Sunchokes - food that grows like a weed!

Although sunchokes (also known as Jerusalem artichokes) are old news to veteran gardeners, they're new to us at Seven Trees. Thanks to our Endorrean friends, we will be planting our own crop of these versatile tubers soon. Or maybe I should say we'll be unleashing these edible weeds, since they tend to take over any space they are given. Luckily we have just the spot. Our paddock 5 fronts a busy road, and already has a nice patch of thimble berries for visual screening, wildlife habitat, and critter snacking. Interplanting with sunchokes will work great there.
Here's a picture of one variety of sunchoke being harvested. And below is another. Moose Tubers (a sub-company of Fedco Seeds) has 3 kinds of sunchokes for sale. Ronniger's has a few as well.

Some "technical" info:
Helianthus tuberosus is a type of sunflower that is grown for its edible tuberous roots as well as its pretty yellow flowers. This is a large, gangly, multibranched perennial with rough, sandpapery leaves and stems, and numerous yellow flowerheads. It can get 10 ft (3 m) tall and its branches can spread to nearly as much. They sometimes break under their own weight, and often fall over. The leaves are ovate (broadest below the middle) and 5-10 in (12.7-25.4 cm) long. The flowerheads are 3-4 (7.6-10 cm) across and have 10-20 bright yellow rays. Jerusalem artichoke is quite showy in bloom during late summer and early fall. The edible tubers are produced just below the ground on thin white rhizomes. They are segmented and knobby, 1-4 in (2.5-10 cm) long, and have crisp, white flesh. More than a dozen cultivars have been selected and named. 'Fusau', a French cultivar, has fewer knobs and is thus easy to clean, but some say it isn't as flavorful as knobbier types. 'Maine Giant' produces dense creamy white tubers. 'Golden Nugget' has elongated, carrotlike tubers.

Growing info:

Jerusalem artichoke is very easy to grow in almost any loose, moderately well drained soil. They almost certainly will spread out of their original planting, so be prepared to pull up plants that get out of bounds. If you want them to stay fairly neat, they may require staking.

Light: Full sun to partial shade.

Moisture: Regular garden watering gives the best tuber production, but Jerusalem artichokes can tolerate dry periods if they have to.

Hardiness: USDA Zones 3 - 9.

Propagation: Propagate Jerusalem artichokes from the tubers which should be planted in spring or soon after the first frost in fall, 3-6 in (7.6-15.2 cm) deep and about 2 ft (0.6 m) apart.

After harvest, there are always plenty of tubers still left in the ground, and these will sprout the following spring. Just thin them out as they come up to maintain a spacing of 2 ft (0.6 m) or so. If the ground freezes deeply in your area, you should overwinter your "seed chokes" in a cool, dry place for spring planting.

A little history:

Sir Walter Raleigh found Native Americans cultivating sunroots in what is now Virginia in 1585. When the sunchoke reached Europe in the early 1600s, thanks to Samuel de Champlain, it was known as the "Canada" or "French" potato. The French, who call it topinambour (incidentally also a term used for an uncouth, uneducated person), are credited with improving the tubers and cultivating sunchokes on a larger scale. I imagine the reference to uncouthness has something to do with the inulin (an undigestible sugar) in sunchokes causing flatulence in some people.

The yummy-looking mashed chokes & tatties above are next on our recipe list. So far we've only tried them roasted with carrots & potatoes with a chicken. Tasty!

Chunky Jerusalem Artichoke And Potato Mash

Ingredients
1 pound Jerusalem artichokes, unpeeled, scrubbed, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
3 tablespoons butter

Preparation
Combine Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes in large pot. Pour enough cold water over to cover; add 1 tablespoon coarse salt. Bring to boil; reduce heat and boil gently until all vegetables are tender when pierced with knife, about 18 minutes. Drain, reserving cooking liquid. Return vegetables to pot. Mash vegetables, adding reserved cooking liquid by 1/2 cupfuls to moisten until chunky mixture forms. Stir in butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 hours ahead. Transfer mash to large heatproof bowl. Let stand at room temperature. Rewarm in same bowl set over simmering water, stirring occasionally, before serving.

For more info on sunchokes:

Jerusalem Artichokes / Sunchokes History

Helianthus tuberosus

Hedging our bets

When you live in a small space, one method of getting the biggest bang for your buck is to make sure everything serves more than one purpose. Combining that guiding principle with an ancient agrarian practice is even more satisfying. Which brings me to today's topic - Hedgerows!

According to U. C. Master Gardener, Nancy Wilson: "A hedgerow is a line or grouping of trees, shrubs, perennials, herbs, annuals, grasses and vines planted along fence lines, property lines or water areas. Using a diversity of plant materials lures insects, which in turn bring beneficial predators such as other insects, birds, toads, frogs and lizards."

