CLOSED: Wanted: Edible Sugar Cane

I remember as a kid sucking on sugar cane at my aunts in Georgia. Dont know if it would grow here but would like to try. It seems like a bamboo type plant so I might have some luck. If anyone has the plant or bulb ( dont know how it is propogated) I have lots of seeds I could trade or postage.

Jadajoy,

See this website:
http://www.chewingcane.com/

someone from la. ought to be able to fix you up. i have a dk. purple and a green but none to share at this time.

Thanks to you both. I contacted the website and have ordered some from Tom. I hope I can prop this from stalks as there were no plants available this time of year.

Joyce

I was just wondering, how hardy is the sugar canes? Or are they considered annuals up North here.. Cuz I'd love to have an edible border like that but would I need to replant every year??

Icosden

I really dont know but you can ask Tom on the website provided. He is very nice and helpful and has been growing these for a long time. I just emailed him and he was very thoughtful and ready to answer all my questions.

Joyce

I'll try that. Thanks Joyce.

sugar cane isn't hardy in my zone 8a garden. i think it's only hardy to about zone 9...a or b, i couldn't say. i am sure if you go to the la. forum that someone down there has it growing outside even now.

the sugar cane i got was not rooted. if you get a stalk without roots you will need to cut it into small pieces. you need to cut the cane on either side of the joints and cover the whole piece with soil. it will root from the joint section.

mamajack, thanks for that info.. Can you tell me if it's possible to store the canes so you can grow them the next year??

Thanks mamajack! I went to the Midsouth Gardening forum and just couldnt figure out where to post a want over there where it would be seen by someone in LA.

Icosden-- Tom said I could lay the whole stalk under soil now and it would come up in the spring. Also I could cut them up as mamajack said and grow them indoors until ready to plant out in spring. Seems pretty easy as long as they dont get too wet and rot. So if they can be wintersown you wouldnt see them till next year anyway. Hope that helps.

Joyce

Joyce, Tom didn't respond to my email yet but I wasn wondering if I can do that in zone 5a. Cuz it's like in the single digits here.. I wonder if it would it still come up if I did that.. maybe I need to grow them indoor and restart them every year.. Humm...

Icosden
It seems it is hardy from zone 9b to 11. I read somewhere that in Northern areas sugar cane was an annual but sugar beet is best grown there for the sugar crop. You probably want the tall bamboo kind so you might have to plant it every year. I might have to also.
Here is some more info:

http://www.southernmatters.com/sugarcane/BC-Growing_Cane.htm

"Beets can also thrive in a wider range of climates. This large, homely root -- not anything like a regular beet -- is cultivated in 12 states; cane grows in just four. And while total U.S. cane and beet acreage has declined dramatically over the last few years, cane has dropped most precipitously. Hawaii alone has lost more than 60 percent of its cane fields over the last five years -- victims of urbanization and conversion to better-paying crops like macadamia nuts and coffee, says Roehl Flores , director of marketing for C & H Cane Sugar Co. "

http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/sugar_cane_grow_it.html

Joyce, I was thinking about planting sugar beet but the sound of sugar canes were just so appealing.. Figured that I can use it as an edible partion between me and the neighbors.. Oh well, so much for that idea.. :) Thanks for the info though..

Your welcome. I also need a privacy partition . If this doesnt work I'm calling Acme Fencing:-)

Can't do any type of formal fencing cuz our stupid town ordinances have minimum setback requirements for fencing and our land is not large enough to fit a fence. I mean the house is already at the minimum setback for the property so there's no way the town would let us put a fence up.. I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what to plant as a barrier between us and the neighbors.. Like we open our curtains and our neighbor's car is like 5 feet from our window.. It's like in CA, you're yard is like only 10 by 5 but it's fenced in.. Here, it's a bit bigger but no privacy at all.. And I was just tickled pink at the thought of an edible fence.. **sigh** So much for that idea..

I see what you mean. It WOULD have been perfect. If I come across anything else I'll let you know.

Found this thread for privacy suggestions. Hope this helps.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/794686/

if you want a bamboo look without the worry of what it might do i would suggest planting hibiscus cannabinus. in one season it gets 12-15 ft. tall. you would have to trim branches to make it look like you want. the stalks get huge. downfall.......it's an annual plus it blooms kind of late. so late that i am pretty sure it didn't set seed even here before the freeze so you would have to find a seed supply every year.

there is also very tall canna...like omega, orange beauty to mention a few. but your zone means you would have to dig them every year.

why not look and see what kind of native plant might do this for you?

honeysuckle, non-thorny roses.

i am weird and i will be the first to say it but how about some of that really tall corn. i saw a variety in miss. a few years back that was about 15 ft. tall. you could cut some of the ears as they appear as the stalks would prob. get taller. the stalks could be planted really close together and left thru the winter. you could sow annual vine seeds throughout.

