Kitchen Garden Forum

OK., so now I'm just boasting, but I've just harvested my first bamboo shoot of the year (well, the first ever really). My established bamboo has, as always, got a mind of its own. The new shoots will try and grow where they want to grow. This evening I found a particularly fat shoot growing in completely the wrong place so I snapped it off at ground level.
Having previously read that all bamboo shoots are in fact edible, I peeled off the papery sheathes and ate the base of the shoot. To my surprise it was really quite ... brittle I think would be the best word to use, not at all chewy as I had expected.
The remainder of the shoots are behaving themselves and so wont be required for harvest!

Marken wrote:This evening I found a particularly fat shoot growing in completely the wrong place so I snapped it off at ground level.

Enjoy this brief moment of discovery.

Over the coming weeks you will discover bamboo shoots growing in all sorts of interesting places. We live next to a church and (before I managed to prise it from the ground) I'm sure our bamboo was coming up through graves next door

You're right Colin_M. Its always a joy to see the shoots suddenly appear at this time of year "out of nowhere" and then the amazing rate of growth. My neighbour is away on holiday and she is going to come back to a virtually fully grown and leafed out bamboo stalk growing in her garden. Wont she be suprised!

Hope she will be pleased!