Arrowhead

Arrowhead plants in our pond.

Harvested arrowhead tubers.

Perennial Water Vegetable:
ARROWHEAD
(Sagittaria latifolia)

From Theresa

CONTENTS:
- Overview
- Growing Arrowhead in our Pond
- Harvesting
- Cleaning
- Cooking: Roasted Arrowhead French Fries

Overview:

Arrowheads (Sagittaria latifolia) are submerged water plants that have edible tubers. They seem to be pretty easy to grow if you have a pond or wetland area. (If you don't, see our page on how to build a backyard pond.)
They are named after their leaves, which are triangular shaped, like an arrow.
They are native to North American and were eaten by Native Americans.
They can be challenging to harvest, but are easy to cook and wonderfully tasty, so are worth the effort. We like them roasted, which turns them into a light and airy, but not greasy, french fry.

GROWING ARROWHEAD IN OUR POND:

Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia) is a perennial native that grows throughout the United States. There are related varieties in Europe and Asia.
Arrowhead grows at the edges of ponds and lakes, where the roots are sunk into the underwater dirt, and the leaves reach several feet above the water.
It can also grow in marshy areas, where the soil is continually wet.
It's a colony forming root crop that needs full sun.
In our yard, we grow arrowhead in our tiny wildlife pond, which is about 7 feet long by 4 feet wide. Our pond is atypical in that we put dirt in the bottom of it (instead of just the usual rocks) so that it would be closer to a natural ecosystem and support more wildlife.

How to plant Arrowhead:

You can push the tuber into the underwater soil in the Spring, with the growing tip (the hook-like part that is growing out of the bulb) facing up.
I received mail-order tubers in the Winter, though, so had to plant them in pots with potting soil. Then I sat the pots in a shallow pan that I kept filled with water, and put the hole thing under a grow light in our small greenhouse.
In the Spring I had to transplant them to the pond, which I'm still getting the hang of. Plants tend to float when you put them in the underwater soil, so you have to figure a way to weigh them down, such as with rocks. It's okay if the leaves are completely submerged at first. They will quickly grow to reach the surface.
I think you could also probably store the tubers in the refrigerator in a bag with some water in it if you can't plant them right away
Others will say that it's easier to harvest the tubers if you grown them in pots in your pond. I haven't tried this.

Arrowhead is named after the shape of its leaves.

Our backyard pond, Spring 2013.

Arrowhead takes over the pond in 2015:

7-10-2015: Arrowhead is growing at only one end of the pond

8-30-2015: Arrowhead has spread throughout the pond

8-30-2015: The arrowhead is happy enough to bloom

9-25-2015: Arrowhead beginning to die back in the Fall.

Overwintering:

I planted arrowhead in the pond's first year, but it did not survive the Winter. I planted it again in our third year, and in the following Spring was very happy to discover a couple arrowhead tubers with tiny leaves floating in the pond. They might have overwintered because I had a better pond heater that Winter that kept at least one hole open in the deep end of the pond. (See the photo on the right. For more information about this, see how we built our pond.)
I don't know why the floating arrowheads had become dislodged from the pond bottom, but I attempted to replant them, and later found leaves from several other tubers emerging from the water.
To overwinter, the tubers should not freeze solid, so your pond needs to be deeper than the frost line in your area.
You can also go the more traditional backyard pond route by growing arrowhead in pots, then bringing the pots indoors to an above freezing basement or garage to overwinter. For more information on this approach, see the book:
Perennial Vegetables: From Artichoke to “Zuiki” Taro, a Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-Grow Edibles
by Eric Toensmeier.

Keeping a hole open in the Winter pond so that wildlife can survive (the gases they breathe out need to be able to escape).

Bent over stems become good landing spots for birds.

Growing challenges:

We've found that rabbits like to eat the leaves, so you might want to grow them farther from the edge of your pond if you can.
Birds may use the stems to land on and inch down so they can get a drink of water. This may bend the stems. It doesn't seem to hurt the plant, but it does look a bit messy.
The stems sometimes get infested with what is probably an aphid, according to what I've read, although this doesn't seem to affect their growth either.

Arrowhead bloom.

Other reasons to grow arrowhead:

Dragonfly nyphms use the stems to crawl out the water (right)
They have pretty flowers (above)

The shell of a dragonfly clinging to an arrowhead stem, shortly after the dragonfly has emerged and flown away.

Sources:

I've bought my arrowhead from:

The Flower Factory (Stoughton, WI)
The Seed Savers Exchange (a non-profit group saving heirloom seeds)

You can see the arrowhead at the top in the photo to the left, in the blue tub, which has a couple inches of water in it. I received the tubers in the mail in the winter, so grew them in soil in pots that sat in the water, until I could transplant them in the Spring.

HARVESTING ARROWHEAD:

1. Harvest the plants in the Fall, when they have died back. This photo is from 10-11-2015. You can see that all the arrowhead leaves are gone, so that all that remains are the brown stems on the left, leaning against the rocks.

2. According to what I've read, Native American women harvested arrowhead by walking into the frigid water and using their bare feet to dig around in the mud for the tubers. Brrr. We get to cheat, since our pond is so small. We can lay on the edge and dig around with just our hands.

3. Unfortunately, you can't just pull up the dying stems and find the tubers at the end.

4. The tubers will likely be far from the stems, so you have to dig around in the muck until you find one.

5. Bear loves a good treasure hunt, and has longer arms, so he dug around the deep end.

6. More success!

7. Be sure and leave enough behind, like these little ones, to grow next year.

8. A close-up of the tubers. The bits reaching out from each round part are the growing tips from which plants will emerge.

CLEANING ARROWHEAD:

1. To clean the tubers, begin by rinsing them in a bowl of water:

2. Next, pull off the loose brown (and sometimes gooey) skin from the tuber...

3. ... and from the growing tip.

4. I used a brush to remove the reddish brown layer that is on the outside of some parts of the tuber...

5. ... You can get most of it off with a gentle scrub. I'm not sure if this step is necessary, but it seems like a good idea.

6. Tubers cleaned and ready to cook.

7. A look at the insides, which are rather rigid but with very small air pockets... I hesitate to say it's like styrofoam, but I can't think of any better analogy.

COOKING- ROASTED ARROWHEAD FRENCH FRIES:

1. Trim off the bottom (root end) of the tuber.

2. Also remove the growing tip (some books imply that it is edible but a bit bitter.)

3. Chop into small squares and put in a baking pan. We also added some optional garlic cloves.

4. Coat with olive oil and bake at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes.

5. The arrowhead will brown a bit on the outside and get crunchy. The inside is light and airy, and they are like eating a french fry that isn't oily. (This photo is from our second batch, when we added pepper.)

6. We ate ours arrowhead "fries" as the side dish for some burgers. They were great dipped in our homemade ketchup.

7. Any extras you didn't cook can be stored in the refrigerator in a bag with some water in it:

THE SAD PART...

We only got two meals out of our harvest from our entire pond... We loved the arrowhead so much that we are contemplating building another pond or maybe taking up hydroponics so we can grow more. It's an addiction.