Sunchoke/Jerusalem artichoke fall care?

[applestar]

OK so I have a stand of Sunchokes.

I read that you harvest all the root tubers anytime after first frost until the ground freezes, and you are still likely to leave enough leftover roots in the ground for next year's crop.

At this point, we had a couple of hard and light frosts, the tops are dead and brown. But we might have another light frost some time in the next week, then above freezing temps for a while longer. So.... Should I just cut the tops to the ground and wait until after more frost or should I start to dig them up now? -- well, after the ground dries out a bit after the storm passes completely.

[rainbowgardener]

I think you could dig them now. And yes my experience with mine is if I pull ALL of them, the little tubers that get left behind are plenty for next year. Since I just have one flower bed for them, I end up next year still thinning them more.

[Green Mantis]

I agree with RBG....But if you just cut the tops back and let them go until next year, you will have bigger ones.

That's what I found anyway.

[soil]

I leave the stalks and leave them out all winter. Then harvest a few as I need them. They store best in ground best and don't store out of the ground.

[DoubleDogFarm]

[img]https://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h300/eric_wa/Double%20Dog%20Farm%20%20%20Garden%20Vegetables/GardenandseedOct30th2012002.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h300/eric_wa/Double%20Dog%20Farm%20%20%20Garden%20Vegetables/GardenandseedOct30th2012001.jpg[/img]

See the flowers. Some of these are over 10ft tall

I will let them die down a little more then I will cut off the stocks. I like to leave a 1ft handle or so to help lift from the ground and shake off.

I haven't found a recipe that I like so most of the tubers will be ground and fed to the ducks. I will be chipping the stocks and testing them on the ducks also.

Eric

[jal_ut]

Eat them raw with a little dip or dressing.

BTW you should call them sun roots. No use choking anyone.

[applestar]

Thanks for your replies. you've all given me a chance to mull this over.

Green Mantis, do you mean leave them until spring when I can dig again after the ground thaws? ...or let them grow again next season and harvest after another year's growth?

I have to cut them since these are in the front yard and they are looking really messy right now, and I like the idea of cutting down the stalks but leaving the 1ft handles. I think I will start digging from outside-in but won't dig them all up until the last minute. I can leave the ones in the middle until the time frame Green Mantis suggests.

I want to put cement wall blocks around the bed so I can raise and make the bed a bit deeper with sandy soil so this will be a good way to get started on the project.

I'm going to sheet compost over the front yard fence row bed where I intend to grow a large moschata winter squash next season, so I'll probably bury the stalks under there.

[!potatoes!]

the longer you wait, the less those 1ft handles will work.

[Green Mantis]

applestar.... We cut ours in the fall, down to about a foot tall.

Then dug them all in the spring. The reason I did this was because we couldn't "see" out the window, lol.

We measured them and some where well over 10 feet tall, ( never did take a picture... Which was dumb, because it was quite the sight.

They were in front of the commercial building we owned then. So we kind of had to see out.

We sold in the early spring, and dug them up before we moved, so they definately had bigger tubers.

Not "one" flower though?? I think the soil was too rich and they just grew??

[DoubleDogFarm]

One hundred and one uses of a pressure washer
[img]https://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h300/eric_wa/Double%20Dog%20Farm%20%20%20Vegetables%20and%20%20Fruits/SunchokesNov12012001.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h300/eric_wa/Double%20Dog%20Farm%20%20%20Vegetables%20and%20%20Fruits/SunchokesNov12012002.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h300/eric_wa/Double%20Dog%20Farm%20%20%20Vegetables%20and%20%20Fruits/SunchokesNov12012003.jpg[/img]

and the ducks love them.

Eric

[Green Mantis]

Wow, that's a lot of sunchokes!

Great idea to use the pressure washer, I just bought some of the red type this year, they did get planted, so have the yellow's and red's now.

Those are big!!! I bet the ducks like them, spoiled ducks.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Wow, that's a lot of sunchokes!

Great idea to use the pressure washer, I just bought some of the red type this year, they did get planted, so have the yellow's and red's now.

Those are big!!! I bet the ducks like them, spoiled ducks.

That's about 3ft out of the row.

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

Wow, that's a lot of sunchokes!

Not surprised by Eric's answer. I can get that many tubers out of my one little flower bed of them. They are very productive.

But MH still doesn't want them for dinner, because of their "fartichoke" aspect. I don't have any ducks to feed them to. I'm thinking I will sneak a few in with some mashed potatoes and see if it still does that....

