If you want to buy some Jerusalem Artichokes here is a link. amzn.to/3ZlwQR6 This is an amazon affiliate link. I get a tiny cut but it costs you nothing extra.
We grow them where i work commercially. The short and simple: not many like it due to its heavy impact on your digestive tract. Flatulence is the milder impact in this case xD. As for it being a great and easy plant to get high production, sure, but be absolutely sure to rotate your crops, because otherwise the yield of this sunflower related plant will drop significantly despite adding fertilizer. Save a portion of the yield for replanting on a new patch and weed the old one (there will be gorrilions of them trying to regrow where you had them last year) The greatest part is that they stay good in the ground untill they start a new growth cycle in spring and shoot roots from the tubers.
He's not wrong, I grew some in grow bags with just standard compost and left them and did nothing else. They're now a 10' tall wall of leaves about to flower. No pests, no disease, they are literally the easiest thing I've ever grown bar nettles. I can literally live off nettle and Jerusalem artichoke soup for ever for free straight out my garden. Amazing plants.
Is it actually possible to grow nettles from seeds? I'm asking and never thought I'd have to worry about that; but I just can't find stinging nettles here. 😞
@@thekingsdaughter4233I would be shocked if it does not set seed. have you searched the Internet? lots of ppl value nettle and your likely to find someone who has seeds to share
@@mkx9095 best in soups. Nettle soup is super nutritious. Just fresh nettle leaves preferably young ones, onion, potatoes and garlic boiled up and seasoned to taste. I'll probably replace the potatoes with sun chokes. Cheers J
A friend was telling me a funny story about her Jerusalem Artichokes one time. Her husband was going to rototill their garden so she told him to stay away from the spot where her JA were planted. He forgot and tilled through them. She yelled at him and he said, "Oh no, did I kill them?" She said, "NO! You spread them EVERYWHERE!!!" 😂🤣🤣🤣
Some people plant Jerusalem Artichoke in weedy areas. Once they have taken hold, they turn the pigs in on the place where the Jerusalem Artichokes are planted. The pigs will root up everything -- including the weeds -- trying to get the tubers. So the people get weed control and fattened hogs.
@@Agapy8888 I understand it is particularly good when you have blackberry vines. The pigs will root up the ground to such an extent that the blackberries will be gone.
@@benwilkins2998 I have two pigs. They have rooted up their part of the pasture until it looks like a plowed field. And it only takes one strand of wire to keep them in. I’ve had goats too. They will certainly eat the weeds to the ground, but the weeds just grow back. And once they figure out that they can jump the fence, it doesn’t matter how tall you build the fence, you’re not going to keep them in. Though I understand that hair sheep don’t jump fences. They are worth a try.
I have a section of my property (in Massachusetts) where Jerusalem artichokes were planted twenty years ago. Every September, they reach 12 feet and show off their golden flowers until October. The tubers can be harvested for food any time of year, as long as the ground is not frozen. They are an amazingly beautiful plant!
I live in East Texas, zone 8. We have had a drought and excessive heat this year. Of the plants that survived and thrived, one was the Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes). We have sandy soil. It is like sugar granules. After planting, we piled hay with cow manure over the area, and walked away. They were planted early in the Spring, and they are still putting out blossoms in Sept.! Cutting them up, soaking in lemon juice and water, then freezing, them will eliminate gas. They get sweeter after a frost! Or you can cut them up after freezing. We got the smaller variety, as they dont need to be peeled! The skins are tender. We just scrub them with a stiff brush, air dry them, freeze them on a cookie sheet, then put them in freezer bags for storage. They are excellent cut into slices and fried in a good olive oil! Use them as you would potatoes. We dig them up as needed, the day before we cook them, to let them freeze for 24 hours. Happy trails!!
You live southernly enough that they might even produce seeds. I live in the Netherlands, and it's too northernly for the flowers to reach maturity in time, though they still produce tubers. That freezing them would help convert the inulin to sugars makes sense. Potatoes convert starches to sugars as well when they're kept too cold like in the fridge, which is a proces the potatoes use to maintain their temperature (as potatoes are living organisms!). Though with potatoes that does make them taste worse.
When i was a kid, some kind neighbors gave us Jerusalem artichokes for our garden and they grew and grew. We harvested so many that we had them with dinner almost every night just to get rid of them. I got so sick of eating them as a kid because i ate so many. Now that im older and dont have a childs taste in food, i think ill try growing them myself! Thanks for reminding me of this wonderful plant!
Hundreds of ways, @@strawberryme08 Anyway you can prepare potatoes will work, except for fine cut or shredded 'chokes. They are much 'wetter' than potatoes so you should press quite a bit of moisture out of them for hash browns or latkes. Soups, stews, roasting, grilling, frying, stir fry (they're texture is like Water Chestnuts), sliced raw into salads, boiled and mashed. One of my favorites is a 50:50 mix with mashed potatoes and a dab of garlic butter. I've made wine from the water after boiling them. Make it on the sweet side and the first taste on the lips is almost like honey. The second taste just can't be described. The aftertaste is almost like Hazelnut. I've dehydrated raw chips and made flour. It's heavy like Buckwheat flour, won't rise by itself, best mixed with other flours. They're packed full of a soluble prebiotic fiber called Inulin. In unbalanced (unhealthy) guts it can cause extreme gas, hence one of their nicknames; Fartichokes! There are five ways to deal with Inulin; Freezing, fermenting, extended cooking time, cooking with an acidic ingredient. Our fall harvest goes mostly into pickles and relishes. The vinegar and shelf storage converts the Inulin into Fructose. Our spring harvest, after the deep freeze of our zone 5 winters also converts the Inulin into Fructose and makes them good for eating raw or most any other methods. They can be fermented exactly like cabbage into sauerkraut, refrigerator pickles or into kimchi. You name it, they can probably be prepared that way. Ah, the fifth way to deal with Inulin is to take it as a daily gut treatment. Talk it over with your doctor first, after you've gathered some good info on how to take it as a health supplement. It can help neutralize gut inflammation which can lead to polyps and colon cancer. You'll no doubt find articles about it curing diabetes. It might for some, but not for me. It has improved my gut health.
It's been ages since I had globe artichokes @@NeoN-PeoN There may be some similarity, but there is a clear difference. And that depends on how they're prepared.
My wife planted jerusalem artichokes in a 6' stock tank one year. They grew like weeds. This was quite an accomplishment because she usually forgets to water her plants. We got such a big harvest we didn't know what to do with them all. She thought she had harvested them all but the next year even more came up. I enjoyed learning a little more about them, thanks!
@@thehimself4056 We had them in one 6' X 2' container that is 2' deep and had a good harvest the first year. I thought we had harvested most of the tubers but the second year we had an even bigger crop. I wasn't aware that they would have stored well in the ground or would have tried that. My wife wanted to plant something different in the container and so we took most of the soil out of the container to try to get them all but still had to pull out quite a few young plants the third season in order to eliminate them. Now I'm thinking about planting them again. Good luck !
@@thehimself4056 They go by a number of names, including sunchoke, sunroot, earth apples, and more. You may have seen them and didn't know it. I confirm everything he said in this video: They're prolific, low maintenance, and spread easily. I also really like the nutty flavor. They do like soil that drains, so a stock tank seems to work very well to contain them so long as it doesn't pool water. I think @noyopacific may have benefited from his wife not watering the tank often. I would probably perforate the container to ensure drainage. In my case, I was planting in heavily clay soil, which I amended in several ways to improve drainage under the plants, but I left the planting holes narrow so I think the plants benefited from being surrounded by wet clay soil while still being able to drain adequately. This year, the 16 new sunchokes are doing well in much looser soil, but they're not quite as tall and bushy as the 3 volunteers in last year's clay soil location. So more water is good so long as they can drain away.
The sunchoke is a warrior! I didn't believe it when I read you couldn't get rid of it. I dug it up and was sure that I got it all. Grew back next spring and the harvest was massive.
I used to grow these while I lived in Germany. They were massive tubers. I grew them is sandy soil and would use a green fertilizer made from fermented garlic peels, onion peels and stinging nettle. The harvest was heavy with large number of tubers some weighing over a pound. Matthew
When making the compost tea place your bucket in the sun add cut up stinging nettle, garlic peelsand onion peels. Fill with water stir vigorously with a stick each day. This mixture will foam up for 10 days. When ready dilute 10 to 1.Added benefit this discourages garden pests. Matthew
The worst thing about JA's is when digging them up carelessly you get a chunk under your fingernail. The best thing is the taste when simply washed, scrubbed, cut in half lengthways, rubbed with oil and sprinkled with salt and left in a low to moderate oven to roast until caramelised on the outside and gooey in the middle. They are amazing. Better after being left in the ground for a bit as the inulin converts and they aren't so devastating for polite company. I've had them up to 10 feet high and they produce huge, beautiful tubers. Cheers :)
@@carolgreen1822 They taste slightly reminiscent of the sap from a sunflower head but at the same time very hard to describe. Earthy, savoury, nutty, sweet, depending how you cook them. They have a powerful flavour so a couple in a soup or stew will pretty much overwhelm everything else. They are amazing cut lengthways in half, rubbed with oil and sprinkled with salt and roasted slowly, caramelly on the outside and creamy soft on the inside.
I have grown JA in the past but didn't know how to cook them. I just gnawed them raw and thought they tasted like Vick's Salve. I probably could eat them if I have to. There are still some growing along side the garden. I may try some of the recipes here in the comments. Maybe I will learn to like them.
@@sandrapalmberg629 Really, try them like I said and if you don't like them like that then you'll never like them. But they certainly shouldn't taste or smell like Vick's!
@@carolgreen1822 When The Soviet Union decided to redistribute the crop yields of 1932-1933, they left Ukraine without enough food to feed themselves. "Holodomor" means 'death by hunger'. There were between 3.5 and 5 million victims in Ukraine alone, with 7-10 million thoroughout the Soviet Union
@@Green.Country.Agroforestry There was a famine happening in the Soviet Union due to a multitude of factors, they redistributed too much from Ukraine because of under-reporting from officials in Ukraine leaving the rest of the union thinking that Ukraine was doing better than it actually was. On top of that you had the entrenched kulaks that did everything they could to maintain their positions of power and wealth acquired through exploitation of the peasantry. They hoarded or destroyed food and bitterly opposed any collectivisation efforts.
