Katuk

General Discussions
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Hi, guys! Inspired by this thread and this thread, I decided to start a thread about katuk.

Katuk is a vigorous tropical tree with nutritious leaves that can grow as a dieback perennial in zones it’s not quite hardy to. It’s hardy to zone 9a. I’m in zone 7b, and hoping I can get away with it as a dieback perennial despite that being rather a jump. I bought some cuttings from this Etsy seller that I’m trying to root:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1155187063/5-katuk-fresh-cuttings-7-inches-star

The leaves are supposed to be extremely high in protein, which sounds very desirable in a food forest that I’d like to meet my family’s nutritional needs eventually. They’re apparently also supposed to taste good.

Katuk is not as suitable for my climate as moringa, since moringa is highly drought tolerant, and katuk is . . . not. Ha ha ha, no. It apparently wants moist soil and can’t handle drought. But! It doesn’t mind full shade, so I can provide that microclimate. You see . . .

Most of my yard is in full sun, with super dry soil and heat baking down on it every day. The north side of my house, though, is ten to twenty degrees cooler in summer, five to ten degrees warmer in winter, and the soil stays pretty consistently moist as long as I water it once a week and put a light mulch on top. Totally different growing conditions from the rest of my yard.

I consider that the perfect place to put perennials that can’t quite handle my winters, can’t quite handle my summers, can’t handle my usual very dry soil, and don’t mind full shade.

Remember to look for microclimates. :wink:

Anyway, I’d love to find some katuk that’s way more cold tolerant, so if anyone knows of a source of katuk that is, feel free to post it here!

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Have you considered a hugelkulture mound and swale to retain more soil moisture? Might work well for the banana project too.

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Why, yes! :smiley: Hugelkultur is one of my favorite techniques. It’s so easy, and so helpful.

I’m finding that hugelkultur and weekly watering can be sufficient to put highly drought tolerant plants into full sun (like squashes, tomatoes, and apple trees), but the ones that are closer to normal (like most brassicas and beans) do better in partial shade. The ones that want consistently moist soil probably all need to go in full shade here.

It’s kind of a bummer because they’d grow faster in full sun, in theory!

I’ve considered setting up a few outdoor LED lights that charge from a solar panel and automatically turn on in the evening, in order to give the plants on the north side a little more light, without adding more heat. It seems worth trying.

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I have found that here too. Many plants commonly recommended for full sun actually need part shade in my climate.

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I grow Katuk. I like it since it is pretty space efficient and doesnt get knocked back during our cold winters and droughts (unlike many other tropical leafy perennial vegetables). We get the occasional -5 C frost, though my Katuk does better in protected spots that get a little more run off from the roof.
My plants set seed occasionally even though I started with a single clone. One tip- striking cuttings in soil is pretty hard but they root very readily in a jar of water during warm weather. Also a word of warning- the leaves contain the alkaloid papaverine. A fat loss Katuk smoothie craze a few years ago put a few people in hospital with respiratory collapse and killed some of them. South East Asian cuisine often features small amounts of a large diversity of different vegetables, which means some of them like Katuk can have negative effects in large doses.

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Reminds me of the time I poisoned myself eating jicama :grimacing:

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Yikes! What was that like? I’ve tried jicama and found it be tasty, but learning that the outside of it is poisonous makes me leery to buy it again. Much less grow it.

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Thanks, Shane! You’re right: a warning not to overindulge on katuk is definitely worth mentioning. I’ve read that it’s perfectly safe to eat in small doses, but you shouldn’t eat a huge quantity every day (which is true of most species), and you definitely shouldn’t juice it. The problems the fad dieters in Japan experienced came from eating ridiculous quantities of katuk every day, which they were able to do because they juiced it. So . . . yeah, don’t eat massive quantities every single day, and don’t juice it! :wink:

Thank you for that propagation tip, Shane! That’s useful to know.

Do you plant those seeds to try to get a tad more genetic diversity? :wink: If not, sharing them with other gardeners in Australia may be a great idea.

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I haven’t tried growing my own Katuk from seed. Since I started with a single clone I dont expect much variation. It is only ever a low volume leaf vegetable at the rare times it is producing well but little else is, so not super useful to me. I figure any time I spend on vegetables is time lost on staple and tree crops.

IIRC people who religiously juiced kale every day believing they were transcending mortality ended up having their hair fall out along with a long list of other weird symptoms. The dose (and often the bioavailability) is indeed the poison.

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So much pain. I was seriously scared my stomach could burst and telling my wife I may need her to call an ambulance. That was the peak and then I started slowly feeling less. Did not sleep that night.

I knew the top growth was poisonous but did not realize the skin was too. I was thinking of it like a potato.

I would describe it as a really bland tasting apple. Not bad, probably great with the right seasoning. But I’ve never eaten one after that.

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Wow, hair falling out is a terrible symptom! :open_mouth:

One of the reasons I’m super interested in katuk is that it’s an excellent galactagogue (it helps a breastfeeding mother produce more milk), just like moringa. And they’re both super healthy for pregnancy. And they’re both super healthy for very young children.

I want all three of those traits! :smiley:

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Oh, wow. I’m so glad I heard the skin of jicama was poisonous before trying it. I made sure to chop off every bit of the skin and stick it in my compost bucket.

I found the flavor of jicama to be quite nice – mildly sweet, mostly starchy – but there are plenty of other things that taste better that don’t come with a poisonous part you have to carefully remove before eating it. It’s so not worth that kind of effort! And there’s no way I’d attempt to grow it.

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Interestingly, I always thought Katuk was classified as Sauropus, but it has since been lumped with the much larger genus Breynia. We have a local wild shrub species which the birds spread, and other parts of the world have ornamental and weedy annual varieties. Could open up the scope of a breeding project. Lots of weedy species in Phyllanthus as well to consider. The flowers are tiny and fiddly though, so controlled pollination could be a huge pain.

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Are the wild species edible? If so, they could each be an interesting domestication project on their own.

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The only other edible species in the phyllanthaceae I know of are Phyllanthus emblica/acidus (with highly astringent fruits that are pickled in India) and a closely related species for the same use. Can’t find much more evidence of edible use in the rest of the genus, but who knows.

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Well, if you decide to play around with breeding katuk, I’ll enjoy reading about your results! :blush: