Hello again. Just wanted to drop in a quick post about the last harvest of the season, the Jerusalem Artichokes.
To refresh your memory they're the tall sunflower looking plants that grew in the side garden. We were hoping to have excessive quantities, but the voles got all but one of the seed tubers I put in, so we got one small patch that ended up in the middle of a large cluster of Sage. It seems to have worked out relatively well though. As you can see to the right they get pretty yellow flowers in late summer/early fall. As they grow they get very thick and tend to lean 
(at least when planted near the house.) The picture to the left is the first harvest. We got two more harvests of about that same size out of the one small patch of Jerusalem Artichokes. As you can see they look a lot like ginger, but they can be cooked and eaten like potatoes. They taste a lot like Artichoke hearts. They're really quite tasty. They're also (reportedly) great for Diabetics. I like them because they're a fun (and incredibly easy) plant, something to harvet from the garden well into winter (I dug the last of them last week (early January) and almost impossible to get in the Grocery store. In other words the prefect garden vegetable. I'll be putting more in next year with saved tubers from this year's crop. It'll be an interesting experiment in sustaining the garden with less inputs. I'll be sure to report in after we see what comes up.
To refresh your memory they're the tall sunflower looking plants that grew in the side garden. We were hoping to have excessive quantities, but the voles got all but one of the seed tubers I put in, so we got one small patch that ended up in the middle of a large cluster of Sage. It seems to have worked out relatively well though. As you can see to the right they get pretty yellow flowers in late summer/early fall. As they grow they get very thick and tend to lean 
(at least when planted near the house.) The picture to the left is the first harvest. We got two more harvests of about that same size out of the one small patch of Jerusalem Artichokes. As you can see they look a lot like ginger, but they can be cooked and eaten like potatoes. They taste a lot like Artichoke hearts. They're really quite tasty. They're also (reportedly) great for Diabetics. I like them because they're a fun (and incredibly easy) plant, something to harvet from the garden well into winter (I dug the last of them last week (early January) and almost impossible to get in the Grocery store. In other words the prefect garden vegetable. I'll be putting more in next year with saved tubers from this year's crop. It'll be an interesting experiment in sustaining the garden with less inputs. I'll be sure to report in after we see what comes up.