Another plant to consider to sustain your family is Stinging Nettle, the most nutritious plant to have on hand. Vitamins: Vitamins A, C, K, as well as several B vitamins Minerals: Calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium Fats: Linoleic acid, linolenic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid Amino acids: All of the essential amino acids Polyphenols: Kaempferol, quercetin, caffeic acid, coumarins and other flavonoids Pigments: Beta-carotene, lutein, luteoxanthin and other carotenoids I do have to say, however, that the Jerusalem Artichoke is a prettier plant. lol P.S. Source; HealthLine P.S.S. Avoid if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. Use with caution if you're elderly because of the potential of causing low blood pressure. Use stinging nettle with caution if you have diabetes because of the potential that it may lower or raise blood sugar levels. Edited for additional information. As in all things moderation. And, do your own research.
Do you happen to know the best practice for preserving stinging nettle? I'm thinking that blanching and then freezing it would be good but I'm not sure. I know it can be dried and used in soups, stews and in tea
@@eileenspamer Rosehip Jam is my all-time favorite, however, since learning that sugar dampens the immune system, and is not good for your health, I've been looking for better ways of making/setting jam/jelly. Apples and pears are just two of the fruits high in pectin. There are ways to use fruit instead of sugar, which would be much healthier.
@@julyjoy6756 There is a great you tube channel called Rain Country. This lady is amazing when it comes to herbs and preservation. Also, stinging nettle is one of her favorites. Cheers :)
"Jerusalem" was a misunderstanding of "girasole", the Italian word for "sunflower" (gira = turn, sole = sun; as in, a flower that tutns toward the sun).
I grew these in Michigan and used a meat grinder to grind up the washed roots. this gave juice and pulp. I mixed the pulp with hamburger and made an excellent meat loaf. Even my mother liked my meat loaf.
I was 29 at the time, I tasted the juice and poured it out. I'm sure it would make a vegetable broth. My mother said that she would not be afraid to serve that meatloaf to any guest. I think it was 50/50 hamburger and pulp.@@unfckyourthinking
You can make wine out of that juice! Simple wine is 'choke juice, mix about 50:50 with water, add sugar and I use raisins for natural yeast. You can follow most any wine recipe.
They are just delicious. Just rub the dirt from it, mix with olive oil, and put in the oven for 30 minutes. Incredible taste! I have grown them for 7 years or so here in Belgium. Easy and plenty! I don't replant them after harvest, because even the smallest part of the tubers are capable of starting a new plant. Never had any issues digesting them.
Last year I grew 2 sunchokes. They produced a volleyball-sized amount of tubers (total), or about half a 7-gallon bucket full. I ate many, gave some away, and this year planted the rest. I now have 16 new plants growing along a fence, along with 3 volunteers from where I thought I had harvested all of it last year. They are indeed prolific. Also a bonus note: Our local health food grocery in Colorado sells sunchoke tubers for about $20/lb, depending upon the season. The two plants from last year yielded about 7 lbs total from amended clay soil.
@@flowersafeheart We were trying to get them to die. They had taken over so many areas of our garden & greenhouse that we wanted to kill off some of them. The ones we did not water were 12+ foot high. We have pics of my boyfriend cutting them down with a chainsaw to keep them from going through the top of the greenhouse.
I'm new to growing food. Can you help me with a perhaps foolish question? I don't quite understand how to attain new seed tubers while also eating your harvest. Let's say you have ten tubers, you eat five, but you use the other five to grow again for the next season. Does this not mean you must gradually diminish your crops until nothing remains? As in, it is one tuber for every one plant, and one plant only produces one tuber. Or do they also grow from seed?
@@SilverC3ll with Jerusalem artichokes do you plant one tuber and you get . An average of 3 to 5 lb of tubers for each one you plant. Also you don't have to put any more in the ground because it is impossible to dig them all. Some are going to remain in the ground and come up again the following spring. So your crap is not going to diminish it's going to do the opposite of that and multiply exponentially every year so that within a few years you're going to have more Jerusalem artichokes than you possibly know what to do with.
For me, after eating them on a regular bases, the 'wind' effect, only occurred the 1st time or two I ate them. After that, it was no issue at all! I look so forward to fall and winter and being able to dig up a day or two's worth at a time! One way to also serve them up, is sauted in a frying pan with a bit coconut oil with thinly sliced pieces like potatoe chips! They are delicious this way!!!! Thanks for the video!!!
Definitely your microbiome in your gut just adjusting. Once you eat it you help to introduce the necessary bacteria to digest it. Usually the first couple go arounds for new foods will produce gas. Once your gut has the necessary bacteria it can digest it more efficiently and with less gas.
I've grown Jerusalem artichokes for several years now. The cramps from the gas nearly sent me to the hospital. I've found that waiting until early spring to dig them helps me very much. I have canned (pickled) them, and like them that way, but am still experimenting with their various uses. Also, Jerusalem artichokes, while prolific and invasive, they do better if the roots are at least disturbed, if not dug every year. So they are not totally maintenance-free. The flowers bloom late in the season, when most of the garden is done, so they are good to have around for the bees. I never thought of the fact that they can be cut down if necessary, for concealment. A very good thing to know in these times! I enjoy you videos.
He said to possibly add lemon to it. I wonder if apple cider vinegar (1 Tbsp./cup of water) consumed 30 minutes prior to meal would assist your stomach acid & digestion.
@@Pamela.B, hmm. Cooking them in an acidic ingredient converts the Inulin into fructose but drinking acidic goodies before eating them?? I might have to give this a shot.
Agreed treat these guys with caution I ate a small amount and the sheer pressure it caused me was INTENSE. If someone ate a bunch of these without knowing I genuinely think they could send themselves to the hospital.
My daughter gave me a few tubers and they grew so quickly ! I just dug a hole near a distant spot… totally unattended… and they are growing well! My garden on the other hand….
Native Americans claimed there were 9 ways to propagate JA. I know of 4. We dry all of the leaves & flower and make awesome hot tea throughout the year. The tea not only tastes great but also significantly lowers blood sugar levels. We also dry the leaves & flowers, put them in a blender, and make baking flour out of it. Also with the tubers. We use every bit of the plant. Rabbits and all livestock love the greens & stems, even after they've been dried. Tubers are great pickled and retain their crunch if you eat the within the year.
Does taking off the leaves affect the tubers or do you just take some from each plant? I'm not sure if it's just me, but I really enjoy chopping the dead stems back to the ground and chopping them up for compost. Maybe I'm missing a trick by not using the leaves and I wish I'd known rabbits like them when we had a rabbit ...
I had such a stressed-out day. UA-cam suggested this video. I never knew of your channel. I am a history nerd! This video eased my stress away! I'm totally subscribing to your channel!! Thanks and God bless!
When I was a kid, my Dad suggested digging up the JAs in our back yard to sell in the neighborhood. Became a great addition to my paper route earnings. Note: JAs and homemade milk kefir pair well for a healthy meal.
Oh my. We have them in our garden from previous owner. I just thought it was a flower. ( just recently learning about medicinal plants) I gave sadly composted tubers. I have nice patch and will take GOOD care of it from now on. Thank you so much for this video.
An old (scandinavian) home remedie for digestive gas problems, is tea made of cumin or anis seeds. 1 tsp seed + 1 cup of water. Let it soak for 10 minutes. Drink. It's good to drink it right before or after a meal that can cause digestive problems. (You can eat some of the seeds too, if you like, or you can just drink the tea). 😊🌸
Ginger honey, chamomile. Ginger family for chai herbal tea are all aphrodisiac and testosterone boosters that have other healthy effects. Roobis red chai if you want to double the price of this extremely cheap tea. Add a tiny bit of tumeric to it and put hair on your ovaries.
Very cool! Here in central Florida, the Ube yam is #1 for me. You can leave it in the ground or harvest it each year. It has plenty of seed potatoes in the fall to replant in the spring. It can produce hundreds of lbs. if several are planted. It provides shade with its Jack and the Beanstalk growth rate. There are dozens and dozens of delicious recipes for it (mostly desserts). Also, it has a beautiful deep purple color which adds interest to whatever dish it's in. The pancakes we made from it were the best we've ever had!
Fastest and best remedy for gas and bloating is fennel seeds. You can chew them but i grind them in my coffee grinder and make a tea bag out of a coffee filter using staples and add 1 tablespoon ground fennel and step in hot water add honey and enjoy it taste like licorice. Love it and it works almost instantly
Great video! Thank you. The reason they are gassy is because your gut bacteria are not used to them. Start with small portions at regular intervals to promote the gut bacteria that can digest them well. Probiotic drinks such as Yakult and kefir can help as well.
Oh, awesome! I hope you're right that the body can adapt. Maybe fermenting just some of them too and eating a combo of fermented and unfermented could help. And various forms of prebiotics and probiotics. I imagine cooked are easier to digest than raw too.
My mother in law used to cook these and I just loved the taste. I love the fact that they look great growing, and being able to eat the tuber makes it a bonus. Yes they do taste like the artichoke heart. Thank you for posting this.
This is a good plant to know about. And a good history lesson. We don't study about what people ate as much as we do the war they fought. This plant should probably still be in our diet.
I didn't realize it but they grow wild in my yard. The only thing I've known to do with them is artichoke relish, which is very similar to bread & butter pickles. I hope to find other recipes now that I know how beneficial they are! Thank you!!
You can convert the inulin (a type of carbohydrate, not to be confused with insulin, a blood sugar regulating hormone) in the tubers into fructose (the same type of sugar found in many fruits) by exposing them to freezing temperatures, either naturally or artificially.
@@flowersafeheart Well, more or less healthy is subjective, depending on your perspective. As I understand it, inulin is an example of what's called a resistant starch, meaning that it cannot easily by digested by the human body, because the carb is instead digested by intestinal bacteria (hence the windy characteristic). If you're looking for a low-calorie foodstuff, I suppose that could be a benefit. If you're looking to keep yourself fed from a small plot of land, breaking the inulin into fructose is more useful. I was thinking recently about tuberous nasturtium, also known as mashua in that context, because it has similar characteristics - maybe that vegetable would interest you as well.
Living off fructose as the main source of calories would be very bad for your health, but it would prevent you from starving if there was no other choice. A food that can be stored in the field in frozen ground is obviously advantageous, but I wouldn't recommend it for homesteaders as a primary crop.
@@edwardkuenzi5751 True. An additional issue is, as I understand it, that they have little nutritional value. The same could be said for yacon, tuberous nasturtium (mashua) and other similar crops.
@@collinvickers2345the guy in this video was saying that it would make a great staple crop, that it's a complete protein (and in the correct proportions) and that it yeilds as many calories per unit weight as potatoes. Not sure if the calories part was woth the inulin or with it converted to fructose.
