It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were harvesting the jerusalem artichokes on our sites. Well, this year, we have allocated a rather sizeable section at Clissold to the lovely vegetable. The piece of land we’ve chosen doesn’t get too much sun in the summer months, as the nearby trees cast too much shade when in leaf. Really, it’s not worth growing salad leaves there. And artichokes are pretty low maintanance (hoorah!) and can handle the shade.
As we had garlic growing in the area until just last week, we had only planted up a small area with the tubers themselves and planted the rest into pots at Springfield, where they’ve come on really nicely.
You can just see the artichokes growing on the edge of the green plastic, which is what I covered the ground with after we lifted the garlic last week
This week, the garlic gone (oh lucky members who got a bunch of the delicious stuff!), I transported 15 artichoke seedlings across to Clissold in my trailer. Here’s one hanging out…
And here are the rest, waiting to be planted up by Ru and Chickie, one of our newest volunteers. You can see how much more they have grown being in the glasshouse!
Here they are being planted out in this moon-shaped bed. Rather a generous spacing, as we don’t have quite enough plants. But I’m hoping they’ll benefit from not being too crowded…
As a bit of an experiment, we’ve planted a climbing French bean near one of the artichokes – which grow tall like sunflowers. Don’t know if anyone has tried this at home, but we thought we would see how the artichoke does as a support – kind of in the style of the three sisters. If you’ve any experience of this – do let me know!
Tags: Jerusalem Artichokes
