Hello!!  This is Munchkin and yes, I logged in right this time.  I am still pulling this face…so, I still feel like I’m holding the fort up on this blog.  Munchkin Power!!

Just to let you know, in case you haven’t guessed already, the only plants that we like to have on our farm are edible or useful plants.  Sorry, not just into pretty ornamentals that you can’t eat.  But here’s a plant that serves many purposes and is also nice to look at.  This is Canna indica (aka achira):

There are a whole host of other names including Indian arrowroot, African arrowroot and edible canna.  We first read about this plant when we were looking into the possibility of using plants as a sewage filtration system …this has been characterised by the use of reeds…reed bed system.  When we considered reeds, Gnome had said:’‘Mmmmm…you can’t really eat reeds….is there something else that can be more useful?”

After some more research, we discovered that this beautiful ornamental has been used for the treatment of industrial waste waters and has proven to remove high organic loads from waste water.  Wow!!  What a useful plant…one that we can incorporate into an organic waste disposal system!

And another wonderful thing is that you can eat the root of this plant raw, baked or cooked.  I haven’t tried it yet but I assure you that it is one of the “must-eat”foods on the Munchkin list.  Does anyone want to buy a plant?  If you do, let me know and I will have some bagged in the new year!  Cheers!!