I Once worked for a couple who had inherited his father's property. They had lived there for 30 years and had never cultivated the artichokes but they still flourished every year. I think i was the only person to cook them along with their amazing asparagus which they also did not use. I suspect they are still flourishing 50 yearslater.(NSW, Australia)
Your close-up and wide-angle views of this plant are so helpful! I started some tubers in pots. When about 2. inches of stalk emerged, something ate them down to ground. The tubers didn't grow back. but just rotted in the soil mix. I believe the culprit was a roof rat or a mouse, so gardeners should be ready to protect the small plants from small varmints. In central Texas, you can get the tubers at specialty grocers for about $9 per pound. I have paid the price because they are so delicious and there are amazing recipes online. Now that I know what they look like, I'm so looking forward to having my own crop, embedded in my urban landscape. Now that you've shown me what to expect, I can better pick a location to start them in-ground. Thanks for the boost!
My experience was similar. Had these in a pot last summer. They grew to about 2 feet with no sign of flowers and a bug ate em or something. Never really came back. In the spring, I found a mushy tuber in the pot. I'm in north western Canada. There's no way these would make it through the winter in the ground here. I'd like to try them again, though....
We have a lot of deer and ground hogs. I was told grow them. Nothing can kill them. They were doing well. Then they were always eaten to the ground. Eventually, killing them
Stafford, England here. I’ve grown these for a few years now as part of my ‘plant once, eat forever’ strategy. they are absolutely perfect for anyone that wants to grow a survival garden due to the yield and ease of care that’s required.
@@Andy-yb1vs Why would I do that? They store in the ground just fine. I never dig them up unless i’m planning to eat some. One of the best benefits of this crop in my humble opinion
Amazing presentation! Thank you! When I moved to Ireland I planted some tubers immediately - just in case - it was shortly before the feared year 2000 with crashes and even the end of the world myths. Ever since I have both: my super easy going, even spreading fartichoke as a quite abundant emergency food (I cannot digest them easily), and the stunning flowers (this week saw the first bloom). My soil is bad: too acidic, too compacted, too wet, too peaty. With just a bit of sand and some mycorrhizae they flourish so much easier than most other plants.
I planted some of these before Y2K. They are naturalized around the house. Definitely takes some effort to integrate into menu and convince others to eat.
In Poland, we eat that tuber fermented. You can also fry or boil fermented Jerusalem artichoke and it's delicious. Lacto fermentation makes this tuber easily digested but don't drink water from the fermentation.
You are very interesting content creator. Not only the topics are always very well centered on sustainability but also, perhaps foremost, the culture that you build around it is remarkable! Thank you man!
Italian settlers in the United States called the plant girasole, the Italian word for sunflower, because of its relationship to the garden sunflower . Over time, the name girasole was corrupted by English-speakers to Jerusalem. Girasole is pronounced "jee-rah-SOH-lay".
Thanks for the great info on growing Jerusalem artichoke! With all the information you provided, I was surprised that you didn’t mention the leaves and flowers are also edible.
We can buy them fresh or in dried slices here in Japan. Here they’re called chrysanthemum potatoes. I’ve had them growing in a forgotten corner of my garden for years, but I’ve never harvested or eaten them before.
We have a strip of poor soil between our garden and the road, and planted Jerusalem artichoke there last year. We let them overwinter and haven't harvested any yet, but they're 6-8' tall now (in soil that even comfrey struggled in). We hope to try fermenting them to see if it reduces the gas effect.
My wife planted courgette seeds 4 months ago and they’re still growing and providing beautiful and versatile courgettes. Everyday there’s a new, ready to pick, handful of pure joy and with lovely big yellow flowers. As well as the obvious salads and soup, the courgette is great in a cake, adding moistness to a lemon cake. Bees love the flowers also. Our growing patch is only 2 square metres.
I'm growing JA for 5 years in one of my raised beds (40cm) and I'm impressed how easy they're to grow. I basically just harvest them once per year for a bucket of free tubers. But I'm living in a zone 9 and can get 3 harvests of potatoes per year. So they give me a lot more calories per year in a small garden. But my potatoes also get sick very often and require a lot more care. So they both have upsides and downsides, at least in my situation.
@@cheryladamson3276 mid February, May, and September. Last year was especially warm and I still had 20℃ in December. Now it's about 10-12℃. So I can start planting in February, after the last cold snaps pass and I'm sure it won't get below 0℃ at night.
My mom served us Jerusalem artichoke when we were growing up in the 1970’s. I liked them. Have not had them since then. Looking forward to growing some in my garden.
We planted them as a survival crop for multiple years, but the digestion issues they cause are really startling. If you eat enough to feel full, you will pay for it for hours and hours! We love the productivity and their ability to grow on marginal land, but now feel the best use for them is to raise for pig feed, and then eat the pigs. Beautiful footage and good explanation - thank you. We always keep a patch in the gardens.
I’ve never eaten them, but have some stomach problems…your comment makes me hesitant though I was feeling eager to plant some (urban garden, no livestock)
I LOVE Jerusalem artichokes! I've discovered no grocer sells them EVAR here. I DID find out they're easy to grow, as you said. While I researched it, I then discovered the plant is extremely hardy (even stubborn to destroy) & crawls EVERYWHERE which is why most landlords & neighbors don't want it near their backyards for fear it'll take over.
Containing the spread is fairly easy. Determine how far your variety spreads from the crown and keep a border mowed to prevent their spread. I had three varieties. One only spreads about 16" from the crown. One spreads about 24" and the one I got rid of spread well over 48". That last one was a bear to keep contained unless kept in the middle of a lawn or field.
Don't know if anybody has already talked about it, but im from Germany and i was like "What the heck is this called and how can I aquire it for growing" and then i learned its latin name and realized, im already growing it. So everyone on the same search : Its also called Topinambur. Grow em with rhizome barrier in the ground. Theyll grow like crazy and they survived the harsh summer we had. They will go into a sort of hibernation and come back with the first good amount of rain. You can also water them of course if possible.
AMAZING info! I don’t grow anything, but just as a curiosity I’ve always wondered what the most nutritious, most resilient, easiest to cultivate, best plant that could be harvested especially in hard times and THIS has answered my question.
I tried storing them on a vege rack, and in the fridge, in the dark and in the light. Whatever i did they always quickly shrivelled and were wasted. Then i accidentally left some at cool room temperature in a clear plastic bag on the vege shelf. They kept perfectly for at least three months. (Once i realised that they werent shrivelling i was interested to see how long i could leave them). The bag was just folded over but not sealed. Apparently they make good food for pigs, and the pigs can do the digging too.
We kept pigs for about twenty five years. For most of that time we kept a large area of the garden growing JA. It was something the pig ate with gusto. We seldom gave the pigs the roots but did give them the above ground plants. Besides cutting down on the feed bill these stalks and leaves in their diet greatly reduced the small of the manure.
I bought a couple tubers a couple years ago. I just replanted some of the tubers all over the yard (the garden) after harvests. Now I have more plants than I can count. I am in Southwest Florida, zone 10. The soil is awful, just sand. It's hot. But they grow great! No maintenance. They taste great. And we haven't even noticed a gassy effect eating them.
I wonder if that's cause your body got used to them? Were you gassy at first? Whenever I got them at stores I didn't get any gas, cramps, or burps. That was raw too though after this comment section I wouldn't eat them raw again, would cook (maybe a long time) or pickle or ferment.
@@flowersafeheart no idea. I know nearly all people that tell me about sunchokes haven't ever actually eaten sunchokes so I wonder about their facts. The few who have grown and eaten them also wonder about their facts.
I love how tall and leafy they are. I grew a bunch of them all along a chain link fence and the plants became a great seasonal privacy fence. Food and a privacy fence total Win-Win!
Yep, we grew it in one of our big garden beds down here in South Texas a few years back.. It took off great in our dense clay soil, required minimal water, tolerated the scorching climate very well, had no issues with pests, and popped right back up in the spring even after harvesting what we thought were all of its tubers. We were thrilled with how it did, until we discovered that I and my oldest son were allergic to it. Haha.. Ahh, well.
@@BackyardRebel It was minor; just a bit of swelling/itching in the old bronchial tubes. I have a similar reaction to sunflower seeds, which in retrospect makes sense given that the sunchoke is closely related.
@@BackyardRebel If you're in a hot/dry climate with not-so-great soil, you might try growing Golden Amaranth. The drying and winnowing process can be tricky the first couple of harvests, but it's an impressive producer of grain once you get the hang of it. It was once the staple crop of many Pre-Columbian central American cultures. It's very hardy and easy to grow, and the harvested grain stores well.
Just don't dig them. It slows down the process a little. And don't put them anywhere near a fence. They will grow underneath and whoever's on the other side will not be happy with you. They will also lift asphalt.
Love this. I've been eating them for years for health (gut) benefits, but they can be hard to find except in a health food store. You've convinced me to grow them!
I've seen the tubers selling in a Colorado health food market for up to $20/lb, so if you can grow them in quantity you'll have good nutrition source and possibly a little income.
So interesting you eat them for gut benefits - yet so many comments saying thry can be hard to digest (gas, cramps, maybe burping). I'll keep researching this! One comment said after eating small, gradual amounts the body can adapt to them...
I put some in the ground this spring and they are currently over 12ft tall and havent even started flowering yet! I pulled one to try "early" tubers and it was excellent. I got a fantastic yield from just one plant, im excited to harvest the rest of them in a few weeks
I found Jerusalem artichokes at Natural Grocers in April and planted them in my garden. I had them many years ago and was surprised to see them at the store. Thanks for talking about them, I learned about them in the 80's during survival classes and we grew them on our homestead. Presently, Mine are growing in terrible soil that has a lot of gravel from building, I think they are gonna love it!
Put them whole, with the skins, in the oven in a deep pan of sorts and put plenty of butter on them and salt & pepper...roast them like you would potatoes, turning them a couple of times, until they are lovey golden and crisp. They will be perfectly mushy on the inside and crisp on the outside...Delicious. They can also be boiled and mashed like mashed potatoes..served with lots of butter. Take the skins of before mashing. Mmmmm....Yum
One of my favorites is 50:50 mashed potatoes and mashed 'chokes with a dab of garlic butter. The skins on mine are so thin I leave them on. They almost disappear when well mashed.
Thank you very. I read that it is one of the best pre-biotic, but can't find them anywhere in grocery stores. Will be growing them next year. From WebMD: Jerusalem artichokes are not related to globe artichokes but are a vegetable with an edible tuber that comes from a type of sunflower. They are rich in fiber, especially inulin, as well as antioxidants. Jerusalem artichokes help support your colon health by increasing healthy bacteria and can fight off a variety of diseases. They can be eaten raw or cooked.
