Instructions: Her abiding love for bamboo goes right down to the shoots When her shovel goes amiss, this local gardener turns the tender rhizomes into hot-and-sour soup

"If you hit one with your shovel, you eat it - especially the expensive ones such as Phyllostachys bambusoides castillonis!" Jackie Johnson says.

"It just felt shameful to waste these perfectly beautiful bamboo shoots."

In the mid-90s, Jackie Johnson worked at the Bamboo Garden in Milwaukie watering bamboo in pots - lots and lots of pots - for six hours a day.

"It didnt happen very often, because we were very careful. But after a few well-meaning bemoaned Oh nos! you just had to do something to make it feel right," says Johnson. "Eating the crunchy shoots on the spot was a way to say thank you to the bamboo.

"Wed just peel back the tough sheath material and there would be a tender bamboo shoot - much better-tasting than any youd ever get in a can."

By the end of the summer Johnson had learned the names of her many charges - about 200 varieties, some indoor, some outdoor.

Johnsons summer days began at 5:30 a.m. "It was a beautiful time in my life, being outdoors all day, listening to the bamboo leaves singing. Nursery work like that is 100 percent about attentive caregiving: protecting the plants, paying attention to who needs to be repotted, whos tipping over, whos stressing - who needs water NOW - and spotting new sprouts in large pots for potential rhizome division.

"But its very hard physical work; you go through a lot of rubber boots."

During the winter, she worked in the greenhouses helping to propagate the bamboo by dividing the potted plants. It was wet work, and in winter, her hands get really cold. This is when the shovel accidents happen, especially when the spring shoots were just getting going.

After all that intimate time with bamboo, Johnson says her personal favorite variety is Moso - Phyllostachys heterocycla pubescens. Its the largest of the hardy bamboo varieties, and when planted in full sunshine it can grow 75 feet tall with canes up to 7 inches in diameter.

Johnson has a nice planting of bamboo in her front yard. Although the shady site limits the plants growth, the soil is loose and full of organic matter,

"so its easy to control the runners," she says.

Eat one of her precious Moso shoots? "Never!" she says. "I want the bamboo full-grown, so I can sit on the front porch and listen to it sing."

Spring bamboo is highly prized in most parts of Asia for its lovely fresh tender taste and texture. If you have a stand of bamboo in your yard, especially one that requires a constant round-up of runners, consider harvesting some of those tender shoots for impromptu use in the kitchen.

Ned Jaquith, Johnsons boss at Bamboo Garden, recommends planting Phyllostachys vivax for good-eating shoots in the Northwest. Johnson says Jaquith donated the many bamboo varieties that were planted last year at the new Chinese Garden in Northwest Portland.

This year the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Bamboo Society will be hosting the national meeting in Portland Sept. 20-23. For information, visit

If you would like to email yourself the recipe for later use, or share the recipe with your friends or family, enter the email addresses below and this recipe will be emailed to you and others as well.