goose food was eliocharis,[water chestnuts], oryza [wild rice] and nelumbo [lily plants] all will proliferate. Magpie geese are still the undisputed landlords of northern wetlands and were endemic along the eastern seaboard and thru the Murray Darling.

    From what I have read they were decimated, down south, by cattle incursion into swamps, marginal climate, local duck pressure and even hunting. Eliocharis and oryza have been seen since european settlement as exploitable and renewable assets on damp, wet and swampland. Over the past 200 we have monopolised most of these southern landforms for dairy and crop land. Sadly, in this process we have displaced a number of species.

    It is dry season now I will be able to collect samples of these plants for you baz in the next 3 months. I will happily send them. Just remember these plants will need a bit of protection to establish them successfully.

    cheers,
     
  5. Paul Cereghino

    Paul Cereghino Junior Member

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  6. Ev

    Ev Junior Member

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  7. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    I went to the Qld garden expo today and hassled the fine people at green harvest and they were worried when I said about adding Sacred Lotus to my dam as it is a very strong grower and would tend to over take my dam, which is not really what I want, they seemed pretty happy about the idea of adding Pink Waterlilies.

    Most of older dam's around here are covered in crappy weed which covers 100% of the dam which is not what I want, I want some edge cover for when I add fish etc.. I harvested my of tub water chestnut's today and added all my excess to a few areas around the dam. should be interesting to see how they go.

    Francis From Green Harvest said she was going to post up a bunch of details on planting lilies etc too, as soon as I find them I'll post the link here.

    There is a pretty weed clean water hole close by which has some nice lilies which I might pinch and try to get going in a tub, this way I can make sure they are free from other weeds before adding them to my dam.

    Thank's Ho-hum, I'll let you know how I go with the local stuff first.
     
  8. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    Ev, Nice to see you back and posting.... :)
     
  9. derekh

    derekh Junior Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    Hi BazMan

    If you are interested, I have some KangKong available - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica. It tastes OK.

    I wouldn't put it in the dam because it is a prolific grower and potential weed I suspect. It does great in my aquaponics system and even started to take root in the soil when it got to 2m long.

    Let me know if you want a couple of pots worth.

    cheers
    Derek
     
  10. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    I'm going to buy a few more tin bath tubs from the tip shop ($10 each) to put around the orchard and place all my water plants in those. Derek I would be interested in getting some Kangkong off you if that's ok. I'll PM you my phone number again.

    Greenharvest did post this about the Sacred Lotus - Nelumbo nucifera
    https://www.greenharvest.com.au/Plants/rare_food_plant_index.html
    Sacred Lotus can spread rapidly if planted in a dam and take most of it over, it is better planted in a large container in a pond, where it can be managed.
     
  11. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    Re: edible water plants

    lotus looks ugly and brown most of the time too!
     

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