Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-270
Arrowroot
Maranta arundinacea
Arrowroot's rhizome is ground into a fine, easily digested starch used to thicken soups, sauces and pastries without leaving any mealy flavor - and unlike almost every other tropical root crop, it carries no known hazards raw or cooked. It is genuinely happy in shade, even full shade, which is unusual for a starch crop and makes it useful under a canopy or on a shaded side of a building where nothing else edible will produce. It is frost-tender and needs acidic soil - two problems solved by the same fix, growing it in a container or raised bed of acidic potting mix that can be kept frost-free over winter, since neither cold nor alkaline clay ground will work. It is also slow: a rhizome needs 300-365 days to mature, so where the frost-free season runs shorter than that, the planting has to carry over into a second year rather than finishing in one season.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moist · Wet
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 5.5–6
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 1–5 ft
- Mature spread
- 1–5 ft
- Plant spacing
- 12–36 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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