Have you ever pulled up Jerusalem artichokes? There’s something incredibly satisfying about the job – dare I say even more so than digging up potatoes. I guess it is because you just don’t know what you will get – such wonderful shapes and sizes.
We got around 25kgs this year from across the Growing Communities sites, which all went into our veggie box scheme. I only pulled up around 3kg from Clissold but I was happy with this as they had self seeded and most of the plants had taken a little damage being right next to the path. Next year, I am planning to plant up a lot – they are pretty low maintenance and the yields can be high.
We don’t include these or the globe artichokes in our rotation system as they are perennial ( = live for more than two years ) and they wouldn’t really be classed as salad in anyone’s book. But we like to set aside some space to grow them as they make a welcome addition to the veg box this time of year. If you grow them at home, they look like sunflowers as they grow, but it’s worth cutting back the flowers so that more energy goes into swelling the roots up into tasty tubers for the pot…
We try and save some good specimens for next year’s crop – nice ‘egg sized’ tubers are worth hanging on to, so Ru tells me. I look forward to planting them in the new year.
Collected to plant next year…kind of egg shaped…
Interesting fact: I know people often wonder why they are called Jerusalem Artichokes. Well, my housemate set me straight this week. Apparently it’s all a bit of a mistake really. When it was first discovered it was called girasole, which is Italian for sunflower. This morphed into Jerusalem, and the artichoke comes from the flavour of the tubers, which is kinda familiar to the artichokes you might know…
