Salsify

[ken]

I'm just a bit concrned. Visiting a friend's garden, I spotted in her flower border a couple of plants I took to be weeds, and offered to dig them out. 'Don't do that - they're salsify," she said. To me they looked like plants which used to crop up in our old garden and which we treated as weeds - long roots, certainly, but flower stems which seemed to go from buds to large dandelion clocks overnight. Have raised my concerns with her. In turn she's referred meto a web page with loads of photos - black roots, dark brown roots, light brown roots, blue flowers, yellow flowers, and dandelion clocks - but no explanations. Has anyone any experience of growing salsify?

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Ken. Yes, I tried it once, a long time growing rather thin roots and I can think of lots of crops I would rather use the space for.

[Johnboy]

Hi both,
But have you tried eating the buds? If you pick the buds just as they are about to break with about 4" of stalk and cook them like asparagus and eat like asparagus with plenty of melted butter the are scrumptious.
Do try them they are really very nice.
Salsify is also a perennial plant.
The roots are a very acquire taste to my way of thinking but the flowers are something again.
JB.

[Nature's Babe]

Sounds nice, what variety do you grow Johnboy? I can't remember buds of any size on mine, I tried the roots and didn't bother again, are the buds better in the succeeding years?

[Johnboy]

Hi NB,
Sadly due to family commitments most of my plantings have had to be abandoned and I grubbed out the Salsify last year after it had flowered with the intention of resowing but never got around to it.
I think that you will find in the second year the buds of a better quality and certainly more prolific. No specific variety that I can recall.
Originally it was said to deter Carrot Root Fly and was grown for this purpose about twenty odd years ago and not for the roots although they were sampled they were not to my, or any in the family's, taste.
JB.

[ken]

Thanks, both. I probably didn't phrase my question very well. My main concern was, do you think what my friend is growing really is salsify, or is she in any danger of poisoning herself? But, assuming what she is growing is the real thing, I'll certainly pass on the tip about using the shoots before the buds open.

[Johnboy]

I have an apology to make to Ken and NB. I am afraid that I have confused Salsify with Scozonera and I am full of embarrassment it is Scozonera that I grubbed out last year and it is Scozonera that I planted to ward off Carrot Root Fly.
So for what I have written for Salsify please read Scozonera.
Salsify is very similar to the weed Goats Beard (Jack go to bed 'fore noon) which has the flower Ken described as a Dandylion head.
Sincere apologies once again.
JB.

[Nature's Babe]

Thank you for clarifying that Johnboy, I haven't tried scorzonera, maybe I will give it a go next year.

[oldherbaceous]

A deep fertile soil is required for good sized roots, Nature's Babe.

And maybe a decent mulch, to help keep the moisture in would be benificial.

[Nature's Babe]

Thank you OH, in that case it should be happy in my garden, deep soil mulched regularly with compost and a dry plant/ weed mulch on top of that !

[ken]

And thanks to JB. I'll tellmy friend that what she's growing isprobably Goat's Beard. Might be a good idea if I checked on line as to whether it is considered edible...

[Johnboy]

Hi Ken,
I think that all three plants are from the same family and there is no poison warnings in my book.
JB.

[darkbrowneggs]

I have an apology to make to Ken and NB. I am afraid that I have confused Salsify with Scozonera and I am full of embarrassment it is Scozonera that I grubbed out last year and it is Scozonera that I planted to ward off Carrot Root Fly.
So for what I have written for Salsify please read Scozonera.
Salsify is very similar to the weed Goats Beard (Jack go to bed 'fore noon) which has the flower Ken described as a Dandylion head.
Sincere apologies once again.
JB.

Hi there (that's interesting, and also about eating the buds)

do you plant it with the carrots, or round the carrots, or upwind of the carrots, or just anywhere.. And how effective did you think it was

Many thanks
Sue

[Nature's Babe]

Sue, I find pests are less of a problem when you mix up the plants, it seems to confuse the pests, but a big area of one crop, though convenient for us must shout feast here to pests. Garlic at the front of a bed helps. Also carrot rootfly fly low so it helps to raise an insect screen round them.

[hilary]

Hi All,
I regularly grow salsify and enjoy it cooked in its skins (since it 'bleeds horribly) and then lightly fry in butter. It has a very distinctive taste a bit like oysters hence its other name of oyster plant.... But this year I will leave a few to grow on for their flowers and stems.
Hilary