and ICOSDEN... you can store the cane in the garage as long as it doesn't freeze but this is what i have found growing cane in pots...it doesn't grow as fast or get as thick as it does in the ground. this year will be my 2nd summer with this plant. when my mama was a girl her family grew cane in miss. it isn't hardy there. so every year in the fall they would cut the cane and store it in the barn. it must not freeze. in the spring they would cut the cane into pieces with every piece having a jointed section. then they planted it. my grandfather had a sugar cane mill so they planted a field full of it. she is going to call me back in about 30 min. and i can find out other particulars. but apparently in miss., with the long growing season it got big every year in just a season. i don't know how big it would get with your shorter season. but if it could work i can see you thinning the cane in the fall while you left some stalks for winter privacy.

i think this spring i am going to put my cane in the ground and either dig it in the fall or just cut the stalks to root. the purple/black cane is really beautiful.

mamajack
Thanks so much! . The growing season here is pretty long so I think I will treat this as an annual and store it in the fall as you suggested. I wonder if it will be ok stored in my basement? Will it rot? Get bugs?

Icosden
I have seeds of this Rose of Sharon Hibiscus syriacus that might work as privacy screen as mamajack noted. Heres a pic. Mine get very tall at least 15 feet. If you want some seeds let me know. Mine die back in winter and then rebloom. It says its hardy from zones 5-8.

o.k. i talked to my mama. this is how they did it.

in the fall they cut the whole stalk and "banked" it complete with FOLIAGE LEFT ON. with banking they dug a hole outside and put the whole stalk into the ground lying flat, one on top of the other...she described it "like a grave". this might even work in new york if it were mulched heavily, you think? they had a half acre planted in cane she said. then in the spring they dug the stalks up and cut each stalk into 2-3 pieces. each piece had 2-3 joints. then they dug a planting hole big enough to lay the whole piece of cane down FLAT. she said each joint would make a clump of bamboo. they planted the cane pieces she said 6-8 inches apart but she might not be remembering that correctly. also, the cane in a growing season would get over 5 ft. tall.

some varieties grow better different places. she named a couple of varieties: one she called white sugar cane. she said it was the sweetest but that it didn't grow as well in miss. the one that grew well was POJ and she doesn't know what those letters mean. but she described the stalks as bluish. SCREEEEAM!!! I WANT SOME!! seriously though i told her that i had this purple/black cane and she said that might be the same. only when it's ready to eat she said the stalks got a bluish sheen. she also said the ground needed to be fairly heavily fertilized shortly before planting. she said my papaw would fertilize the ground before the rains and plant right after the ground dried up enough to plant. she did say that the cane grows in such a way that the roots could be dug but it sounded like at the end of the growing season that the cane would need a fairly big pot due to it's weight.

and then her phone died. lol. i'll get back if there is anything else she remembers later.

and jadajoy, i don't think rose of sharon grows that fast. surely not as fast as this annual hib. i mentioned.

ICOSDEN....how big do dwarf fruit trees get? i just keep trying to think of an "edible" screen.

Thank you everyone for trying to help. Being that it's almost sub-zero here (went down to 4 degrees last night), I'm not sure most things would survive here like it would survive for you all. I toyed with the idea of bamboo for a while but not sure that would grow particularly well in our weather. And I'm worried about the rose of sharon, being that there's only max 10ft between the homes and half of that belonging to the nieghbor, I'm not sure I can plant anything that would spread width-wise too much. That's why I was thinking sugar cane or bamboo. Thought that they'd have a narrow profile.

Check on the shrub forum, I recently saw some information on really thin (under 2 feet wide) tall growing bushes, one I think was a pillar barberry, sorry I don't have more information. I'm looking for the same for my daughter.

also, what about those really tall skinny evergreens?

Cypresses? Someone on my street has them . They are nice.

tall skinny evergreens, huh?? Never seen.. I thought Cypresses are pretty wide, no?? I noticed that some are wide with gnarled trunks and some are more narrow. You happen to know which cypresses?

I like the sound of the pillar barberry but it seems harder to get hold off.. Some one also mentioned that it's a bit expensive.. That can cost quite a bit if I'm trying to use it as a hedge.. Humm.. I keep that one in mind though..

https://monrovia.com/plantinf.nsf/0/9D48A83E197DFC358825684D00711388

mediterranean cypress. here at home depot i saw some pretty big ones for about 80.00 each. i bought some off ebay a few years back for a couple bucks each. they were prob. 8-10 in. when i got them. the biggest one is prob. 3 ft. now.

Humm... Those do look promising.. I will check those out.. I just NEED some privacy..