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There is a vegetable growing in almost every shaded flower bed in America, and nobody here eats it. It thrives where nothing else will grow, needs no fertilizer, no watering beyond rainfall, and no replanting. Cut it in spring and it returns from the same crown for thirty years. One hundred grams of the young shoots carries fifty milligrams of vitamin C. An orange carries fifty three.
In Japan it is a farmed spring vegetable with a season, a growers cooperative, and a regional brand name. In America it is sold as decoration.
This is the story of the hosta, the most widely planted perennial in the temperate United States, and the two nurserymen who imported the leaf and left the food.
In Japanese markets the shoots are called urui, one of the sansai, the mountain vegetables that come out of the snowmelt in the hills of Tohoku. Urui is cut seven to ten days after the shoot breaks ground, while the leaf is still rolled into a tight tube. The species driving that market is Hosta montana, oba giboshi. In Yamagata Prefecture, farmers lift dormant crowns into greenhouses in autumn and shroud the shoots so no light reaches them. The stems rise white and tender enough to eat raw, sold under the trade name Yuki Urui. Elsewhere they go into tempura, miso soup, and a cold plate with sesame and bonito. The Japanese Food Composition Tables put one hundred grams of raw shoots at nineteen calories, one hundred sixty micrograms of vitamin K, and three hundred ninety milligrams of potassium.
So why has no American gardener been told this? The answer is a shipping pipeline, not a cover-up. Philipp Franz von Siebold reached the Dutch trading post on Dejima in 1823, assembled the largest collection of Japanese plants any European had held, and was expelled in 1829 over forbidden coastline maps. He sailed anyway, settled in Leiden, and sold those plants to European gardens by the hundred, strictly as foliage. Thirty years later Thomas Hogg Junior, heir to one of New York’s first commercial nurseries, was appointed a United States Marshal by Abraham Lincoln and posted to the American consulate in Japan. He spent seven years shipping plants home to his family nursery and to a Long Island grower who sold them to the public. Variegated leaves fetched more than plain green ones, so variegation crossed the ocean and the edible shoot stayed behind. American breeders then spent a century selecting for thick substance, heavy wax, and slug resistance, which is another way of saying they bred an edible vegetable to be unappetizing.
The deer worked it out anyway. North Carolina Cooperative Extension files this plant under the heading Deer Candy. Michigan State Extension reports deer seek it out selectively over other plants. The Home and Garden Education Center at the University of Connecticut connects the two facts outright, noting the young leaves are edible and served in Japan raw, boiled, and fried, and concluding that this palatability is why gardeners call it deer candy.
One rule above all. Only harvest from plants you have never treated. No systemic insecticide, no synthetic fertilizer in the bed.
📚 Sources:
– MEXT, Japan. Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan, 8th rev. ed. Tokyo, 2020.
– Del Tredici, Peter. “The Introduction of Japanese Plants Into North America.” Botanical Review 83, no. 3 (2017): 215-252. doi:10.1007/s12229-017-9184-3
– Parsons, Samuel B., Jr. Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Boston, 1880.
– American Hosta Society. Hostas: America’s Most Popular Perennial. Hillsboro, OH, 2023.
– National Garden Bureau. “Year of the Hosta.” NGB Class of 2024. Downers Grove, IL, 2024.
– University of Missouri IPM. “Hosta: New Light on a Shady Character.” Missouri Environment and Garden, 2024.
– Jones, Matt. “Reducing Deer Damage in Landscapes, Part 2.” NC Cooperative Extension, NC State University, 2021.
– Smitley, David. “Hungry Deer Are Devouring Hostas and More.” Michigan State University Extension, Entomology.
– UConn Home and Garden Education Center. “Great Hostabilities.” Storrs, CT, 2024.
– Gilotta, Igor, and Miran Brvar. “Accidental Poisoning with Veratrum album.” Clinical Toxicology 48, no. 9 (2010): 949-952. doi:10.3109/15563650.2010.533675
– ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center. “Plantain Lily.” Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants database.
#Foraging #WildEdibles #Gardening #ForgottenKnowledge
16 Comments
Did you know that stinging nettles have 3 main uses the seeds to feed chickens fantastic improvements i you chicken laying .the actual plant chopped up put un a barrel of water leaveing a copper pipe & a thin tin wire is the perfect fertiliser for tomatos .the other use is add urea (human urine ) to the leaves makes a really good dye a mustard coular stopsclothing from mildew
People still have it in their garden in Europe, but it may be found very seldom and people don't know what it is all about.
Humans are not vegetable eaters or meat eaters we are electric beings that need electric foods ie frugatarian. This most likely has lots of oxylates causing kidney stones. It has zero vitamin C, when you cook it at 100c as vitamin C can only handle when under 70c temperature. We are meant to consume alkaline to the body foods to avoid diseases and be healthy ie most of the frugatarian diet. Some fruits are hyrid ie man made ie acidic to the body.
Hostas are everywhere in England. You trip over them in every garden.
There are a number of plants that have both ornamental and culinary qualities, but are primarily marketed as ornamental here in the USA. IMO, they are wonderful guerilla gardening choices.
Thumbs up and comment anything for the Al go rhythm
In my garden hosta was slug candy until I stopped trying to grow it. By the way, some of those shoots look just like the shoots of lily of the valley, which is toxic.
I have a plant in the ground in the garden and one potted at front of the house. Sadly they attract snails and slugs,making them useful as they then ignore other plants.
Young,slimy okra?Sounds delicious.
Hostas are candy to skunks and they eat the whole plants including the root bulb.
WOW!!!! 😲 I had no idea that my favorite perennial is EDIBLE!!! I love it even more, now! 🥰 Thank you!
❤good to know thank you! Are all hostas good to eat?😊
🌱 If you want to learn more about this plant, how to grow it and its benefits, make sure to read our in-depth article: https://naturelostvault.com/episodes/episode-170-hosta.html
The notion that Hostas will return for three decades even If you harvest the new grown shoots every spring is utter nonsens and you know that bloody damn well!
My Deer love hostas, especially the flowers 😂
Wow I loved learning more about the edibility of hosta shoots. I have a few different varieties and wondering if they are all edible as well? Love the term "Deer Candy" 🦌😆 and it's true 🍭. Great and informative video. Much love and gratitude. 🙏💚🦋🌿