How to Grow Chinese Water Chestnuts

The Chinese water chestnut is popular in Chinese food.

Chinese water chestnut, or Eleocharis dulcis, is commonly used as a vegetable in Asian foods and grown in flooded rice paddies. Similar to the invasive plant that grows along the waterways of the northeastern United States, Chinese water chestnut is a rush-like variety that grows in wet conditions. A corm develops in late summer, which growers harvest for use in raw and cooked form. The Chinese water chestnut needs 220 frost-free days to mature.

Instructions

1. Set out a plastic pool-type container that will hold about 25 gallons of water in a sunny spot. Fill it with six to eight inches of garden soil.

2. Set the tubers about four inches deep in the soil. Flood the container with water to four to six inches above the surface of the soil.

3. Drain the water very slowly over the period of a couple of weeks. Allow the plants to grow until they are 12 inches tall.

4. Flood the growing container again with water, and maintain the water level above the soil until you are almost ready to harvest the corms. Add goldfish to the water to help keep insects down. Plant a few submerged water-oxygenating plants to increase the oxygen levels.

5. Drain the Chinese water chestnut plants slowly, over a 30-day period, when they are mature and before harvesting the corms.

References

• University of Florida IFAS Extension; Water Chestnut; James Stephens
• Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service; Chinese Vegetables; Michael Dana
• The Pond Professor: Oxygenating plants (oxygenators) & submerged aquatics (biotype2)