I've never met an artichoke up close and personal. I do believe I've turned down some strange artichoke goop when I lived in California. Like much of my life in California, it was a strange concoction that still frightens me to think about. LOL

Anyway... What does an artichoke taste like? (Don't you hate when people ask you to describe a new taste??) I just might be convinced of the need to give them a spot in this year's garden.

Diane

Diane, as you may know, Jerusalem artichokes are not really artichokes but the tubers of a plant in the sunflower family. Before they're frosted good, they have a bit of a turpentiny flavor which is why they are harvested during cold weather. (Not usually this late. I just got lazy this year.) A good hard freeze takes the turpentine taste out and leaves them tasting mild, almost bland, but with just a bit of sweetness. What is more distinctive about them than the taste is the crunch. They are wonderfully crisp. Like a freshly dug carrot. In the middle of the winter when there is nothing else coming out of the garden, they are a lovely snacking food. We like them best raw.

Oh, good grief. I saw "artichoke" in your post directly after seeing "artichoke" on my generic garden starting calendar and completely ignored the "Jerusalem" part of yours. I do know what sunchokes taste like but thank you for taking the time to describe it.

I'm gonna go get that other cup of coffee right now...

Diane

How do you grow your sunchokes? That is one that is on my list with a little hesitancy. I love the flowers - I'm assuming you let them flower? Supposedly the flowers smell like chocolate. They look like sunflowers but they are in the same genus as sunflowers. They are perennial, right? Does the patch just get bigger and bigger every year? What kind of soil?

Sorry for all the questions, but I am interested in their potential in my garden.

They are starchy, right, somewhat like potatoes? We ate some long ago, but for the life of me I don't remember what the taste like. I think I saw where someone used them in stir fry.

Here's some recipes I found. The sunchoke pickles look really good.....

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunchoke Recipes

Susan, yes perrenial and they multiply IF the little burrowing creatures don't find them. This year they didn't find the one plant I dug today. Not all varieties smell like chocolate. Mine doesn't. Yes, I let them flower and the flowers are like small sunflowers in clusters 6-7 ft tall. In fact the whole plant is very wild sunflower looking.

I never give mine any care. Don't water or fertilizer and they are growing next to the garden fence in mulched (with last year's cornstalks) but unamended soil. And the one I dug today was at the edge and mostly under a very vigorous clump of fescue at the edge of the mulch. I was surprised to find so many tubors tangled with the roots of the grass.

Actually the starch is in a form called inulan which is better for diabetics than the starch of potatoes.

Thanks for the recipe link. The only way I have ever cooked them is in stirfries. By midwinter when I dig them I am so hungry for something raw and crisp (the stored turnips and radishes have gone a bit limp) that I eat most of them that way.

Susanlynne48 - initially - they taste a LOT like water chestnuts. And yes, they are a perrinial. And they have small flowers that resemble sunflowers when allowed to grow thru the warmer season. Also, yes, they just grow...and grow...and grow. So they need to be planted where they have room to spread.

Send me an e-mail and I'll share when mine mature in the spring. On second thought...you just NEED to come to the Spring Fling. I'll have a small bag with your name on it..if you remind me via e-mail. LOL! I've got some growing now that were given to me by Ilene (a former member here, that were given to her by our macmex, George). I know Diane got some of those same ones, but she's a bit father away and it's easier for me to share.

Just remind me! I get busy...ugh!

Actually, they ship very well all winter long. Jerusalem artichokes can even be broken out of frozen soil and they are still good.

I sometimes boil them in 2 changes of water (to remove some of the inulin, which causes flatulence) and eat them just like boiled potatoes. Just don't over do it on how much you eat, until you know how your body will handle them.

The all time best way we've eaten them cooked is chopped and cooked in a hearty stew, in place of potatoes. Didn't have the slightest digestive difficulty and the were delicious.

George

Thanks for the input! If they get that big and spread around a lot, I probably shouldn't put them in my garden - unless they can tolerate a shady backyard that gets some filtered sun.

George, do they really cause that much of a problem - flatulence - more so than say broccoli or beans?

I have heard they, like potatoes, add some thickening quality to soups, too.

I have also heard that the pass along varieties that are grown in the same environment, do the best, so if they come from George originally, they should do better than those one orders from an online source.

Susan

Susan,

To address the adaptation issue of varieties grown locally and regionally, it is true that it happens. Eventually varieties that are saved, propagated and grown from saved seed or plantstock will adapt to a region, but it can take many, many generations of plantings for this to occur. I am not sure I've ever seen anything that says how many generations exactly, but I'd suspect it would be quite a few.