My wife and I take a daily supplement of powdered Inulin for gut health. My wife takes it to help with diverticulitis - at least 1/2 heaping tsp per day. It's made a huge difference! I take it because I got a double whammy from both parents regarding colon issues - at least one heaping tsp per day. BTW, my last several colonoscopies were polyp free and most importantly, inflammation free. Inflammation is what causes polyps and cancer. My doc dropped me from a high risk every three year 'scope to a five year 'scope schedule!! Anyone who wants to start this - First, do some research on Inulin and gut health and talk it over with your doctor. Second, if your doctor agrees, start low and slow. Start with no more than 1/4 tsp per day, and you may have to drop to 1/8 tsp per day if you have a mucho gas reaction. Every 10 days, or as your guts will allow, double the dose, ie: 1/8 to 1/4 to 1/2 to one, etc. If you have IBS or Crohns or similar, be prepared, your symptoms will get worse at first, but if you can hang in with it, improvement will come. That's another strong reason to consult with your doctor. DON'T do this alone. The Inulin will actually culture the bacteria present in your small gut, where it doesn't belong and move it down into the large gut where it does belong. This culturing then migrating of the bacteria is what stirs up the gas reaction. You might want to talk to your doctor about the antibiotic Rifaximin. It can help start the eradication of bad bacteria in your small gut in a safer and easier manner. Once your bacteria are properly balanced, no more gas trouble except for the normal, if you eat other gas causing foods such as beans you'll have gas. Some pharmacies will order Inulin for you or you can find it on Amazon and other online sources. As with anything bought online, read all the reviews, good AND bad, and pick the most respected supplier. I can also say that we've been healthier in most every way since starting daily Inulin around 18 years ago. Less colds, milder flu and more. We both had Covid over Thanksgiving 2020 and wrapped it up in about 5 days with no serious after effects. I was 65, my wife was 70, and she has asthma which should have had her in the hospital. Better gut health means better overall health.
Grows easily in sandy soil, doesn't need watered often...that's my kind of edible 😂 Our backyard is mostly clay and big rocks, sounds like we need to dig a trench and fill it with cheap topsoil, and toss in some of these plants! Thanks for this video.
I started with like 8 of them in small line in my garden, I harvest as much as I can each year - It grows back double the next. This really is hard to restrain. Oudside of the english speaking realm those are also known as "Tobinambur" which is reflecting more on their indiginious heritage.
Look into the use of the leaves and flowers for tea. It is sold in Europe so to get information you can Google Jerusalem Artichoke tea and European sources are available. The benefits are amazing. ❤❤
Yes, I too am interested in the flour you make with it. I'm assuming it performs like other gluten free flours...? And you pickle it with vinegar...? Or have you tried fermenting it?
@@Maddy_might, it's a heavy flour, like Buckwheat flour, best mixed with other flours. Wheat, rice, any lighter flour does well. My preference is 1/4 'choke flour to 3/4 other flour. It adds a stiffer texture - makes pizza crust not so droopy for example. It adds a nice earthy-nutty flavor.
I grow a lot of organic things and had never heard of this - thank you. I immediately ordered some, and will be planting them not only on my property, but in the wooded area just behind my proper ty to keep the deer from eating the ones in my yard.
I have a patch in zone 8b and usually harvest a small bucket at a time in winter. I do try to clear out the edges, but they keep spreading, though by harvesting I keep them thinned out where I do not want them to go. I soak them for a few days and then peel them all. We like the flavor better without the peel. I think the soaking helps with their gassing abilities, though I for one do not notice that that much.
They struggle where I live, the deer, moles and voles seem to like them a lot. I don’t worry about them being invasive because the white tail deer around here will eat them down to the ground if the protective cage is removed. I have had really good luck with lambs quarters, green purslane and winter purslane (miner’s lettuce). All 3 are a good addition to a salad, have to protect them from the deer as well.
Thanks for that info. I was thinking of getting some to grow outside my fenced garden but we have an abundance of all the critters you mentioned so maybe I will pass.
In Indiana, deer on your farm are fair game, no bag limit. I need to remember to plant some of these Jerusalem artichoke! Then get people to donate to release the cute meat bunnies instead of harvesting them. Stream the rabbit release live. Then hunt the exploding coyote population at night.
I wonder if I grow some in my big half barrel planter next year, I won't have to fight off the groundhogs, moles, etc. That way it won't spread where I don't want it to either. On in the Northeastern US, not too far from Albany
Hell yeah! Helianthus tuberosus is one of my all time favourite plants. Everything about it is amazing. The only drawback I see is the fact that you cannot chop and drop it in late summer if you want a big harvest.
If you want to buy some Jerusalem Artichokes here is a link.
amzn.to/3ZlwQR6
This is an amazon affiliate link. I get a tiny cut but it costs you nothing extra.
excluding areas that are wet. that is why the irish grew potatoes instead of these.
Thank you!
DOESN'T SHIP TO CA😢
We grow them where i work commercially. The short and simple: not many like it due to its heavy impact on your digestive tract. Flatulence is the milder impact in this case xD.
As for it being a great and easy plant to get high production, sure, but be absolutely sure to rotate your crops, because otherwise the yield of this sunflower related plant will drop significantly despite adding fertilizer. Save a portion of the yield for replanting on a new patch and weed the old one (there will be gorrilions of them trying to regrow where you had them last year) The greatest part is that they stay good in the ground untill they start a new growth cycle in spring and shoot roots from the tubers.
It says they can't be shipped to my area
He's not wrong, I grew some in grow bags with just standard compost and left them and did nothing else. They're now a 10' tall wall of leaves about to flower. No pests, no disease, they are literally the easiest thing I've ever grown bar nettles. I can literally live off nettle and Jerusalem artichoke soup for ever for free straight out my garden. Amazing plants.
Is it actually possible to grow nettles from seeds? I'm asking and never thought I'd have to worry about that; but I just can't find stinging nettles here. 😞
@@thekingsdaughter4233I would be shocked if it does not set seed. have you searched the Internet? lots of ppl value nettle and your likely to find someone who has seeds to share
How do you enjoy the nettles ?
@@mkx9095pureed as soup is delicious
@@mkx9095 best in soups. Nettle soup is super nutritious. Just fresh nettle leaves preferably young ones, onion, potatoes and garlic boiled up and seasoned to taste. I'll probably replace the potatoes with sun chokes. Cheers J
A friend was telling me a funny story about her Jerusalem Artichokes one time. Her husband was going to rototill their garden so she told him to stay away from the spot where her JA were planted. He forgot and tilled through them. She yelled at him and he said, "Oh no, did I kill them?" She said, "NO! You spread them EVERYWHERE!!!" 😂🤣🤣🤣
👁️💜‼️
It is a heaven sent to see peace in Jerusalem, always! Let’s keep it respectful that way! Another ‘Have a Hearties!’
😂
.that's very true. be careful were you clean them, the smallest tuber will grow and in a couple of years you will have a new garden full of them.
So they're like dandelions, or fireweed/great willowherb.
Some people plant Jerusalem Artichoke in weedy areas. Once they have taken hold, they turn the pigs in on the place where the Jerusalem Artichokes are planted. The pigs will root up everything -- including the weeds -- trying to get the tubers. So the people get weed control and fattened hogs.
That’s brilliant.
@@Agapy8888 I understand it is particularly good when you have blackberry vines. The pigs will root up the ground to such an extent that the blackberries will be gone.
@@CCoburn3possibly, but pigs are quite picky eaters. If weed clearing is your goal, goats are the go.
@@benwilkins2998 I have two pigs. They have rooted up their part of the pasture until it looks like a plowed field. And it only takes one strand of wire to keep them in. I’ve had goats too. They will certainly eat the weeds to the ground, but the weeds just grow back. And once they figure out that they can jump the fence, it doesn’t matter how tall you build the fence, you’re not going to keep them in.
Though I understand that hair sheep don’t jump fences. They are worth a try.
Ingenious!
I have a section of my property (in Massachusetts) where Jerusalem artichokes were planted twenty years ago. Every September, they reach 12 feet and show off their golden flowers until October. The tubers can be harvested for food any time of year, as long as the ground is not frozen. They are an amazingly beautiful plant!
rhubarb never dies either
NICE I HOPE I CAN GROW THEM ON MY PROPERTY WE DONT HAVE GREAT SOIL AND ITS HOT HERE IN NEW MEXICO
yes they grow here in New Mexico!@@equalizertime188
This is so true, and it's worthwhile to have them.
Thanks for this info. ❤❤
The potato. They grow anywhere. They don't even need dirt, at times. Plus, . . . Vodka. 🤪👍
I live in East Texas, zone 8. We have had a drought and excessive heat this year. Of the plants that survived and thrived, one was the Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes).
We have sandy soil. It is like sugar granules.
After planting, we piled hay with cow manure over the area, and walked away.
They were planted early in the Spring, and they are still putting out blossoms in Sept.!
Cutting them up, soaking in lemon juice and water, then freezing, them will eliminate gas.
They get sweeter after a frost! Or you can cut them up after freezing.
We got the smaller variety, as they dont need to be peeled! The skins are tender. We just scrub them with a stiff brush, air dry them, freeze them on a cookie sheet, then put them in freezer bags for storage.
They are excellent cut into slices and fried in a good olive oil! Use them as you would potatoes.
We dig them up as needed, the day before we cook them, to let them freeze for 24 hours.
Happy trails!!
I am glad to hear that, I live in Texas too and was worried will they grow in our heat
I grew them in the Longview area.
You live southernly enough that they might even produce seeds. I live in the Netherlands, and it's too northernly for the flowers to reach maturity in time, though they still produce tubers.
That freezing them would help convert the inulin to sugars makes sense. Potatoes convert starches to sugars as well when they're kept too cold like in the fridge, which is a proces the potatoes use to maintain their temperature (as potatoes are living organisms!).
Though with potatoes that does make them taste worse.
0
Thank you so much....going to give it a go Naples TX area
When i was a kid, some kind neighbors gave us Jerusalem artichokes for our garden and they grew and grew. We harvested so many that we had them with dinner almost every night just to get rid of them. I got so sick of eating them as a kid because i ate so many. Now that im older and dont have a childs taste in food, i think ill try growing them myself! Thanks for reminding me of this wonderful plant!
you can torture the next generation :D
How did they get prepared?
Hundreds of ways, @@strawberryme08 Anyway you can prepare potatoes will work, except for fine cut or shredded 'chokes. They are much 'wetter' than potatoes so you should press quite a bit of moisture out of them for hash browns or latkes. Soups, stews, roasting, grilling, frying, stir fry (they're texture is like Water Chestnuts), sliced raw into salads, boiled and mashed. One of my favorites is a 50:50 mix with mashed potatoes and a dab of garlic butter.
