Including Water Chestnuts in Your Food Garden

There are many aquatic and semi-aquatic plants referred to as water chestnuts because they produce edible tubers or rhizomes, but the Chinese Waterchestnut of commerce is Eleocharis dulcis, which belongs to the Sedge family (Cyperaceae). It is found throughout Asia and appears to have become naturalized in other areas by people. However, it has changed little in cultivation and remains essentially a wild plant.

I wanted to grow this useful water garden plant as a means of removing excess nutrient from my aquaponic system, but this has proved to be difficult. Due to the low-power input of the system, this would require setting the planting trough above ground to permit gravity feed of water back to the fish tank and supporting the weight of this is taxing my engineering abilities.

However, it is still a food plant I am interested in growing so I ordered my first few water chestnuts from the Diggers Club and put them in the filter trough of the aquaponic system just as a temporary measure, but it soon become clear that there was not enough nutrient in this water to support them. As a rescue measure (and also to see what happened), I planted them in a low part of the vegetable garden, where water collects. This, however, was clearly not wet enough, so I set up a growing trough on the ground using the space available in one of the unused walkways through my vegetable garden (the only way to keep the dog from digging it up!).

Of course, even the best descriptions almost always lack the details that the author takes for granted. Consequently, my growing trough was somewhat less than successful. The plants are now back in my aquaponic system filter trough, but the weather is getting cooler now, so I will have to wait until next season to try again.

Do you have some experience growing Water Chestnuts?

You can add your knowledge and experience to this site by creating your own page on Water Chestnuts here. Simply follow the instructions below, adding as much information as you like. You can even add some photos as well. Your input will then be made into a permanent page on this site that others can add to with comments and questions.