Pit Pit, Highland Pitpit, Setaria Palmifolia, perennial vegetable plant

Pitpit is an ornamental grass with bold, broad, tropical-looking foliage great as an understory plant for food forests. It’s perfect for filling gaps, lining pathways, or mass-planting, and its lush greenery creates a tropical feel even in temperate gardens. Growing well as far south as Sydney, Pitpit can likely handle mild frosts, and it thrives in well-drained but moisture-retentive soils. It prefers sun to part-shade, but will also grow in full shade, making it very adaptable.

The edible part are the swollen stalks.

The ideal time to harvest Pitpit is when the young shoots and swollen basal stalks are still tender — usually just before the plant starts to flower.

🌿 Shoots: Harvest when they are still fresh, crisp, and not fibrous (young growth near the base).

🥢 Stalks: The swollen lower stems are cut, peeled, and then cooked. If left too long, they become stringy and tough.

🔄 Timing: In tropical and subtropical climates, Pitpit can often be harvested year-round, but growth is fastest in the warm, wet season (spring through summer). In cooler areas (like Sydney/Port Stephens), it’s best in the warmer months and may slow down in winter.

🌸 Tip: Once the plant flowers, the stems lose their tenderness — so harvest before or at the very early stage of flowering.

👉 In places like Papua New Guinea, where Pitpit is commonly grown and eaten, it’s treated a bit like a seasonal vegetable — harvested while still soft and succulent, then allowed to regrow for another flush.

Pitpit is never eaten raw but turned into yummy stir-fries, curries, often with coconut.

The flavour is delicate and the texture crisp. Given that it grows in the shade, this is i a valuable and underappreciated food plant. I am still experimenting with ways to cook Pitpit and would love to share and learn recipes as I go!

Beyond its food value, Pitpit is also a beautiful container plant. It can be brought indoors during winter, where its bold foliage serves as a lush decorative feature. Some growers even use it as a tropical-style indoor plant.

It is best to cut the plant to the ground after flowering.