I've made wine from the water after boiling them. Make it on the sweet side and the first taste on the lips is almost like honey. The second taste just can't be described. The aftertaste is almost like Hazelnut.
I've dehydrated raw chips and made flour. It's heavy like Buckwheat flour, won't rise by itself, best mixed with other flours.
They're packed full of a soluble prebiotic fiber called Inulin. In unbalanced (unhealthy) guts it can cause extreme gas, hence one of their nicknames; Fartichokes! There are five ways to deal with Inulin; Freezing, fermenting, extended cooking time, cooking with an acidic ingredient. Our fall harvest goes mostly into pickles and relishes. The vinegar and shelf storage converts the Inulin into Fructose. Our spring harvest, after the deep freeze of our zone 5 winters also converts the Inulin into Fructose and makes them good for eating raw or most any other methods.
They can be fermented exactly like cabbage into sauerkraut, refrigerator pickles or into kimchi.
You name it, they can probably be prepared that way.
Ah, the fifth way to deal with Inulin is to take it as a daily gut treatment. Talk it over with your doctor first, after you've gathered some good info on how to take it as a health supplement. It can help neutralize gut inflammation which can lead to polyps and colon cancer. You'll no doubt find articles about it curing diabetes. It might for some, but not for me. It has improved my gut health.
Did they REALLY taste like artichoke?
It's been ages since I had globe artichokes @@NeoN-PeoN There may be some similarity, but there is a clear difference. And that depends on how they're prepared.
My wife planted jerusalem artichokes in a 6' stock tank one year. They grew like weeds. This was quite an accomplishment because she usually forgets to water her plants. We got such a big harvest we didn't know what to do with them all. She thought she had harvested them all but the next year even more came up. I enjoyed learning a little more about them, thanks!
A great way to keep them contained.
I’ve never heard of them until this video. What would you recommend for a small family size container worth? I currently have 6’x3’ boxes
@@thehimself4056 We had them in one 6' X 2' container that is 2' deep and had a good harvest the first year. I thought we had harvested most of the tubers but the second year we had an even bigger crop. I wasn't aware that they would have stored well in the ground or would have tried that. My wife wanted to plant something different in the container and so we took most of the soil out of the container to try to get them all but still had to pull out quite a few young plants the third season in order to eliminate them. Now I'm thinking about planting them again. Good luck !
@@thehimself4056 They go by a number of names, including sunchoke, sunroot, earth apples, and more. You may have seen them and didn't know it. I confirm everything he said in this video: They're prolific, low maintenance, and spread easily. I also really like the nutty flavor. They do like soil that drains, so a stock tank seems to work very well to contain them so long as it doesn't pool water. I think @noyopacific may have benefited from his wife not watering the tank often. I would probably perforate the container to ensure drainage. In my case, I was planting in heavily clay soil, which I amended in several ways to improve drainage under the plants, but I left the planting holes narrow so I think the plants benefited from being surrounded by wet clay soil while still being able to drain adequately. This year, the 16 new sunchokes are doing well in much looser soil, but they're not quite as tall and bushy as the 3 volunteers in last year's clay soil location. So more water is good so long as they can drain away.
You'll never get rid if them lol
The sunchoke is a warrior! I didn't believe it when I read you couldn't get rid of it. I dug it up and was sure that I got it all. Grew back next spring and the harvest was massive.
I like the windy affect, the solitude is my reward.
😂😂😂, I too am a loner… Bahahaha
You are too funny! I pitched mine, who wants tummy cramps, but hey they might have been worth it after all!.. Love your humor and frankness..
Free heat
Turns out A sign of good gut health too! Thanks for the laugh 😂
😅
I used to grow these while I lived in Germany. They were massive tubers. I grew them is sandy soil and would use a green fertilizer made from fermented garlic peels, onion peels and stinging nettle. The harvest was heavy with large number of tubers some weighing over a pound. Matthew
That sounds like a great compost tea, thanks for sharing!
Hi did you actually eat them?
If so, how are they prepared?
Boiled maybe?
When making the compost tea place your bucket in the sun add cut up stinging nettle, garlic peelsand onion peels. Fill with water stir vigorously with a stick each day. This mixture will foam up for 10 days. When ready dilute 10 to 1.Added benefit this discourages garden pests. Matthew
@@debragarrett5110 Hi yes we did infact eat them. We would steam or boil them . Add a little butter and ealt.Enjoy. Matthew
Thank you Mathew!!!
Hey, just letting some know You can also eat the leaves ! In a salad or even cook ! 💛🖖
The worst thing about JA's is when digging them up carelessly you get a chunk under your fingernail.
The best thing is the taste when simply washed, scrubbed, cut in half lengthways, rubbed with oil and sprinkled with salt and left in a low to moderate oven to roast until caramelised on the outside and gooey in the middle. They are amazing. Better after being left in the ground for a bit as the inulin converts and they aren't so devastating for polite company. I've had them up to 10 feet high and they produce huge, beautiful tubers. Cheers :)
What do the Jerusalem Artichokes taste like?
@@carolgreen1822 They taste slightly reminiscent of the sap from a sunflower head but at the same time very hard to describe. Earthy, savoury, nutty, sweet, depending how you cook them. They have a powerful flavour so a couple in a soup or stew will pretty much overwhelm everything else. They are amazing cut lengthways in half, rubbed with oil and sprinkled with salt and roasted slowly, caramelly on the outside and creamy soft on the inside.
So fascinating! I ordered some today after seeing the video. Thanks for the info.
I have grown JA in the past but didn't know how to cook them. I just gnawed them raw and thought they tasted like Vick's Salve. I probably could eat them if I have to. There are still some growing along side the garden. I may try some of the recipes here in the comments. Maybe I will learn to like them.
@@sandrapalmberg629 Really, try them like I said and if you don't like them like that then you'll never like them. But they certainly shouldn't taste or smell like Vick's!
my granmother's family survived Holodomor thanks to this plant....
Yes, and dandelions too
What was the Holodomor?
@@carolgreen1822 When The Soviet Union decided to redistribute the crop yields of 1932-1933, they left Ukraine without enough food to feed themselves. "Holodomor" means 'death by hunger'. There were between 3.5 and 5 million victims in Ukraine alone, with 7-10 million thoroughout the Soviet Union
@@Green.Country.Agroforestry There was a famine happening in the Soviet Union due to a multitude of factors, they redistributed too much from Ukraine because of under-reporting from officials in Ukraine leaving the rest of the union thinking that Ukraine was doing better than it actually was. On top of that you had the entrenched kulaks that did everything they could to maintain their positions of power and wealth acquired through exploitation of the peasantry. They hoarded or destroyed food and bitterly opposed any collectivisation efforts.
@@challe535 They fucking killed farmers by starvation with direct and great intention because they could. Stop your lacky mewling bullshit.
I composted Peruvian sweet potatoes in my garden bed. Now they pop up everywhere in my backyard, in Arizona, in 120 degree weather
Another plant to consider to sustain your family is Stinging Nettle, the most nutritious plant to have on hand.
Vitamins: Vitamins A, C, K, as well as several B vitamins
Minerals: Calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium
Fats: Linoleic acid, linolenic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid
Amino acids: All of the essential amino acids
Polyphenols: Kaempferol, quercetin, caffeic acid, coumarins and other flavonoids
Pigments: Beta-carotene, lutein, luteoxanthin and other carotenoids
I do have to say, however, that the Jerusalem Artichoke is a prettier plant. lol
P.S. Source; HealthLine
P.S.S. Avoid if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. Use with caution if you're elderly because of the potential of causing low blood pressure. Use stinging nettle with caution if you have diabetes because of the potential that it may lower or raise blood sugar levels.
Edited for additional information. As in all things moderation. And, do your own research.
and rosehips/brambles wild apples pears stew with sugar and bottle
Do you happen to know the best practice for preserving stinging nettle? I'm thinking that blanching and then freezing it would be good but I'm not sure. I know it can be dried and used in soups, stews and in tea
@@julyjoy6756 I've only ever used it dry and steeped it as a tea.
@@eileenspamer Rosehip Jam is my all-time favorite, however, since learning that sugar dampens the immune system, and is not good for your health, I've been looking for better ways of making/setting jam/jelly. Apples and pears are just two of the fruits high in pectin. There are ways to use fruit instead of sugar, which would be much healthier.
@@julyjoy6756 There is a great you tube channel called Rain Country. This lady is amazing when it comes to herbs and preservation. Also, stinging nettle is one of her favorites. Cheers :)
"Jerusalem" was a misunderstanding of "girasole", the Italian word for "sunflower" (gira = turn, sole = sun; as in, a flower that tutns toward the sun).
if you think about Jerusalem always turning toward the sun.. that makes a lot of sense too 🥲
We should all always turn to the Son 😊@@autumnnoahlea5223
I grew these in Michigan and used a meat grinder to grind up the washed roots. this gave juice and pulp. I mixed the pulp with hamburger and made an excellent meat loaf. Even my mother liked my meat loaf.
Did you consume the juice? Raw?
I was 29 at the time, I tasted the juice and poured it out. I'm sure it would make a vegetable broth. My mother said that she would not be afraid to serve that meatloaf to any guest. I think it was 50/50 hamburger and pulp.@@unfckyourthinking
Yum!!!
You can make wine out of that juice! Simple wine is 'choke juice, mix about 50:50 with water, add sugar and I use raisins for natural yeast. You can follow most any wine recipe.
Can you post the recipe for the meatloaf?
As a po' Alabama boy who lives off his land, I'm extremely grateful for your content
Great information, extremely helpful and nice presentation
They are just delicious. Just rub the dirt from it, mix with olive oil, and put in the oven for 30 minutes. Incredible taste! I have grown them for 7 years or so here in Belgium. Easy and plenty! I don't replant them after harvest, because even the smallest part of the tubers are capable of starting a new plant. Never had any issues digesting them.
Last year I grew 2 sunchokes. They produced a volleyball-sized amount of tubers (total), or about half a 7-gallon bucket full. I ate many, gave some away, and this year planted the rest. I now have 16 new plants growing along a fence, along with 3 volunteers from where I thought I had harvested all of it last year. They are indeed prolific. Also a bonus note: Our local health food grocery in Colorado sells sunchoke tubers for about $20/lb, depending upon the season. The two plants from last year yielded about 7 lbs total from amended clay soil.
Which store exactly? I live down in Pueblo County, and would love to support local business and get started on sunchokes.
