This year, we did our 8th annual Kudzu Root Camp a little differently. Instead of including an educational workshop in with the harvesting, processing, and celebrating of kudzu, we focused on research and development of our processes, mechanizing some steps and quantifying inputs and yields. And develop the processes we did! We were able to clean, shred, and rinse the starches out of the roots all using cheap and widely available electric tools. We’ll report back soon in more detail and share some photos.

Besides making leaps and bounds in our efficiency, we also got a better sense of the commercial viability of a variety of kudzu products we’ve been working with, and a sense of the potential. We measures out a 150 sq. ft. area and tracked the root yield from this section of the patch: it came out to about 300lbs of roots. That’s 2 lbs per square foot!

You can find some photos and follow a bit of what we’re up to on our Instagram: @kudzuco_op

Our newly forming Kudzu Collective and Local Cloth are excited to facilitate a workshop that explores the ancient processes of harvesting, cooking, retting, and rinsing kudzu vine fiber. This lustrous, dynamic fiber has been used for thousands of years in various parts of Asia to make rope, cloth, and paper. Kudzu is so abundant in our bioregion, and the Kudzu Collective is committed to promoting this culture of use. Join us in exploring the vast story kudzu has to tell us, and bring your ideas of how its fibers can be used for fiber art!

 Instructors Justin Holt, Zev Friedman, and Lauren Bacchus, along with kudzu co-conspirators, will guide workshop participants in hands-on kudzu vine processing throughout the morning. We will begin the day harvesting in a nearby urban kudzu patch, and then work together to rinse already retted fiber (retted means “rotted,” so prepare for a stink!). Wear clothes that you don’t mind getting wet and a little messy.

During lunchtime we will hear the story of kudzu, an intriguing tale of many layers, and introduce the group to the culinary and medicinal benefits of kudzu root starch, another valuable co-product of this useful plant. Participants will also get to try samples of dishes crafted with our own, locally made kudzu starch!

Throughout the afternoon, we will then work with processed kudzu fibers to explore how the material responds to various manipulations. Pre-processed fibers will be provided for participants to make a woven bookmark or bracelet on a d.i.y. cardboard loom. Feel free to bring a small loom or other spinning and weaving equipment to experiment with. Additional pre-processed fibers will be available for purchase.

 Don’t miss this unique workshop that encompasses ecology, sustainability, anthropology, fiber art, and so much more!

 Cost: $50

Date: Saturday, July 21

Hours: 9am – 6pm (lunch and Story of Kudzu 12:30 – 2pm)

Instructions for Participants: Please pack a lunch, bring clothes that can get a little wet and messy, hand pruners if you have them, gloves, hat/sunscreen/water bottle. Tea, coffee, and light snacks will be provided.

Register here at Local Cloth’s website

Over the course of Kudzu Root Camp, we had 27 people come through and dig, clean, chop, pound, rinse, learn about, marvel at, admire, cook and eat kudzu. We dug about 315 lbs from about 1000 square feet of earth.

I’m feeling deep rooted gratitude for everyone who joined us, pitched in, and helped pull together another successful gathering, and also for kudzu, who every year draws me deeper into love with the mystery and power of the plant world.

We hope to give a more in-depth report from the patch. For now, here are some photos of the fun.

-JH

Zev, Justin, and Avram discuss our mutual friend kudzu during an expansive, sprawling, vining conversation on Mountain Steam TV:

Locally-harvested, fresh Kudzu Root (Ge-Gen) available to herbalists in late winter 2018

Kudzu, the ‘vine that ate the South’, formerly known as the ‘miracle vine’ that saved that same region’s rapidly eroding slopes after a century of deforestation and intensive annual agriculture, is truly a multi-faceted plant. The entire plant offers itself to human use: from its rapidly growing, succulent tips down to its deep, bulbous, starchy roots, kudzu can be harvested for food, fiber, medicine, fodder, and fuel.

In its native Asia, kudzu has been put to use for many centuries, particularly in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The root is known to practitioners of TCM as Ge-Gen and is used to treat fever, thirst, headache, pain due to high blood pressure, allergies, migraines, diarrhea, alcoholism, and angina (www.uofmhealth.org).

Active constituents of kudzu include daidzin, daidzein, puerarin, genistin, genistein, tectorigenin, glycitin, tectoridin, 6″-O-xylosyltectoridin, 6″-O-xyloglycitin, biochanin A, and spinasterol (www.sigmaaldrich.com).

We are offering fresh kudzu roots, harvested in Sylva, NC from soils free of environmental pollutants. Pre-order roots now for shipping or local pick-up in March, 2018.  Fresh, cleaned roots are $7/lb., $5/lb for 10 or more lbs. Send us an email at KudzuCulture@gmail.com for more info and to order.

We’ll be digging roots during our annual Kudzu Root Camp, March 16-18. See here for details about how to join in the fun.

September 2nd and 3rd in Sylva, NC!

Join us for two days of hands-on learning about kudzu and how to process the young vines into beautiful fiber that can be used for weaving. Kudzu has been an important plant fiber in China, Japan, and Korea for many centuries, providing a plentiful, perennial source of fiber for making fine clothing and durable garments, paper, wall hangings, and more. Along with learning the details of processing kudzu for fiber, we’ll also explore kudzu cuisine and make special dishes using kudzu root starch we processed earlier in the year, as well as harvest and learn about cooking with kudzu leaves. There will also be a kudzu paper-making demonstration where we’ll make bookmarks for participants to take home.

Instructors and organizers Zev Friedman and Justin Holt, along with kudzu-curious friends and family, have been researching, experimenting with, and teaching about kudzu from a permaculture perspective for the past 7 years.

Our Kudzu Camp workshops are somehow both laid back and jam-packed with goodness. Beyond just learning about kudzu, the Camp is also about experimenting with setting up a seasonal processing ‘village’, working at a scale similar to the traditional Japanese method. We share meals (each participant cooks one meal for the others), sometimes cooked over a campfire, and we each take on a specific small job for a day to keep the processing camp running smoothly. There is no charge for the class, though we do have a suggested daily donation of $15-30 per person.

Message kudzuculture@gmail.com with questions and to register.

Here is the precious result of the esoteric art of kudzu starch extraction. On these trays are chunks of root starch that has been leached 10 times in cold water over a period of two weeks. It is now in a final drying stage before storage for a year of kudzu cuisine and medicine.