The problems caused by sunchokes are well-documented and can be very severe in some people and not as bad in others, so you cannot really know how they'll affect you until you try them. Double boiling them, pouring off the water from the first boiling and reboiling in fresh water helps, and so does eating them sparingly at first and giving your body time to adapt.

Once your body can adapt to smaller portions eaten infrequently, then you can eat either more of them in one sitting or eat them more frequently or both without, hopefully, suffering because of it.

Dawn

I haven't been able to trace the variety I grow, farther than Burgess' Farm Market, here in Tahlequah. But I suspect that it's one called Avalanche. Last year I let a seedling mature and it came true to seed.

Yes, they really are as bad for flatulence, as they say. First time I cooked up some of the ones I have now, I simply baked them. They tasted so good that I ate A LOT. That night... I thought I was "gonna die!"

Yesterday I made a venison stew with Jerusalem artichokes in place of potatoes. It came out great and I don't believe that they are causing undue problems. Dawn's posting, just above pretty well sums it up.

George

This is my first post but I've read the forums for the last couple of years. I have had Jerusalem artichokes for many years, which I haven't dug up yet this winter.
We mostly eat them raw in salads, but I will check out that recipe site. My reason for posting is this is the first year I have kept my fall broccoli/cabbage
crop in the ground in row tunnels covered with just clear plastic. Since the really cold weather (low teens and single digit) they have ceased to grow much, but with only a little frost burn on the outer leaves of the plants that set against the outside. I have been able to eat what I want but also allow the smaller cabbages to get bigger and the broccoli to size up also. I do put a couple of 100 watt light bulbs in a 5x12' tunnel when it is in the teens and lower. Anyone else have any luck doing this sort of thing?

Hi Magnolia and welcome to the forum! I haven't tried exactly what you describe, but I have used light bulbs for heat in other applications. Do you keep a thermometer in the tunnel? I have one that records highs and lows and I find it to be very helpful in determining whether I'm providing the right amount of heat.

Seedmama

Hi Magnolia, I just lost the spinach and much of the lettuce in my cold frame to a mouse that crawled in and made a nest, while I had it covered for a few days during the coldest weather. Put a mover's quilt and a tarp over it to protect it from the cold and lost it to a rodent. Sigh. Then decided to just let it go as there wasn't enough left to salvage. But we ate salads through Dec.

Poor mulberry. I've always had a large winter lettuce crop just outside in my kitchen garden. I had a rabbit problem for the first time last year. They wiped it out virutally overnight, so quickly in fact that my husband thought I had intentionally pulled it out. It was GONE. Just had to tell you that you had company.

I didn't get my sunchokes in before the snow came and the ground froze. Today, after a week of snow melt I was finally able to get to them. I pulled one plant and have enough knobs for at least two meals--probably 4 as I should go slowly. But what a treat! I was worried I might be too late, but they look good. We're a pretty solid zone 4 as opposed to the 6s and 7s commenting so far. Now to find a simple recipe. (The ones linked looked more complicated than I'm doing today.

I bought one small sunchoke from Whole Foods last year and cut it into pieces. I had tons and pounds of delicious sunchokes, and nice, carefree flowers all summer.

I tried to leave a bunch of pieces in the bed for this year. I am watching and waiting anxiously. They were my easiest crop, and one of the prettiest and tastiest.

Jo

No matter how carefully I sift through a sunchoke bed, removing "every root," they always sprout back, almost as if I had purposely replanted them. To eliminate them in a given area I have to dig them diligently, and then hoe up the volunteers as they appear. So, Jo, I doubt you will lose your Jerusalem artichokes :)

Though, when rodents discover them, they can be wiped out in only a few weeks. So, beware! Watch for burrows and tailings.

Kathy, I still have about a bushel to dig, down here in zone 6B/7. Some fruit trees are just beginning to flower here. Yet Jerusalem artichokes are still good to eat. I don't know what I'm going to do with them all. But I have to dig them, or they'll come back over crowded.

I love to boil mine (twice) and then cut them open and eat with butter and salt. I also like them in stew, as I mentioned above. They fit in a stew in the place of potatoes. They're also delicious raw. And, for some reason, they don't cause me gas problems when eaten raw.

I have a recipe for pickled Jerusalem artichokes. If anyone wants I can e-mail it. I haven't tried it yet.

George

Thanks George! I was about to dig them all--and I know they store better in the ground. But I was worried they would seriously start growing and I'd miss the harvest. We had them with braised pork chops. I did a light boil and then added them to the pork pan. Very tasty. I wish I had time this spring for the pickles, but maybe next year. I am so tickled to be getting something out of my garden in March!
Kathy

You can dig them and store them in the hydrator of your fridge. Just keep some damp paper towels with them and they will keep for over a month.

Glad they came out so well!

George