@@Chuklz70Im from further east, I call it the armpit. I'd also like to know where they can be gotten
Yes, where can we get them? I have a spot I'd like to get green
Try farmer's markets.
Amazon
We have grown these in a greenhouse without one drop of water for 12 months and they produced abundantly.
That is incredible!!! Why did you decide not to water thrm - as an experiment?
@@flowersafeheart We were trying to get them to die. They had taken over so many areas of our garden & greenhouse that we wanted to kill off some of them. The ones we did not water were 12+ foot high. We have pics of my boyfriend cutting them down with a chainsaw to keep them from going through the top of the greenhouse.
@@flowersafeheartI also desperately need the back story 😂
I'm new to growing food. Can you help me with a perhaps foolish question? I don't quite understand how to attain new seed tubers while also eating your harvest. Let's say you have ten tubers, you eat five, but you use the other five to grow again for the next season. Does this not mean you must gradually diminish your crops until nothing remains? As in, it is one tuber for every one plant, and one plant only produces one tuber.
Or do they also grow from seed?
@@SilverC3ll with Jerusalem artichokes do you plant one tuber and you get . An average of 3 to 5 lb of tubers for each one you plant. Also you don't have to put any more in the ground because it is impossible to dig them all. Some are going to remain in the ground and come up again the following spring. So your crap is not going to diminish it's going to do the opposite of that and multiply exponentially every year so that within a few years you're going to have more Jerusalem artichokes than you possibly know what to do with.
For me, after eating them on a regular bases, the 'wind' effect, only occurred the 1st time or two I ate them. After that, it was no issue at all! I look so forward to fall and winter and being able to dig up a day or two's worth at a time!
One way to also serve them up, is sauted in a frying pan with a bit coconut oil with thinly sliced pieces like potatoe chips! They are delicious this way!!!!
Thanks for the video!!!
Definitely your microbiome in your gut just adjusting. Once you eat it you help to introduce the necessary bacteria to digest it. Usually the first couple go arounds for new foods will produce gas. Once your gut has the necessary bacteria it can digest it more efficiently and with less gas.
I was gassy every time and I ate it for many days.
I have always just lightly peeled them and sprinkled salt... then eat them raw! I love them. Very good for diabetic people, too!
I live alone so farts don't bother me. I just miss telling someone in the room, "there's a kiss for ya"
Great information, I will consider planting them in a green space next to my property so they take over the weeds
Storing this little tidbit away for when society collapses.
Store some seeds while your at it or this information will be worthless to you when the time comes for you to need it
@@shane10 If you wait till then you will have years to wait.
@@Jeff-hq2cy, if SHE wins, you’re going to need more than JA’s to make it.
@@shane10(save it to your phone)
@MsMinnie45 you can't save seeds to your phone.... getting the seeds now was my point.
I've grown Jerusalem artichokes for several years now. The cramps from the gas nearly sent me to the hospital. I've found that waiting until early spring to dig them helps me very much. I have canned (pickled) them, and like them that way, but am still experimenting with their various uses.
Also, Jerusalem artichokes, while prolific and invasive, they do better if the roots are at least disturbed, if not dug every year. So they are not totally maintenance-free.
The flowers bloom late in the season, when most of the garden is done, so they are good to have around for the bees.
I never thought of the fact that they can be cut down if necessary, for concealment. A very good thing to know in these times! I enjoy you videos.
He said to possibly add lemon to it. I wonder if apple cider vinegar (1 Tbsp./cup of water) consumed 30 minutes prior to meal would assist your stomach acid & digestion.
@@Pamela.BOr saurkraut, yogurt (I like vegan yogurt), kefir, kimchi...
@@Pamela.B, hmm. Cooking them in an acidic ingredient converts the Inulin into fructose but drinking acidic goodies before eating them?? I might have to give this a shot.
Agreed treat these guys with caution I ate a small amount and the sheer pressure it caused me was INTENSE. If someone ate a bunch of these without knowing I genuinely think they could send themselves to the hospital.
Me too, total agony, never again!
I'm sold. Most "survival tips" are garbage. This is convincing
Garage?
Garbage
My daughter gave me a few tubers and they grew so quickly ! I just dug a hole near a distant spot… totally unattended… and they are growing well! My garden on the other hand….
Slaves survive on slave food ... I live in beef 💪💯🤣 I don't want to just survive😂
Try eating them first. You might be convinced otherwise if you are sensitive to the inulin they contain like so many people!
Native Americans claimed there were 9 ways to propagate JA. I know of 4.
We dry all of the leaves & flower and make awesome hot tea throughout the year. The tea not only tastes great but also significantly lowers blood sugar levels. We also dry the leaves & flowers, put them in a blender, and make baking flour out of it. Also with the tubers.
We use every bit of the plant. Rabbits and all livestock love the greens & stems, even after they've been dried.
Tubers are great pickled and retain their crunch if you eat the within the year.
I had no idea there were no many uses. Now I might consider keeping mine :P
Do you cook the chokes before you pickle them?
@@egregius9314 Just wash them, slice them, and pickle them in a water bath. Glad you're going to keep them!
Does taking off the leaves affect the tubers or do you just take some from each plant? I'm not sure if it's just me, but I really enjoy chopping the dead stems back to the ground and chopping them up for compost. Maybe I'm missing a trick by not using the leaves and I wish I'd known rabbits like them when we had a rabbit ...
@@ameliagfawkes512 my dairy goats LOVE them even more than the rabbits!! I think the leaves are about 28% protein also.
Thanks for this info!!
Whst are the 4 ways you propogate them?
Do you have trouble with any wild animals or bugs eating them?
Yep! Our stealth garden crop! We have food hidden in plain sight!
I appreciate this plant and our neighbors love our pretty yellow flowers.
This video has been totally tubular!!! Thanks.
😂
I see what you did there... ;-)
I bought some at a grocery store. Out of 6 roots we got 2 plants that were tiny. This year we have like 30 of them.
I had such a stressed-out day. UA-cam suggested this video. I never knew of your channel. I am a history nerd! This video eased my stress away! I'm totally subscribing to your channel!! Thanks and God bless!
Helianthes.
Sunflowers, edible roots.
A flower garden AND
a vegetable garden.
The best of both worlds.
When I was a kid, my Dad suggested digging up the JAs in our back yard to sell in the neighborhood. Became a great addition to my paper route earnings. Note: JAs and homemade milk kefir pair well for a healthy meal.
real milk keifer is the best thing you can or into the body, love it
All the stalks are excellent fodder for livestock too! I've been growing Jerusalem artichoke for the past 25 years. It's good stuff
Do the flowers have any medicinal benefit?
I love mine, just a half inch is all you need for new plants, very delicious sautéd with onions and garlic, they’re great for those who are diabetic
Oh my. We have them in our garden from previous owner. I just thought it was a flower. ( just recently learning about medicinal plants) I gave sadly composted tubers. I have nice patch and will take GOOD care of it from now on. Thank you so much for this video.
An old (scandinavian) home remedie for digestive gas problems, is tea made of cumin or anis seeds.
1 tsp seed + 1 cup of water. Let it soak for 10 minutes. Drink.
It's good to drink it right before or after a meal that can cause digestive problems.
(You can eat some of the seeds too, if you like, or you can just drink the tea).
😊🌸
Very interesting. Fennel seed tea works for me.
@@mollygardens6646 Yes, fennel is also used to make this tea! 👍🌸
Ginger honey, chamomile. Ginger family for chai herbal tea are all aphrodisiac and testosterone boosters that have other healthy effects. Roobis red chai if you want to double the price of this extremely cheap tea. Add a tiny bit of tumeric to it and put hair on your ovaries.
I don't mind gas brings me much joy.
@@Foxhound1Nine"beans, beans, good for the heart..."😂
Very cool! Here in central Florida, the Ube yam is #1 for me. You can leave it in the ground or harvest it each year. It has plenty of seed potatoes in the fall to replant in the spring. It can produce hundreds of lbs. if several are planted. It provides shade with its Jack and the Beanstalk growth rate. There are dozens and dozens of delicious recipes for it (mostly desserts). Also, it has a beautiful deep purple color which adds interest to whatever dish it's in. The pancakes we made from it were the best we've ever had!
Fastest and best remedy for gas and bloating is fennel seeds. You can chew them but i grind them in my coffee grinder and make a tea bag out of a coffee filter using staples and add 1 tablespoon ground fennel and step in hot water add honey and enjoy it taste like licorice. Love it and it works almost instantly
Great video! Thank you. The reason they are gassy is because your gut bacteria are not used to them. Start with small portions at regular intervals to promote the gut bacteria that can digest them well. Probiotic drinks such as Yakult and kefir can help as well.
Oh, awesome! I hope you're right that the body can adapt. Maybe fermenting just some of them too and eating a combo of fermented and unfermented could help. And various forms of prebiotics and probiotics. I imagine cooked are easier to digest than raw too.
@@flowersafeheart I have never tried fermenting them. 🤔
Indigenous just left them in the ground longer...the inulin lowers itself that way
Interesting! I was wondering if I was doomed to eat small portions of them, even as I love the taste. That's good news.
We have these everywhere! I planted 2 and ended up giving away a ton of them. Best eaten roasted with seasonings. Thank you for this video.
My mother in law used to cook these and I just loved the taste. I love the fact that they look great growing, and being able to eat the tuber makes it a bonus. Yes they do taste like the artichoke heart. Thank you for posting this.
This is a good plant to know about. And a good history lesson. We don't study about what people ate as much as we do the war they fought. This plant should probably still be in our diet.
I didn't realize it but they grow wild in my yard. The only thing I've known to do with them is artichoke relish, which is very similar to bread & butter pickles. I hope to find other recipes now that I know how beneficial they are! Thank you!!
You can convert the inulin (a type of carbohydrate, not to be confused with insulin, a blood sugar regulating hormone) in the tubers into fructose (the same type of sugar found in many fruits) by exposing them to freezing temperatures, either naturally or artificially.
Interesting! So they become less healthy frozen? Or is that sugar helpful for anything?
@@flowersafeheart Well, more or less healthy is subjective, depending on your perspective. As I understand it, inulin is an example of what's called a resistant starch, meaning that it cannot easily by digested by the human body, because the carb is instead digested by intestinal bacteria (hence the windy characteristic). If you're looking for a low-calorie foodstuff, I suppose that could be a benefit. If you're looking to keep yourself fed from a small plot of land, breaking the inulin into fructose is more useful. I was thinking recently about tuberous nasturtium, also known as mashua in that context, because it has similar characteristics - maybe that vegetable would interest you as well.
