All right, this is Weed and this is Wack with Wowdy Gardens. We are an organic gardening show Focusing on do-it-yourself in the garden, right? And today we’re going to talk about bamboo which can be a great do-it-yourself Plant we’re going to cover three areas of it how it’s a great barrier Privacy barrier how it can be eaten is edible. It’s been eaten for all over the world. I guess primarily
And how you can use a dried bamboo canes or whatever you want to call them as Stakes for your tomatoes and all kinds of things so yeah as a landscaper very versatile bamboo must have been the bane of your existence well It is it can be extremely difficult to remove once it gets established and I have actually I did get a job
from one client in Tacoma because the the previous two landscaping companies this woman hired quit on her because they could not finish the job of removing the bamboo that she wanted to remove and You know my guys were able to dig that finish digging that trench and put that barrier in there But you know speaking of barriers that basically there are two types of bamboo clump forming types and spreading types and the type that we are most familiar
Familiar with in this area in the DMV that’s DC, Maryland and Virginia area is the spreading type And we all say oh that’s stuff. That’s terrible It’ll spread into your garden and so forth well if you have a patch of bamboo that’s around you a good thing to do would be to put in the barrier that will stop it from invading your garden and this barrier will be 40 inches no more than 40 inches down and you want it to be
Up above the grade of the ground three inches above the ground because bamboo will not jump over that and will not grow below that But it will do its darkness to do everything else So you really have to keep it in check and that means putting that barrier in it is and speaking of barriers It’s it really is a good privacy barrier If you want to grow it that that way, but it’s it’s important you put the barriers in or
else Maintaining it does become difficult, but once you put the barriers in it won’t spread and and it’s and it’s very attractive plant and it has many uses If you don’t have a lot of space and say you’re right next to a large building that you don’t like the looks of and you have some Sun you could put bamboo in there and it’ll grow 30 feet high and thick enough so that all you’ll see is a green screen Yeah, my favorite type is the tall type that
Reminds me of a Japanese garden or something, but I’ve always enjoyed in my Asian cuisines That’s the only place I can remember ever eating bamboo shoots. I’ve always loved bamboo shoots and unfortunately The I’m gonna go experiment after this episode cooking bamboo the only kind I ever use in my cooking is the Can variety and I just dump it right into the soup or whatever hot pot I’m making
You have to harvest it in the spring when the early spring shoots are less than a foot tall ideally dig down and dig up the shoots and Look look it up. I’ve never done it, but I I know where this species of bamboo grows and I know who owns the home and I’m gonna
Try to remember to ask this spring. Do they pickle them or do they just eat them fresh? No, they boil them the only way I’ve ever eaten them is boiled and who knows by the time it’s in the can how Process has been I think they’re pretty raw bamboo shoots by the time they’re in the can and they they’re really and they’re in liquid and they’re nutritious and according to this article I read if you harvest the shoots the bamboo ain’t gonna spread Huh? Yeah, which is right another you know, uh, yeah
Wait, but but you have to be out there in the spring if you let it go is going to spread so uh bamboo is edible And I I’m gonna try to grow my own up because my goal is to have as many plants in my yard that I can eat as possible Okay, so we’ve covered how it can be a beautiful barrier particularly the tall type it does need some maintenance though if you don’t Corral it it’s gonna it’s gonna spread another
Anything in that article I read it’s I always thought bamboo was an invasive species to meet the criteria of an invasive species It doesn’t spread fast enough. Well, yeah, I would be spreading from seed It doesn’t spread that way it only spreads by by the runner, right? And according to this article it doesn’t meet the criteria of invasive species bamboo is like an iceberg nine tenths of it is below the surface Right and every little
Two inches or so of that rhizome, which is an underground spreading root. Yeah Will you know stem actually rhizome is underground stem will root, right? Right And so you really got to get it all up if you want to get rid of it. Well, it was big in my life I was I grew up in in Asia and in and eight bamboo shoots since I was a kid and Speaking of growing up in Asia as a foreign brat
Foreign service brat I Witness all kinds of construction projects going up with really sturdy bamboo used as scaffolding and as a kid I used to climb on this scaffolding is before modern-day scaffolding came into use and and you know, it would go three four stories high of They just used rope and bamboo rope and bamboo and oh, yeah, and it went right up and it was In an excellent jungle gym as a kid. Yeah, so
Don’t be afraid of bamboo Yeah, it is beautiful. I have to admit When I bought my house it had way too much bamboo and I was afraid of it and I Hard this wonderful Guatemalan man who’s much stronger than I am and Yeah, we dug well almost two feet it seemed to me at least and It was a job and a half. Let me sure let me tell you I have this too
It’s a free building material. Yeah Just if you’re gonna put it in make sure you put the barrier in get a professional, you know go to
I didn’t have one more bamboo story if I might my aunt passed away and she lived in old town Alexandria and she had the best garden and as and I took some of her bamboo and moved it up to the Pittsburgh area Where where we lived where my family settled and it’s still growing up there and it is not spreading It’s too cold. I grew it right next to the drive garage in the driveway and and it stayed right there
Or maybe someone doesn’t like it so they go out there and knock over the new shoots that we know I did dig some up and threw it in the compost pile and it is growing over there now, but It’s not spreading fast and it’s containable Anyway enough on bamboo Alright folks, so what we learned today if you want bamboo put the put the barrier and keep it contained otherwise you’ll piss people off
and And if you’re gonna eat the shoots do it in the springtime do some research right and what else and you know what we cannot and our discussion of bamboo without saying something about pandas Don’t they eat the stuff? At one point in time the National Zoo had a shortage of bamboo and they asked DC residents to supply them with some bamboo that was back in the 70s, right? So they do me too. So anyway, hey, thanks for listening to us folks
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