[CharlieBear]

I would leave them in the ground with about a foot of plant showing and dig as you go. Just mulch them well.The reason is they deteriorate quickly after being dug even under refrigeration. That is one reason they are so expensive to buy if you can find them.
We leave one hill until very early spring and use the best ones to replant. The leftover ones are often small and produce less robust plants. We can also select the less knobby ones and over time they have become easier and easier to clean.
Whatever you do don't rototile them around your garden or they will come up everywhere. We have them in an 8" hight box and they still sometimes escape and have to be pulled out in the spring.

[applestar]

Well duh! I forgot about this thread
We had an unseasonably warm two nights in the 50's and days near 70, so I took the opportunity to plant the package of Chesnok Red garlic I didn't get to plant earlier in the fall and to dig up the Sunchokes/roots. (It's supposed to drop down to 28° or less tonight and tomorrow night).

I had planned to dig all around the perimeter of the circular bed -- which BTW had nearly tripled in diameter -- to prevent them from escaping beyond, and then just one stalk more all around, leaving the center intact, but my younger daughter really got into it and kept wanting to dig more until we'd dug up the entire bed... almost a 5 gal bucket full.

As it turned out, it may have been better that we did since a number of them are starting to spoil at the root attachment. I believe the problem is that this area is the part of my front yard that was part of the original scraped of topsoil to underlying clay and then thoroughly and completely compacted by the construction equipment -- totally useless patch of ground that doesn't even grow lawn grass well. Deeper tubers were growing in solid clay. -- as I mentioned above, I want to turn the Sunchoke bed into a raised bed mostly filled with sand which should make it better.

Well, WHAT to do with the harvest.... We're having a family dinner tomorrow for a birthday so I can give a good portion away. As for the rest, do you think I could just peel and freeze some of them if they are to be used cooked?

How big are eating worthy? Do you always have to peel the skin? What about the knobs attached to thickish roots? What do you do with unwanted ones? From what Charlie said, it doesn't sound like you would even want to plant them back in the ground. (Maybe I should send them to Eric's ducks )

Mine have yellowish skin and pristine white insides -- originally from TZ -- nice crisp/crunchy texture and somewhat sweet. I also tried some peeled and sliced cooked in soup and that tasted good too, with interesting texture. Some of them have more of an orangish skin that remind me of fully cured potato with tougher skin. Maybe these are older tubers that grew earlier in the season?

[applestar]

Based on this post by TZ, the variety I have might be White Fuseau.

Here are the bigger, straighter looking ones I picked out to give to my family:


These are the ones I accidentally broke while digging them that I intend to eat right away -- mixed shapes:

[DoubleDogFarm]

I have not researched, but I would like to try dehydrating and grinding. Use the flour maybe in baked goods and gravies. Not sure.

Eric

[applestar]

BTW, that bed was FULL of earthworms -- really big ones I believe they were enjoying the exudate from the sunroots.

We collected them since I needed to replenish my vermicompost bin -- they didn't do too well this year due to neglect. So, as I told my daughter, we were harvesting twice from the same bed.

[applestar]

Oh! You're here!
That sounds like an interesting idea. Maybe I'll try that with some of these.

[DoubleDogFarm]

BTW, that bed was FULL of earthworms -- really big ones I believe they were enjoying the exudate from the sunroots.

We collected them since I needed to replenish my vermicompost bin -- they didn't do too well this year due to neglect. So, as I told my daughter, we were harvesting twice from the same bed.

Who me. I'm never here.

Do I need to ship you some compost worms along with the duck eggs? Earthworms for vermicompost, Why I oughta...

Eric

[applestar]

Nag, nag, nag.

Hey, I pick up a gallon bucket of earthworms in what would ordinarily be , nothing but clay frozen solid soil in December, I'm puttin' them in my Can o'Worms.

Like I said, hardly anybody's living in there right now, and SOMEBODY has to do the work. They may be slow, but they'll be OK -- I dumped the soil rubbed off from the sunroots in with them. I'll be picking them out of there and spreading them around in my container plants, too. In particular, the larger containers that provide sunny vantage points for window watching kitties are suffering from kitty mulch -- they manage to completely compress the soil... And I swear they are also absorbing all the moisture out of them with their fur because the soil in those containers dry out faster!


You don't want to send me redworms, really, do you? Duck eggs and red worms -- for some reason, I'm picturing spring-theme dark chocolate cupcakes baked in clay pots with gummy worms sticking out of them....

[!potatoes!]

I have not researched, but I would like to try dehydrating and grinding. Use the flour maybe in baked goods and gravies. Not sure.

Eric

I have a pint jar of jeru. artichoke meal I made...hard to use. the flavor's kinda too strong for many uses.

[applestar]

With or without skin? Post frost sweeter roots?

[rainbowgardener]

My trouble with using the j.a./sunchokes is that they are SO gas producing. Not called "fartichokes" for nothing! Even made me jet propelled and I don't usually have problems that way and caused gastric distress to MyHoney who does. So the question is does turning them in to flour/meal reduce that effect?

