Volunteers - October 12, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

April 2018

Back in 2018 I replaced the fence along the north side of the Big garden. I dug a trench 1’ deep and 1’ wide and removed all the roots. I replanted the Jerusalem artichoke where it belonged down where the mulch pile in the grass is.

August 2019

This spring when we were weeding the north side of the Big garden to put transplants in, we found a lot of Jerusalem artichokes growing by the gate. We decided to leave them and my helper friend would harvest them for himself in autumn. You can see there are about a dozen thin stalks. They did ok.

In late July one got pulled up or dug up, and had a tiny tuber on the end. We thought, oh well, whatever there is will be better than nothing.

On Saturday after we got the last wall up, he decided to dig them. The very first stem yielded this! That’s just one tuber mass from that plant. There were many more much smaller ones.

This was the final haul from those dozen skinny stalks. The big mass in the top bag is another big mass of tuber. There is easily 30# of tubers there. Each bag was so heavy, I was afraid to lift it out to the grass for a photo. I was afraid they’d split open.

Not bad from volunteers! They weren’t actually volunteers, but had gotten volunteered by some critter. My helper friend said he could see the tunnels under the masses. These had been brought to this area by a critter for winter eating, and left there last fall.

I cannot eat Jerusalem artichokes as I react badly to the inulin. I have the permanent patch back where the mulch pile was. My helper friend usually gets whatever grows outside the bounds, or if I re-dig the patch.