My wife likes to watch videos of unusual cuisine and asked of I had heard of Konjac. I have seen it in rare plant catalogs, but never knew it was edible. It’s a relative of the corpse flower! The corm can be used to used to make flour, gelatin, or jelly. I may have to get one to try out, apparently hardy thru zone 6.
I probably still have corm that has not be planted yet. PM me if you want some.
Here is the one I have which is still blooming
I saw @zendog posted his in ground plants couple days ago.
It is a unusual plant to grow and it is very easy to grow too. It likes filtered sunny
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wait, this actually survives zone 6?
I just figured it was catalog hype…
how long does it take to flower?
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I’ve seen them in Mennonite yards in Lancaster. Not sure I ever saw them flower.
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How long to flowering depends on what size corm you start with. Konjac corms need to be about a pound before they’ll consider flowering and sometimes they’ll divide by creating offsets which slows down how quickly the corm gets big enough to flower. That said, if you start with a 2" size corm you may get a flower by the third year with good soil fertility, etc. Here is one I have to plant out that is close to a pound and had 5 offsets last year (3 broke off, 2 of which are in the photo). If I take off the offsets and plant it it would probably be flowering size next year. If you leave the offsets on, it will sometimes put more energy into those and you wind up with lots of medium sized corms instead of the main corm getting bigger.
I also grow A. Bulbifer which has similar hardiness, although it may be a little less hardy than Konjac. I also have a more tropical one called A. Maxwellii which has a really attractive stem (petiole), but that needs to be dug up every year.
In terms of being an edible, I believe Konjac also has some appetite impression properties because of its high fiber content or something so it has some popularity as a diet supplement. Another Amorphophallus that is edible is A. paeoniifolius, which isn’t as hardy but could be grown and dug each year like giant gladiolus bulbs. A big A. Konjac corm is 10lbs, but they can get over 20 lbs. A. paeoniifolius can get up to 50 lbs. Since they can just be put on a shelf for months on end while dormant they are a very good storage food. But just to be clear, I’ve never eaten any of mine, so no idea of the taste or any diet benefits.
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Commonly grown and eaten in India. Delicious!
They do get gigantic. Usually you buy a kilo or less. Each corm can weigh multiples of that.
I was inerested in growing A. konjac which is supposedly cold hardy in my climate (lower end of 8a). However, I acquired three different cultivars of it and none of them survived. I protected them their first winter in my greenhouse and the second winter I left them outside in pots on the ground. I might try again if anyone local claims to have success with them. I’m sure they’d have a better chance in ground than in pots…
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I expect they would have been fine if in the ground instead of in pots. I’ve heard of people growing them in Michigan. Like any root/bulb/corm it is important they have good drainage so they aren’t sitting in super wet soil while dormant or they may rot.