And yes, my ground that would usually be frozen solid is still quite diggable. So far we are having another global warming winter. It keeps dipping down close to seasonal and then bouncing right back up. It's doing that again now. Today's high will be in the high 40's which is a little above seasonal, but close (would not make me think we are in an abnormal pattern), but then in a couple days we will be right back to 60's, 20 degrees above normal, near record highs. No extended cold periods that would freeze the ground. And dry... This year we had warm drought in spring, hot drought in summer, and then cold drought in fall ... I'm still watering some things, which is weird for this time of year.

Re the worms. I am doing a worm bin again this winter. I just dug a bunch of worms out of my compost pile to stock it (this was about a month ago). They might not be the recommended type, but I figure they were breaking stuff down in the compost pile, they should be able to do it in the worm bin. But the worm bin creeps me out a little bit, being in my basement ... It is a little too much like bringing a piece of the outdoors in. I stocked it with worms and a bit of compost from the pile and a bunch of fall leaves. I keep having to pull black soldier fly larvae AND slugs out of the bin. eeeuw!

[DoubleDogFarm]

eeeuw!

Apple,

When I have duck eggs, should I send you some worms? Like Rainbow's, they are out of garbage can worm compost.



Eric

[!potatoes!]

With or without skin? Post frost sweeter roots?

with skin, good-tasting, winter-dug roots. might be better if they were earlier, less-sweet tubers, since the flavor issue is this excessive cloying pseudo-sweetness that's just too much.

[ElizabethB]

Haven't grown sun chokes in years. In fact what used to be a road side weed is difficult to come by. Rainbow shipped some to me and I should have by Wednesday . The ones I am familiar with look like Apple's. The skin is very thin. No need to peel just brush with a stiff brush.

As for cooking I like them in a stew or a roast gravy as a starch substitute. We make rice dressing in south Louisiana ground beef cooked with savories - onions, garlic, celery, and bell peppers added to cooked rice. Chokes added to the mix give it whole new level of flavor.

Yep - the gas is bad. Too bad that source of natural gas can't be tapped.

Thanks Rainbow

[applestar]

This year's harvest

[applestar]

I'm going to try this recipe
From https://agardenerstable.com/2014/02/24/t ... rtichokes/

Mellow Yellow Jerusalem Artichoke Pickle

1½ pounds Jerusalem artichokes, broken into nodes, thoroughly scrubbed, and cut into ½-inch dice
1 teaspoon ground dried turmeric
1 ounces garlic (about 8 cloves), chopped
½ ounce fresh ginger, minced (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons pickling salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1½ cups water

Toss together the diced Jerusalem artichokes, the turmeric, the garlic, the ginger, and the cumin. Pack the mixture into a jar with a capacity of at least 6 cups. Dissolve the salt and sugar in the water. Pour the brine over the Jerusalem artichokes; it will not cover them at first. Add a brine bag (a gallon freezer-weight plastic bag containing 1 tablespoon salt dissolved in 3 cups water) or another suitable weight.

The next day the brine should cover the Jerusalem artichokes. If it doesn’t, add more brine mixed in the same proportions.

Wait several days before tasting the pickle. I found it perfect after a week: The brine was sour, and the Jerusalem artichokes pleasantly, mildly spicy and still crunchy.

When the pickle has fermented enough to suit your taste, store the jar in the refrigerator. Keep the Jerusalem artichokes weighted so they won’t take on a grayish cast.

[!potatoes!]

don't know if I mentioned earlier in this thread in a previous year, but I'm a big fan of grating 'em and fermenting 'em like sauerkraut. makes an awesome sweet & sour relish.

[applestar]

I will have to try that, too. -- any tips?

I haven't had the chance yet -- too busy saving and harvesting and shutting down the garden before the killing freeze gets here -- snow tonight and freezing temps every night to follow, then 25°F on Tues. yikes!

Today, I just nibbled on one raw to taste test -- not outstandingly sweet but there was sweetness and good flavor -- like water chestnuts but far more complex flavors than the watery canned ones.

...then for *kids' snack*, sliced them in varying thicknesses, soaked in salt water, patted dry then EVOO and baked at 325 for 30 min. I wanted the family to compare, and I DID intend DH to try it*, and the consensus is thinnest dried and crunchy and the next thinnest which turned out chewy. Thick and soft in the middle got the thumbs down so I guess roasting them whole or in chunks is out of the question. Interestingly, there was a LOT of flavor in the skin, so I think thorough scrubbing and then saltwater soak was the right prep.

* It was kind of funny because when I went to ask if they had finished eating the sunchoke chips, the kids stared at the plate and said -- "They're GONE!" ...it turned out that DH had come home, sat down, and gobbled them up.