I thought I was going to do something cool with these taro roots, but instead they just sat there until today I noticed that one of them is sprouting a green shoot kind of like an onion would.
Well, just so happens I have a pot free ever since a spider plant croaked. So, if I plant this taro bulb in some dirt, what can I expect? Will the thing that sprouts want low light or a lot of light? A lot of water? What kind of soil?
Generally I just wonder what to expect and what I ought to do for best results.
Taro is actually a Colocasia (Elephant Ears) species. They like a lot of water (in commercial cultivation, they’re actually grown in flooded paddies, like rice) and can handle full sun.
For best growth, lots of water, lots of light, lots of warmth, lots of plant food.
What you’ll end up with is probably much like what you’d have with the elephant ears they sell as huge bulbs at garden centers, only maybe with smaller leaves.
There are many cool ornamental Colocasias and Alocasias, my current favorite being the monster “Thai Giant”.
Allright, I followed the 'dope’s advice and planted the bulbs a day or two after posting the OP. As of last night, the results look like this.
That’s a quarter, to give a sense of scale. It is growing very fast right now in terms of elephant ear surface area, so maybe I’ll post another pic in a couple of days just to demonstrate the correctness of the answer. Grocery aisle produce farmers, take note!
It took them a little while to get the memo that they were planted and watered in soil. Once they started growing, they’ve been going nuts. You can see the image of what they looked like almost 2 weeks ago in my last post above.
Not exactly ground-breaking research here, but taro bulbs from the grocery store turn out to be wayyyy more interesting that I ever imagined. So- the leaves are edible? (my gf says, “you first”) What are the bulbs doing underneath? Are they withering away to support the growth, or are they getting bigger and bigger? And, if they are just getting bigger, if they were planted in a way that it was easy to get them out, would it be possible to cut off say the bottom 2/3 of the bulb to eat and re-plant what is left to grow a new bulb and leaves? (yes, like an apartment garden).
I’m probably going to have to get a bigger pot. I don’t intend to resurrect this thread forever btw, I just thought there was more to the answer to the question, “What happens if I plant this taro bulb?”
edit- It also makes a remarkable amount of noise when you water it. A kind of crackling, sucking sound, similar to what I’ve heard with other plants I suppose, only much more pronounced.
I signed the petition. I was not aware of this issue. The taro plant has become a kind of object of fascination in our home. I do hope it is not a genetically modified variety- I bought the bulb at Whole Foods, which AFAIK does its best to avoid GM produce. I’d be proud to think that I am taking a step, however small, to harbor the original genetics of this wonderful plant. In fact, before I came home from work today, I bought a much larger pot and some potting soil to transplant it, in case it wants to grow to gargantuan proportions.
I’d hoped to be able to get that to produce at least 5 dimes, even if it took a long time, at which point I’d scale up the project. So far, no luck
Cool! How will that happen? I mean, will they appear above-ground, or will there be some kind of sign that they are there, or what? I thought taro bulbs could get pretty big, so does the plant have a ‘home’ bulb, or how does that work?
I won’t!
Thanks for the recipe. I take it one should cook the leaves- maybe they could replace kale or bok choi in a wok? Or maybe I could bake them with garlic, cream, shallots and bread crumbs? I dunno… I am trying to think of a way to get my gf to eat them that won’t be too strange.
In case anyone is unaware of this, taro leaves (and bulbs) are inedible raw due to their high calcium oxalate content and need to be thoroughly cooked to avoid what could be very unpleasant consequences.
It seems to have caught some kind of disease. It withered and withered, then my gf put it out on the porch to croak. It was an offshoot of the ‘mother’ spider plant anyway. There’s another in a shot glass on the window sill.
That’s a cool plant, and its speedy growth is astounding.
It makes me smile to see it, as it reminds me of the taro fields in Hawaii. I remember standing next to a paddy of taro plants in Hana, all simmering in a steamy heat. The water shimmered in the sun and everywhere there were dragonflies skimming through the air. It was kind of hypnotizing.
Now that you mention it, I think there was a kind of low-grade sound in the paddy. It was probably the plants sucking up water and growing super-fast.
The thing got so big that I gave it a name- Mauhihi. At one point she had maybe 6 big elephant ear leaves, each on 2-1/2 foot tall stalks. Then one by one they kind of laid down, until only one was left standing, like this.
Meanwhile, she sprouted fruit flies or something. I don’t know if it was from the taro itself, from the dirt or if they somehow got attracted from outside, but these gnat-like little flies took up residence in the pot. It wasn’t an infestation exactly, but they did buzz around a little and get into my gf’s water glass on a regular basis. So when the last stalk laid down, she did not want to wait around for long to put the pot outside in the snow and rain to kill the bugs.
It was great while it lasted, but then Mauhihi just up and croaked. I dug up the remains today to repurpose the pot, here they are. As you can see, what started out as just one almost-fist-sized bulb grew into 4 smaller bulbs, with more seeming ready to sprout off of what’s there. The flies seem to be gone, and I’m going to plant some basil in this pot now [thread]. But, they’re bulbs, presumably they can survive things a fly cannot?
So I’m curious: what if I plant these taro bulbs? I’m going to stick them in another pot just to give it a chance…
I killed an air fern. I assiduously followed the instructions that came with it, but after 6 months it went brown and crunchy and fell apart. sigh
I can grow stuff in an aerogarden, though I gave up on the little fertilizer tablets and went with liquid fertilizers and a pH up and pH down solution to correct the pH in the water. I found that while I could grow romaine lettuce, it wasn’t the best idea, though a baby heading butter lettuce did grow well. My chives and mint didn’t grow well but basil absolutely adores aerogardening. Thyme also grows well, parsley and shiso do well also.
Right now we have some garlic plants in a pot doing well, we bought a bag of garlic and one of the bulbs was starting to put out shoots so mrAru scrounged around outside and found a pot and some dirt so he planted the 5 sprouting cloves and stuck it in the windowsill. It seems to be doing fine, but he is in charge of it so I don’t kill them
