Posted 6/11/2016 6:03 AM (GMT 0)
Why buy the Japanese knotweed? I looked it up on the net and the weed is now found all across Canada except for Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the north. In the USA it is found throughout all of the states except Hawaii, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Alabama, and Florida. JK is an invasive species and governments are doing their best to eradicate it but it is probably spreading faster than they can kill it. I am in British Columbia in Canada and this stuff grows within 300 yards of my property wild and and in harvestable quantities. Read up on JK on the net and identify how to recognize it. Wife and i are successful in making tinctures out of it using vodka. It has a strange taste to it and if you add honey to it, that makes it quite usable. To make the tincture, you dig up the plant and take the roots. They are pretty well hard as wood and i had to use my table saw to cut this root into chunks the size of sugar cubes. Wife then put these chunks through a blender and it worked very hard to chop these roots into what looked like orange brown pungent sawdust. We have made JK tea using this sawdust and wife has made the tincture. In spring, the plant is quite edible. As the shoots come out of the ground they are somewhat similar to asparagus. We did steam several batches of them and they are quite tasty. I ate too much and as a result, my stomach could not take it and i threw up the whole lot. Next day i limited my intake and i was ok. As the plant gets further along in the season, the stalks get to be very stringy. The raw taste of the JK is like a mild rhubarb but it comes with a boggy flavour because low areas and bog edges are its preferred habitat. Have fun with this plant that you can get for free before they spray it all with roundup as they try to eradicate it. xfmlg