Bamboo is the fastest growing plant. Some can grow as much as 24 inches in one day! You can actually sit in front and watch it grow.

Whenevr I am in an Asian store, I always look for fresh Bamboo shoots for cooking. Mostly for various stir frying.

Bamboo shoots are very good for health.

dcarch

Years ago when I worked in garden centers in NJ I would get people engaged in suburban 'neighbor wars' shopping for various ways to piss off those who lived around them. One typical way was to plant bamboo with the intention of it eating the neighbor's yard. Only once was I able to convince someone that while the bamboo would in fact eventually eat the 'bad evil' neighbors yard - it would also spread into their own yard too.

Luckily it;'s very beautiful - makes lovely sounds and is edible too. As a child my family ate a lot of brown rice. We occasionally travelled to a chinese grocery store 11/2 hrs away for more exotic flavors than were available in the local grocery store. My favorite condiment from there were these tiny jars of fermented bamboo shoots.

Heard on an NPR garden show that several states have LAWS against planting "invasive" plants?!? Those who plant can be responsible for its removal!?! This stuff is TALL and some as big as maybe 2+" in diameter, when fully grown.

I have a patch of bamboo in one corner of our yard that either the previous owners planted or it somehow washed downhill from a neighbors patch a couple hundred yards uphill.

Every year as the bamboo starts to sprout I invite a Chinese women I work with to stop by after work and we proceed to cut off every new shoot between 6" and 12" in length. This year I sent her home with a bag that had to weigh at least 10 pounds.

The last couple of years she has cooked up a dish of the shoots with a few other vegetables and soy sauce and brought it into work the next day as thanks for the free shoots.

Thatchairlady is right there is no resemblance in taste between the fresh shoots and the one in cans. (I guess that is true for pretty much all other vegetables, so I shouldn't be surprised.)

I'll ask her if she can give me a recipe for the dish she made.

From what I learned on NPR... "running" (as opposed to clumping) bamboo is beyond tough! It grows SOOOO fast... can go from 1-2" to easily 6" overnight. It can/will grow under paved driveways and cement sidewalks and pop up on the other side. Can only really be contained by a trench with CEMENT or METAL sheeting. Won't cross water.