Living off fructose as the main source of calories would be very bad for your health, but it would prevent you from starving if there was no other choice. A food that can be stored in the field in frozen ground is obviously advantageous, but I wouldn't recommend it for homesteaders as a primary crop.
@@edwardkuenzi5751 True. An additional issue is, as I understand it, that they have little nutritional value. The same could be said for yacon, tuberous nasturtium (mashua) and other similar crops.
@@collinvickers2345the guy in this video was saying that it would make a great staple crop, that it's a complete protein (and in the correct proportions) and that it yeilds as many calories per unit weight as potatoes. Not sure if the calories part was woth the inulin or with it converted to fructose.
I Once worked for a couple who had inherited his father's property. They had lived there for 30 years and had never cultivated the artichokes but they still flourished every year. I think i was the only person to cook them along with their amazing asparagus which they also did not use. I suspect they are still flourishing 50 yearslater.(NSW, Australia)
Your close-up and wide-angle views of this plant are so helpful! I started some tubers in pots. When about 2. inches of stalk emerged, something ate them down to ground. The tubers didn't grow back. but just rotted in the soil mix. I believe the culprit was a roof rat or a mouse, so gardeners should be ready to protect the small plants from small varmints. In central Texas, you can get the tubers at specialty grocers for about $9 per pound. I have paid the price because they are so delicious and there are amazing recipes online. Now that I know what they look like, I'm so looking forward to having my own crop, embedded in my urban landscape. Now that you've shown me what to expect, I can better pick a location to start them in-ground. Thanks for the boost!
My experience was similar. Had these in a pot last summer. They grew to about 2 feet with no sign of flowers and a bug ate em or something. Never really came back.
In the spring, I found a mushy tuber in the pot. I'm in north western Canada. There's no way these would make it through the winter in the ground here. I'd like to try them again, though....
Emphasis on "grows well in sandy soil, not so well in wet soil."
@@Horus2OsirisGood point. I'm also in central Texas, and we have very clay-heavy soil in my area.
@@gmw3083 Try putting them in the ground. You will be happy with the results.
We have a lot of deer and ground hogs. I was told grow them. Nothing can kill them. They were doing well. Then they were always eaten to the ground. Eventually, killing them
Topinambour....yes...you can make gourmet soups...a very subtle artichoke flavour
Stafford, England here. I’ve grown these for a few years now as part of my ‘plant once, eat forever’ strategy. they are absolutely perfect for anyone that wants to grow a survival garden due to the yield and ease of care that’s required.
Have you stored your crop inside
@@Andy-yb1vs Why would I do that? They store in the ground just fine. I never dig them up unless i’m planning to eat some. One of the best benefits of this crop in my humble opinion
Amazing presentation! Thank you! When I moved to Ireland I planted some tubers immediately - just in case - it was shortly before the feared year 2000 with crashes and even the end of the world myths. Ever since I have both: my super easy going, even spreading fartichoke as a quite abundant emergency food (I cannot digest them easily), and the stunning flowers (this week saw the first bloom). My soil is bad: too acidic, too compacted, too wet, too peaty. With just a bit of sand and some mycorrhizae they flourish so much easier than most other plants.
Fartichoke 😂😂😂
Fartachoke! 😂
I planted some of these before Y2K. They are naturalized around the house. Definitely takes some effort to integrate into menu and convince others to eat.
In Poland, we eat that tuber fermented. You can also fry or boil fermented Jerusalem artichoke and it's delicious. Lacto fermentation makes this tuber easily digested but don't drink water from the fermentation.
What happens if you drink the water?
@@gmw3083you turn into a fartichoke 😝
diarrhea strikes @@gmw3083
@spoolsandbobbins
😂😂😂😂😂
I...I can't stop laughing!
Thank you very much for this! I planted some last spring & thought it was a failure, but now they're coming along.😀 Good to know what to do with them!
Thank you, one of the most informative videos on food security I have ever seen❤
TY. Happy Preparation/Sabbath in advance
You are very interesting content creator. Not only the topics are always very well centered on sustainability but also, perhaps foremost, the culture that you build around it is remarkable! Thank you man!
We grew and ate them when I was a kid and I still grow them now in my 60's.
Italian settlers in the United States called the plant girasole, the Italian word for sunflower, because of its relationship to the garden sunflower . Over time, the name girasole was corrupted by English-speakers to Jerusalem.
Girasole is pronounced "jee-rah-SOH-lay".
Ah jeerahsolay artichoke💡
@@faigee3493 in Germany we call that plant Topinambur, in Latin Helianthus tuberosus
In our house we call it the fartichoke, for obvious reasons.
Make a pan of soup with them for guests and check out the results
@@Marra7777
ah yes soup, that would retain the fart fuel. gotta dump the water or use them after fermenting them would be better
@@Marra7777 Need an airplane for vertical takeoff with all the gas produced. I love eating them raw
Thanks for the great info on growing Jerusalem artichoke! With all the information you provided, I was surprised that you didn’t mention the leaves and flowers are also edible.
Many on other plants are too. : )
I have grown Jerusalem artichokes for decades😊
Do the flowers have any medicinal benefits?
@@IyanAhmath12good question. I've never done anything with the flowers only the roots.
We can buy them fresh or in dried slices here in Japan. Here they’re called chrysanthemum potatoes. I’ve had them growing in a forgotten corner of my garden for years, but I’ve never harvested or eaten them before.
They have a nice nutty flavor.
Perhaps that is a good thing. If you had dug them up they would have multiplied.
We have a strip of poor soil between our garden and the road, and planted Jerusalem artichoke there last year. We let them overwinter and haven't harvested any yet, but they're 6-8' tall now (in soil that even comfrey struggled in). We hope to try fermenting them to see if it reduces the gas effect.
The fact that they grow in such poor soil is one of their best characteristics.
Fermenting lessens the fart factor quite a bit.
My wife planted courgette seeds 4 months ago and they’re still growing and providing beautiful and versatile courgettes. Everyday there’s a new, ready to pick, handful of pure joy and with lovely big yellow flowers. As well as the obvious salads and soup, the courgette is great in a cake, adding moistness to a lemon cake. Bees love the flowers also. Our growing patch is only 2 square metres.
I'm growing JA for 5 years in one of my raised beds (40cm) and I'm impressed how easy they're to grow. I basically just harvest them once per year for a bucket of free tubers. But I'm living in a zone 9 and can get 3 harvests of potatoes per year. So they give me a lot more calories per year in a small garden. But my potatoes also get sick very often and require a lot more care. So they both have upsides and downsides, at least in my situation.
For your regular potatoes when do you plant them to get 3 harvests?
@@cheryladamson3276 mid February, May, and September. Last year was especially warm and I still had 20℃ in December. Now it's about 10-12℃. So I can start planting in February, after the last cold snaps pass and I'm sure it won't get below 0℃ at night.
Growing potatoes is tough in USDA Zone 9. Try growing sweet potatoes instead. They love the heat and long growing season.
My mom served us Jerusalem artichoke when we were growing up in the 1970’s. I liked them. Have not had them since then. Looking forward to growing some in my garden.
We planted them as a survival crop for multiple years, but the digestion issues they cause are really startling. If you eat enough to feel full, you will pay for it for hours and hours!
We love the productivity and their ability to grow on marginal land, but now feel the best use for them is to raise for pig feed, and then eat the pigs. Beautiful footage and good explanation - thank you. We always keep a patch in the gardens.
I’ve never eaten them, but have some stomach problems…your comment makes me hesitant though I was feeling eager to plant some (urban garden, no livestock)
Those digestive issues go away if you eat them regularly. I dried slices and regularly had some as chips for healthier gut flora.
@@jeffhutjens thank you!
Saw a comment somewhere that the roots can be soaked overnight to reduce the gas issue.
Loved the comment The pigs eat the artichoke and we eat the pigs .😂
I LOVE Jerusalem artichokes! I've discovered no grocer sells them EVAR here. I DID find out they're easy to grow, as you said. While I researched it, I then discovered the plant is extremely hardy (even stubborn to destroy) & crawls EVERYWHERE which is why most landlords & neighbors don't want it near their backyards for fear it'll take over.
Those landlords and neighbors would probably appreciate it in an emergrncy or if they knew more about it!
Containing the spread is fairly easy. Determine how far your variety spreads from the crown and keep a border mowed to prevent their spread. I had three varieties. One only spreads about 16" from the crown. One spreads about 24" and the one I got rid of spread well over 48". That last one was a bear to keep contained unless kept in the middle of a lawn or field.
What is EVAR an acronym for?
Love les Girasoles.
My mom planted these 10 years ago I Montréal. Every year she harvests over 35 pounds. It lasts her until April of next year.
Please how do she preserve them
@@Towardsahealthyliving She washes them in cold water. Let’s them air dry. Then she stores them in the refrigerator.
Don't know if anybody has already talked about it, but im from Germany and i was like "What the heck is this called and how can I aquire it for growing" and then i learned its latin name and realized, im already growing it. So everyone on the same search : Its also called Topinambur.
Grow em with rhizome barrier in the ground. Theyll grow like crazy and they survived the harsh summer we had. They will go into a sort of hibernation and come back with the first good amount of rain. You can also water them of course if possible.
AMAZING info! I don’t grow anything, but just as a curiosity I’ve always wondered what the most nutritious, most resilient, easiest to cultivate, best plant that could be harvested especially in hard times and THIS has answered my question.
Great info! We planted some this year and have used it to make chips. Also, great restraint from using the term "fartichoke"...
Yeah, that is their other name.
😂
Oh dear... I laughed so hard I actually spit out my coffee 😂
@@HealthAndHomesteadDigested Artichoke
I tried storing them on a vege rack, and in the fridge, in the dark and in the light. Whatever i did they always quickly shrivelled and were wasted.
Then i accidentally left some at cool room temperature in a clear plastic bag on the vege shelf. They kept perfectly for at least three months. (Once i realised that they werent shrivelling i was interested to see how long i could leave them). The bag was just folded over but not sealed.
Apparently they make good food for pigs, and the pigs can do the digging too.
We kept pigs for about twenty five years. For most of that time we kept a large area of the garden growing JA. It was something the pig ate with gusto. We seldom gave the pigs the roots but did give them the above ground plants. Besides cutting down on the feed bill these stalks and leaves in their diet greatly reduced the small of the manure.
I bought a couple tubers a couple years ago. I just replanted some of the tubers all over the yard (the garden) after harvests. Now I have more plants than I can count. I am in Southwest Florida, zone 10. The soil is awful, just sand. It's hot. But they grow great! No maintenance. They taste great. And we haven't even noticed a gassy effect eating them.
