Grocery Store Garden

I’ve been a little lazy at documenting my experiments. I would have liked to take pictures of these tubers/bulbs/corms I bought at the grocery store. I had read at some of the garden websites that you could buy these things at the hispanic or asian markets called “Malanga” or “Taro root”. They are supposed to be Elephant Ears, but the common variety. I went to the local Food City here in Tucson. They seem to have hispanic groceries there and sure enough I found these huge bulbs/tuber things labeled as Malanga. I was a little scared that the cash register lady wouldn’t know what it was, but she did. Anyway, the bulb/tuber things were easily over 6 inches long and about 2-3 inches wide. I bought 3 of them and it was only $1.78. I came home and planted them right away. I now have a tiny leaf. Yay. I am hoping this cold weather doesn’t make it go dormant. If it does, hopefully I have something new to look forward to in Spring.

I also found “Taro root” at my local Tucson Kmart. These were smaller and looked like corms. They were $1.99 a pound. The cash register lady had a bit of trouble finding them in the system because they were labeled on the floor as “Taro Root” and in the system they had them under “Root, Taro”. I only bought one. We will see how that one responds.

This is the first Malanga that sprouted. I wasn’t sure which way to plant it, so I planted it sideways in the middle.

Here is a closeup of the little leaf.

Tags: Elephant Ear, garden, Malanga, Taro Root