Kudzu Patch

[blueadzuki]

Hi all,

Okay to give a little back story to this......

About a year ago while driving by a spot near to my house I saw some leaves growing by a wall that look leguminous and large. These leaves looked an awful lot like what I had seen as being the leaves of kudzu. However I had difficulty beliving that they could be this as I live in the lower hudson valley of New York and as far as I knew Kudzu couldn't grow as far north as me (I have since learned that while the "kudzu line" is a lot farther south and me there are isolated patches of kudzu as far north as southern Quebec. Well fast forward to this summer, which as anyone who lives up here in the Northeast, was particulary hot (once the heat actually started) long story short, not only had the kudzu vines survived but this year, they actually flowered (note to mnjrutherford if you are reading this, in answer to your question, no, kudzu flowers are not small at all, they look a bit like those if wisteria but with somewaht short more pointed racemes and the flowers are usally a darker shade of purple) and somewaht more worringly podded up heavily. I took a sample of the pods today and there are a fair number of fully mature seeds already. What is sort of worring to me is the fact that, as yet I have been unable to get in contact with any of the owners of the property to warn them that they may want to try and do something to get rid of the stuff. I know that many on this site specualted about growing kudzu on purpose and more power to you, but I think you were talking about controlled growing, growing under watchful supervison and regular harvest. A wild patch growing unsupervised and (as far as I can tell) unnoticed (except by me) is basically a time bomb (partiuclary now that it is producing easy to spread seed) Well at least there's one good thing, now that I've seen the seed I no longer have to deal with the worry that the patch was ultimately my fault (kudzu seeds show up from time to time in my rice beans, and I toss the excess beans out on my mulch pile, so I was worried I might have missed a kudzu seed a bird could have eaten it, pooped it out over there and started the patch. But the patch is not the same species as what shows up in the beans (the seed in the beans is phraseloides, the patch is montana) so I can stop feeling guilty.) The patch is right by a very heavily traveled road so there would be a lot of opportunites for a seed to get over there (there are a lot off odd weeds in that area to be honest, right under the kudzu is a group of canse of waht I figured out today is some sort of wolfberry (lycium)

[mnjrutherford]

Very interesting tale there. I missed the flowers, but I did harvest seeds today. I was surprised by the very small, fuzzy pods and I'm not confident that all the seeds are fully mature. However, I want to collect seed from at least two more sites before passing them on to those requesting them.

However, there are 2 new items of interest...

1. When I collected today, I found a 2nd vine intertwined with the kudzu. This vine had a soft pod fruit about 2" long and 1.5" across. I brought it home and cut it open. It had a very thick skin and inside were small black seed surrounded by a white fleshy "coat" that had a pleasant sweet/sour flavor. Any ideas what it might be?

2. Perhaps you would want to "control" your found patch and conduct some culinary experiments? After picking my seeds, I was pondering how the leaves might be if pickled and stuffed like dolmas? Also, they could probably be used for stuffed cabbage dishes as well.

Do you have any additional data on varietals?

[blueadzuki]

Oct 31, 2010 21:42:28 GMT -5 mnjrutherford said:

Very interesting tale there. I missed the flowers, but I did harvest seeds today. I was surprised by the very small, fuzzy pods and I'm not confident that all the seeds are fully mature. However, I want to collect seed from at least two more sites before passing them on to those requesting them.

However, there are 2 new items of interest...

1. When I collected today, I found a 2nd vine intertwined with the kudzu. This vine had a soft pod fruit about 2" long and 1.5" across. I brought it home and cut it open. It had a very thick skin and inside were small black seed surrounded by a white fleshy "coat" that had a pleasant sweet/sour flavor. Any ideas what it might be?

2. Perhaps you would want to "control" your found patch and conduct some culinary experiments? After picking my seeds, I was pondering how the leaves might be if pickled and stuffed like dolmas? Also, they could probably be used for stuffed cabbage dishes as well.

Do you have any additional data on varietals?

re#2 That would be fine if the patch was on my land or I suppose in an isolated spot where it was hidden, but it isn't. Its on a very obvios piece of land right next to a road, across from a housing development full of McMansions and on property owned by a people who are not likey to be open to negotiantions and who posess a lot of lawyers.

As for varietals I never heard of anyone actually selecting amoung kudzu's. If there was anywhere where such varietals exist I would guess it would be in Japan, where kudzu is respected. You are right about the leaves being stuffable however, cooks in the south have been experimenting with that for quite a while (there is a new concept that if they can get people to eat kudzu on a regualr basis it migh help keep the population under control.)

so let me get it, you find a fruiting vine you can't identify and your first impulse is to taste it? Your'e a braver person than I

[mnjrutherford]

Nov 1, 2010 0:12:34 GMT -5 blueadzuki said:

so let me get it, you find a fruiting vine you can't identify and your first impulse is to taste it? Your'e a braver person than I

I sniffed it first!!! Then my youngest son says, "Oh I've eaten that before! It grows on the alligator pond and it's really yummy!" Yep, my life. My kid. You would think I TELL him to go out and eat this stuff!