Permaculture Food Crops: Tale of the Tiger Nut (Perennial Vision)

in homesteading •  6 years ago  (edited)


We have talked many times about our perennial agricultural vision. Today we harvested Tiger Nuts, also known as Chufa or Cyperus esculentus and it's a perfect example of our perennial food vision in action.

And we bought these with steem earlier in the year!!!

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Perennial Vision

A perennial vision differs from annual agriculture because we are focusing on crops which return each year. This can be thought of as a living seed bank in the soil. While we are rampant seed savers of our annual crops, which is a fantastic form of security, we believe rooting perennial agriculture is even a step above this- or at least an incredible complement.

In annual agriculture, one must focus on the planting and sowing season each year.

Crops must be tended and usually weeded. They require a lot more maintenance than perennials and basically a farmer must tend them, start them, and manage them the entire season.. year after year!!

Perennials, on the other hand, while they also require varying levels of management, can be planted once, tended and then harvested.

Usually they also replicate themselves whether by rhizomes (crawling root structures which can be separated and planted elsewhere), tip layers, abundant reseeding, soft wood cuttings, scions (branches cut off of trees for example and grafted onto other root stock), and via propagation of tubers, in the case of chufa.

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Start Small

In a perennial vision which self replicates, as I described in the paragraph above, we are given the opportunity to start small. By having a host of diverse seeds that we plant one year, we're taking a small risk. We aren't planting out hundreds of annual crops which could all fail and which require a hefty up-front investment. Instead we are gathering many different plants and small numbers of them. This is a very accessible vision for the masses!


This way we can see what works in our region and on our specific plot of land. Some things fail- and that's okay, our investment was small. The things which survive or that we noticed produce a tasty abundance, we spread around. Each year that living seed bank or those choice genetics get moved around the homestead.


In this case, we purchased our chufa from Oikos nursery and it was actually our first purchase using steem!!!


By year 3, the things which really produced well that we favor, we have a ton of! That's one arm of our perennial vision. With this in mind, we are far along creating a living, self-replication permaculture (permanent agriculture)! We don't have to do much tending besides spreading, maintenance, some mulching and amending natural rainfall with watering and our food plots take care of themselves!


What is Chufa?

Chufa is also known as sedge nut, earth almond and it goes by many other names as well.

The edible part is a tuber (often called a nut) from a sedge which is widespread across the globe, including most of North America. In many areas it is considered a weed, a characteristic that often inspires us to consider cultivating a given plant. Being a warm season perennial and growing in moist areas and a wide variety of soil conditions, chufa is a great crop.

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History

Chufa has a long history or human interaction. Archaeological evidence suggests that as early as 9000 years ago humans in North America were using this wild tuber as food.

The Egyptians were using the tuber for food and a variety of medicinal uses as early as 6000 years ago, and it factored into their diet and economy.

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Horchata

It is unclear weather it was cultivated in prehistorical Meso America or was introduced by the Spanish, but the best known historical use of chufa is in the making of a milky drink now known as horchata. In contemporary times rice, cow's milk and/or almond is used in place of chufa.

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Tiger Nuts are THE original Paleo super food! They are THE most nutritionally dense tuber on the planet (1.) believed to be the main source of food and nutrition for our ancient ancestors. There is evidence from Oxford university that over a million years ago Tiger Nuts were the staple food of our ancestor the ‘nutcracker man’, and that Tiger Nuts were eaten regularly as part of the stone age diet. In fact some scientists believe Tiger Nuts were an important source of nutrition which helped our brains grow and develop as human beings. *

Today the tuber is cultivated mostly in Spain and selections are made for increased size and productivity. It is seeing some interest from those looking for new crops that are well adapted and able to thrive in many climates.

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Other Uses

It is commonly used today for wildlife food plots where land is seeded in hardy crops that will perennially feed wildlife. It is reported that wild turkeys love chufa and thus many wildlife conservationist and hunters choose to plant this sedge to encourage healthy populations of wild birds.

We’re excited to be growing this amazing crop!

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Thanks for reading!


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That is indeed a beautiful thought guys

I have not really hard of the Tiger Nuts.
While the efforts and the visions of both of you will bear fruit in the coming days and you both will smile when the plants began to grow in your communities and you get to share the seeds with your loved ones.

I really respect your way of thinking.

Keep the good work yours growing.

Glad you find resonance with the post. It is such a joy to grow things that we are able to share with other, and YES there will be smiles when our community grows more of it!

Thanks for the encouragement and support, happy to hear from you.

Thank you for this wonderful idea on tiger nuts. I will look into this further and see if it can grow here in the north. It is so tough to find good perennials that survive our winters.

Awesome! Hope it will work for you. Diversity rules! :)

It's so nice to read more about tail of the tiger nut,I haven't heard about this before,but Thanks to your post,I'll surely make more research about this nut...

This is surely a nice an educating post that deserves more upvote from me but I'm new here and still have a little SP,I won't be able to make more upvote,pls accept the little I've got

Thank you! I appreciate it and your comment. It’s a very cool plant- I hope you’ll read further as it’s very promising :)

Love Love Love this.... I need to find out if Tiger Nuts will grow in NH!!

awesome!!! great to hear it and thanks for your enthusiasm!!!! :) blessings

Great post. I learn so much from your posts like this. Gonna go find me some horchata to celebrate. One of those things that are a part of the culture around here that I never took time to figure out :)

Nice, happy you are learning. Sometimes it takes a bit of info to dive into parts of culture. Hope you enjoy the horchata.

Congratulations you two! The hard work pays off with the harvest at the end of the year :) Looking forward to seeing your tiger nut field grow and grow over the years. Serious question: how did you like the flavor?

Thanks @sagescrub. Us too, our main issue is the labor involved with bringing land into production. We have a seriously silly amount of rocks that we remove if we want any level of good tilth.

The flavor was OK right after harvest, although it had a very "earthy" taste... most likely becuase i didn't rinse it well enough. lol.. I've had dried tubers, that seem to cure and take on a much richer and nuttier taste. I quite like them. I think once I get them all cleaned and cured, they will make an AMAZING nut mylk.

Wow what are you going to do with all those rocks? Maybe a rocket mass stove/heater like @quochuy's?

That sounds very delicious. I gotta try growing tiger nuts!

If you use some earth mortar to stick them together then you could probably make a better rocket stove than with just plain bricks.

I’m sure @mountainjewel will find something creative to use them rocks for.

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Hello , good morning is very interesting your post , I'm not sure if in tropical conditions you can grow this species of Cyperus, although the species Cyperus rotundus, which we call corocillo if it grows in tropical conditions and is considered a very aggressive weed for its rapid spread, although some people give a medicinal use to your tubers. Perennial crops have their advantages from the point of view of soil protection and as you say in your post less maintenance and you can make associations of crops. Congratulations on your harvest

That's interesting to hear about another species in the cyperus genus. As with the term "weedy" it comes with a lot of baggage. Tiger nuts are very widespread and may be considered a weed by many as well. It's all about perspective i suppose.

Glad you appreciate perennials too!

This post and video is priceless you two! Tiger nuts?!!!! What?!!! Mind = blown over here. Horchata?!!! So cool!!!! I have loved that drink through the years...and really just thought it was rice. Fascinating!!! I will be adding this to the food forest!!! That second to last image from valencia pulls me in. Please keep it coming. Your comprehensive and beautiful posts...are among the best i have seen on this blochchain. that you're adding video...as well as beautiful photos, links.....and so many wonderfully felt written words...just = PRICELESS! thank you my friends

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Great post, really I think I have had a taste of it. Everything nature offers is so damn important, we only need to show interest in them for they are a whole school.