A poster of this beautiful NW hedgerow is available from Good Nature Publishing as well as other wonderful and informative nature-based art. The Seattle Times says: "To visually entice gardeners and farmers to consider hedgerows, King Conservation District recently commissioned a poster-sized field guide from local Good Nature Publishing Co. To capture the essence of hedgerows, Montreal artist Suzanne Duranceau shot six rolls of film at Ebey's Landing on Whidbey Island and Tolt-McDonald Park near Carnation. Her composite painting is a lovely hybrid of locations featuring more than 25 species of native flora and fauna found in or near Puget Sound hedgerows. With deer and ladybugs, cattails and wild roses, the poster illustrates a hedgerow separating farmland from wetland." The rest of the article has a lot more about creating urban hedgerows, especially in the PNW.

We've been intermittently working on hedgerows and/or habitat areas here at Seven Trees for the past few years. One year we planted shore pines, red-twig dogwoods and rugosa roses. The next year we added blueberries under the front fir grove, another rugosa, a climbing rose and 3 thornless blackberries (from the neighbor) along one fenceline. We also started adding native plants to our "mitigation zone" under the back fir grove, an area that had been abused by previous occupants parking cars there. Those plants include vine maples (one of my all time favorite natives), sword ferns, evergreen huckleberries, kinnikinik. Non-native additions are wintergreen, and assorted herbs (just to see if they'll like it there) like sage, calendula, moonflower, thyme, oregano & mugwort. And we also were joined by some bird-donated red elderberries. Speaking of birds, Bosky Dell Natives has an incredible page on which native plants attract what wildlife.

Native plant species often require less care once they are established, but food-producing plants can often be integrated in a hedgerow just as easily. The hedge we are working on at the end of our pasture includes Pacific crabapple, which is loved by birds, but also makes a tasty jelly and the juice can add a nice zip to cider. We also have mountain ash, with it's bright orange berries. A little less tasty to humans, but still edible, and another avian favorite. We have a few red alders which add nitrogen to the soil and can even provide firewood someday. There are little wild alders that sprouted in the herb bed and got moved to the corner, near the incense cedar we got for free at the co-op on Arbor Day. We're hoping they will break the flow of the southern monsoon winds, but are still far enough from any buildings to be safe if they blow over.

From a very informative article by Macphail Woods Nursery on Prince Edward Island: "Hedgerows, also called windbreaks or shelterbelts, once divided Island farms into a pattern of small fields. They provided shelter for livestock, protected houses and barns from winter winds and helped cool the buildings in the summer. The micro-climate in the fields was improved as the trees provided wind protection for the crops; the soil held heat and moisture and wind erosion was minimal. As farm mechanization increased the number of hedgerows decreased. Larger machines needed larger fields in which to manoeuvre. Soil erosion increased and important wildlife habitat corridors were lost as hedgerows were cut."

This year we're going to take advantage of our county's Conservation District plant sale and fill in any gaps in our hedgerows (as far as larger shrubs are concerned - smaller plants come later). On the shopping list are: black hawthorne (more edible berries and a nice thorny barrier), mock orange (because they smell lovely), some native roses, red flowering currants, serviceberries, beaked hazelnuts, Garry oak (our only native oak), and paper birches.

The conservation district mainly grows bulk native plants for replanting disturbed areas and mitigating wetlands. But each spring they sell to the public. The plants are small, but very cheap, and if you pre-order $100 or more, you can pick them up instead of fighting the crowds on sale day. Many areas of the US have similar programs. The National Association of Conservation Districts will point you in the right direction. Another great source for PNW natives is Burnt Ridge Nursery. They also sell fruiting plants and nut trees suitable for an edible landscape.

We're working with two main directions to the hedgerow plan - growing native plants, to take advantage of their natural hardiness and suitability to our climate; and filling the niches certain natives would normally fill with similar, food-producing varieties. This means where a native plant community would have huckleberries or twinberries in the undergrowth, we're planting blueberries. They have similar growing requirements, but produce much more food than the wild species. The medicinal/culinary herbs we've planted in back are an experiment in replacing the usual perennials and wildflowers with hardy adaptable plants we can make thorough use of. We're also learning ethnobotany (how the local tribes used all these native plants) as we go.

For people with smaller planting areas, this substitution method might be a workable way to add some habitat while increasing human-edible food production, with a minimum of care once the plants are well-established. For advice and ideas on how to plant your own hedgerow, check out the Master Gardener program in your area. Your local native plant society can also be a good resource in figuring out what to plant in your hedgerow.