I wonder if that's cause your body got used to them? Were you gassy at first?
Whenever I got them at stores I didn't get any gas, cramps, or burps. That was raw too though after this comment section I wouldn't eat them raw again, would cook (maybe a long time) or pickle or ferment.
@@flowersafeheart no idea. I know nearly all people that tell me about sunchokes haven't ever actually eaten sunchokes so I wonder about their facts. The few who have grown and eaten them also wonder about their facts.
When I was a kid in the 70’s my parents would brings some home and we ate then raw as a treat. Haven’t had any or even seen them since.
I love how tall and leafy they are. I grew a bunch of them all along a chain link fence and the plants became a great seasonal privacy fence. Food and a privacy fence total Win-Win!
I appreciate all the references to your sources, and not merely repeating the first web search results!
Yep, we grew it in one of our big garden beds down here in South Texas a few years back.. It took off great in our dense clay soil, required minimal water, tolerated the scorching climate very well, had no issues with pests, and popped right back up in the spring even after harvesting what we thought were all of its tubers. We were thrilled with how it did, until we discovered that I and my oldest son were allergic to it. Haha.. Ahh, well.
What was your reaction? Hives? Trouble breathing?
@@BackyardRebel It was minor; just a bit of swelling/itching in the old bronchial tubes. I have a similar reaction to sunflower seeds, which in retrospect makes sense given that the sunchoke is closely related.
@@MechMan0124
Thank you for sharing. Not sure if any in my family would be allergic and it's good to know what to look out for when we try JA.
@@BackyardRebel If you're in a hot/dry climate with not-so-great soil, you might try growing Golden Amaranth. The drying and winnowing process can be tricky the first couple of harvests, but it's an impressive producer of grain once you get the hang of it. It was once the staple crop of many Pre-Columbian central American cultures. It's very hardy and easy to grow, and the harvested grain stores well.
@@MechMan0124 I'm on the west coast. It gets pretty wet. Lol. I'll look into it though. Would love to have a bunch of options for easy to grow food
Caraway seeds help with indigestion. They also taste good used with cabbage, (roasted) potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes etc.
I grew some in my garden. Saying topinambourg is prolific is an understatement!!!
Jerusalem artichoke will over take your garden!!
Just don't dig them. It slows down the process a little. And don't put them anywhere near a fence. They will grow underneath and whoever's on the other side will not be happy with you. They will also lift asphalt.
Nice to see possible additions to my garden. As a brand new homesteader, I am down for these. I used to pick up some of them couple years before.❤
Love this. I've been eating them for years for health (gut) benefits, but they can be hard to find except in a health food store. You've convinced me to grow them!
I've seen the tubers selling in a Colorado health food market for up to $20/lb, so if you can grow them in quantity you'll have good nutrition source and possibly a little income.
So interesting you eat them for gut benefits - yet so many comments saying thry can be hard to digest (gas, cramps, maybe burping).
I'll keep researching this!
One comment said after eating small, gradual amounts the body can adapt to them...
I love them so much, roasted was best for me! Yummm
It certainly has no gassy effect on me.
SUPER EASY TO GROW. My first year growing jchokes and they have crushed it they are as tall as the edge of my roof.
I put some in the ground this spring and they are currently over 12ft tall and havent even started flowering yet! I pulled one to try "early" tubers and it was excellent. I got a fantastic yield from just one plant, im excited to harvest the rest of them in a few weeks
@@esteedle ay me too man I haven't tried them yet but they just starting to flower.
I found Jerusalem artichokes at Natural Grocers in April and planted them in my garden. I had them many years ago and was surprised to see them at the store. Thanks for talking about them, I learned about them in the 80's during survival classes and we grew them on our homestead. Presently, Mine are growing in terrible soil that has a lot of gravel from building, I think they are gonna love it!
I planted my first ones last fall!!! I can't wait to see them come up in the spring! ❤
Put them whole, with the skins, in the oven in a deep pan of sorts and put plenty of butter on them and salt & pepper...roast them like you would potatoes, turning them a couple of times, until they are lovey golden and crisp. They will be perfectly mushy on the inside and crisp on the outside...Delicious.
They can also be boiled and mashed like mashed potatoes..served with lots of butter. Take the skins of before mashing. Mmmmm....Yum
One of my favorites is 50:50 mashed potatoes and mashed 'chokes with a dab of garlic butter. The skins on mine are so thin I leave them on. They almost disappear when well mashed.
Thank you very. I read that it is one of the best pre-biotic, but can't find them anywhere in grocery stores. Will be growing them next year.
From WebMD: Jerusalem artichokes are not related to globe artichokes but are a vegetable with an edible tuber that comes from a type of sunflower. They are rich in fiber, especially inulin, as well as antioxidants. Jerusalem artichokes help support your colon health by increasing healthy bacteria and can fight off a variety of diseases. They can be eaten raw or cooked.
Asian markets.
@@trashtrashisfree Thanks, there are 2 aisan markets near me!
My wife and I take a daily supplement of powdered Inulin for gut health. My wife takes it to help with diverticulitis - at least 1/2 heaping tsp per day. It's made a huge difference! I take it because I got a double whammy from both parents regarding colon issues - at least one heaping tsp per day. BTW, my last several colonoscopies were polyp free and most importantly, inflammation free. Inflammation is what causes polyps and cancer. My doc dropped me from a high risk every three year 'scope to a five year 'scope schedule!!
Anyone who wants to start this - First, do some research on Inulin and gut health and talk it over with your doctor. Second, if your doctor agrees, start low and slow. Start with no more than 1/4 tsp per day, and you may have to drop to 1/8 tsp per day if you have a mucho gas reaction. Every 10 days, or as your guts will allow, double the dose, ie: 1/8 to 1/4 to 1/2 to one, etc. If you have IBS or Crohns or similar, be prepared, your symptoms will get worse at first, but if you can hang in with it, improvement will come. That's another strong reason to consult with your doctor. DON'T do this alone. The Inulin will actually culture the bacteria present in your small gut, where it doesn't belong and move it down into the large gut where it does belong. This culturing then migrating of the bacteria is what stirs up the gas reaction. You might want to talk to your doctor about the antibiotic Rifaximin. It can help start the eradication of bad bacteria in your small gut in a safer and easier manner. Once your bacteria are properly balanced, no more gas trouble except for the normal, if you eat other gas causing foods such as beans you'll have gas.
Some pharmacies will order Inulin for you or you can find it on Amazon and other online sources. As with anything bought online, read all the reviews, good AND bad, and pick the most respected supplier.
I can also say that we've been healthier in most every way since starting daily Inulin around 18 years ago. Less colds, milder flu and more. We both had Covid over Thanksgiving 2020 and wrapped it up in about 5 days with no serious after effects. I was 65, my wife was 70, and she has asthma which should have had her in the hospital. Better gut health means better overall health.
Grows easily in sandy soil, doesn't need watered often...that's my kind of edible 😂 Our backyard is mostly clay and big rocks, sounds like we need to dig a trench and fill it with cheap topsoil, and toss in some of these plants! Thanks for this video.
well you can get raised soil bed soo.. you dont need to dig anything yeah? and there are chance for the root to air your soil abit.
I have these growing in my yard. Going to try them this year.
I’m watching this again because it was so entertaining the first time.!
I started with like 8 of them in small line in my garden, I harvest as much as I can each year - It grows back double the next. This really is hard to restrain. Oudside of the english speaking realm those are also known as "Tobinambur" which is reflecting more on their indiginious heritage.
Look into the use of the leaves and flowers for tea. It is sold in Europe so to get information you can Google Jerusalem Artichoke tea and European sources are available. The benefits are amazing. ❤❤
Always grow ton of it. Can even turn it into flour and make delicious bread. Also it's good pickled.
With just Jerusalem artichoke flour or do you add wheat flour?
Yes, I too am interested in the flour you make with it. I'm assuming it performs like other gluten free flours...?
And you pickle it with vinegar...? Or have you tried fermenting it?
How do you dry it enough to make flour?
Flour! I'm definitely going to look into that; thanks for the tip!
@@Maddy_might, it's a heavy flour, like Buckwheat flour, best mixed with other flours. Wheat, rice, any lighter flour does well. My preference is 1/4 'choke flour to 3/4 other flour. It adds a stiffer texture - makes pizza crust not so droopy for example. It adds a nice earthy-nutty flavor.
I grow a lot of organic things and had never heard of this - thank you. I immediately ordered some, and will be planting them not only on my property, but in the wooded area just behind my proper ty to keep the deer from eating the ones in my yard.
A friend of mine grew these JA's and I grew to love them. Tasmanian Australian. ♥️😊
I have a patch in zone 8b and usually harvest a small bucket at a time in winter. I do try to clear out the edges, but they keep spreading, though by harvesting I keep them thinned out where I do not want them to go. I soak them for a few days and then peel them all. We like the flavor better without the peel. I think the soaking helps with their gassing abilities, though I for one do not notice that that much.
What do you do with the peels? Feed them to poultry or livestock? Compost them? Make vegetable broth?
@@Growmap I throw them in my compost.
What kind of soil do you have?
@@beccagee5905 I am in the desert. It is mostly sandy. That bed gets compost and mulch but it is still very loose soil.
They struggle where I live, the deer, moles and voles seem to like them a lot. I don’t worry about them being invasive because the white tail deer around here will eat them down to the ground if the protective cage is removed. I have had really good luck with lambs quarters, green purslane and winter purslane (miner’s lettuce). All 3 are a good addition to a salad, have to protect them from the deer as well.
Thanks for that info. I was thinking of getting some to grow outside my fenced garden but we have an abundance of all the critters you mentioned so maybe I will pass.
I have the same problem. mine didn't come back the next year and this year I couldn't get them to sprout.
In Indiana, deer on your farm are fair game, no bag limit. I need to remember to plant some of these Jerusalem artichoke! Then get people to donate to release the cute meat bunnies instead of harvesting them. Stream the rabbit release live. Then hunt the exploding coyote population at night.
I wish they would invade and spread but the deer just love them. I can only grow them in the dog yard where the deer fear to tread.
I wonder if I grow some in my big half barrel planter next year, I won't have to fight off the groundhogs, moles, etc.
That way it won't spread where I don't want it to either. On in the Northeastern US, not too far from Albany
Hell yeah!
Helianthus tuberosus is one of my all time favourite plants. Everything about it is amazing. The only drawback I see is the fact that you cannot chop and drop it in late summer if you want a big harvest.
The greens are edible so you could eat them instead or feed them to the livestock.
Just started growing these this year in my sandy soil! It's October in Northeast New York, and they are beautiful!