Yacon, Oca, Mashua and Ulluco

A lot of people are talking about these 4 Andean root vegetables right now.  I’ve mentioned them before in a post on the so-called Lost Crops of the Incas.

I’ve never successfully grown Ulluco.  I’ve tried twice.  It’s a very fussy plant, that doesn’t like it too hot or too cold, and is very sensitive to frost.  Most people I know who have grown this spend a lot of time carrying in- and outdoors, depending on the weather, and this is more work than I’m willing to invest into it.  If you try this, depending on your climate, you should consider it very experimental.

I grew oca and mashua (añu) for several years.

The problem with mashua for me was always getting it through winter storage, as mine would always start rotting sometime around January.  When I can build something better for winter root storage, I’ll probably try this again.  I liked the taste of mashua, sort of like very aromatic potatoes, and I know a lot of people now who are growing it.  This is certainly worth trying.

In the end, I didn’t find oca interesting enough to keep growing it.  It’s also a little difficult for northern locations because it’s daylight sensitive.  This means you have to keep the frost tender plants alive well into the winter and close to the winter solstice.  If I had a garden that was part of my house, this would be easier, but having to travel to a community garden makes this more difficult.  I’ve sent tubers of this to a number of people over the years.

I grow Yacón every year.  I’ve also sent out propagation tubers to quite a few people now, at least 15-20 over each of the last several years.  This is very easy to grow and store, and very prolific in the garden.  I made a document about growing yacon you can download here.

Anyway the main purpose of this post is to formally announce I will no longer be sending out tubers of these plants to people living in Europe or the US.  If you’ve already sent me an email asking about this, I can probably still send it, but I’m not accepting any more requests for the future.

People in the US can get Oca and Mashua from Peace Seeds, and Yacon from Nichols Nursery.  In the UK you can get oca and yacon from the Real Seed Catalogue, and they ship Europe wide.  In addition, Frank offers some of these tubers from his garden too, in limited quantities.  People who live other places who can’t find another source can still get in touch with me, and I’ll try to help.  The other exception is for people who offer seeds or tubers for trade over the Internet on their blog or other public space.  I’ll be glad to be contacted by these people too, but sending to the US is often not possible regardless.

The main problem with sending out these tubers, usually free of charge, is that I’m just not a seed company or nursery and it’s just too much work.  These tubers only go out around now, and I get emails from people all year round asking for them.  I’m not able to manage the logistics of keeping a waiting list and remembering to sent them at the right time.  I also frequently get requests for large numbers of tubers or to have them sent in a special way, declared a special way for customs, and so on, and if you have special requests like these you should be ordering from a company anyway.

In addition, of the probably 100 tuber samples I’ve sent out in the last few years, hardly anyone has gotten in touch later to tell me how it went and I’m not aware of anyone re-offering them anywhere.   All it means is I get busier and busier each year as the popularity of these tubers grow, the availability of the tubers in Internet seed trading doesn’t increase and I have no idea if what I’ve sent out is even still being grown.