Sunchokes from seed

General Discussions
41

Oh, those are a lovely pale pink color! What variety are they?

I’d say they’re pretty knobby; all the phenotypes I have grow into footballs, often with several small footballs sticking out of the big footballs. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I don’t see a lot of tiny knobs like that. Maybe a few on every fifth tuber or so. I wonder if that’s a typical level of knobbiness? If so, that would explain why people talk about difficulty cleaning them — that does look more difficult to clean!

Heh, I tried one sunchoke phenotype once that was a total pain in the neck. It grew a bunch of long, thick, ribbonlike roots that wrapped all around each other in a big clump near the base of the plant. Unwinding them from each other was annoying. I think it was a wild one that nobody had named — I’m not sure, though. In any case, I’m pretty sure I didn’t bother to replant it. All the others were far better.

I started out with Beaver Valley Purple, which continues to produce well for me every year, even when I can’t be bothered to water it, uh, more than once a month . . . :laughing: They flower in September and produce the most seeds.

After that, I bought ten sunchokes from Joseph Lofthouse. They’re all great! They flower in August and produce nearly as many seeds.

I got some tubers from Fruitwood Nursery to see what their selected variety is like. It has a really nice shape: the tubers grow into big, smooth, cross-like forms. No little knobs at all, just two or three huge ones that are easy to snap off and clean. And all the tubers are near the base of the plant, so it’s easy to harvest them all and not have stray little ones wander off. Really nice phenotype. Sadly, I haven’t seen that one flower yet, so it’s possible it’s infertile.

I’m also planning to try Stampede, Supernova, and Clearwater this year. So that’ll bring me up to, what, fifteen different genotypes? (It would’ve been sixteen if I had kept the wild type that was annoying to clean, but nah, didn’t need it.) I’m excited to see what kinds of tubers I can get from my own seeds.

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42

To me thinning the sunroots includes—

  • Tilling with a big tractor on either side of the rows.
  • Running a small tiller along the rows.
  • Zig-zagging the small tiller through the rows.
  • Pulling by hand.
  • Chopping with a hoe.
  • Giving up.
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43

Oops, sorry for such a late reply! I have absolutely no idea what kind of variety these sunchokes are but i was pretty pleased with the shape, as i have nothing to compare them to! So far cleaning wasnt a huge issue but then again i didnt have a giant harvest so i will see how my opinion changes next year.

Sounds like ya got a good collection going on! Ive seen stampede and beaver valley purple for sale online but i cant bring myself to pay $30-50 on a couple of tubers so im just gonna work with what i got for now. I’ll keep the beavery valley in mind though. Perhaps they would bear me lots of seeds as well, just like yours :smiley: I had my eye on one really pretty ruby coloured sunroot variety that was totally smooth. if i do eventually order more types think that is my next go to.

Im very intrigued to see what the tubers will be like from the seeds i ordered and planted outdoors!

Ribbon like wild roots, eh? I do not blame you at all for getting that nuisance outta the way! Good riddance.

Im excited for you as well and hope you are pleased with the tuber shapes you end up with from your seeds!

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44

“Giving up” :joy:

Noted!

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A couple thoughts as I read through this thread:

  1. Here’s a Canadian source for sunchokes that may be more affordable if you are interested.

    Grow A Gazillion Mix • Garden Faerie Botanicals

  2. If your yard is naturally boggy and wet and you want to grow a ground crop you might consider chufa or groundnuts. The website I sited above has some left in stock. I know she’s in BC so a little more “local” for you but here’s another Canadian source if she sells out. CHUFA NUT – The Superior Gardener

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46

Hey, thanks for your suggestions!

I love garden faerie botanicals and ive ordered quite a variety of seeds from her. Susan is very helpful and generous, with great customer service and i couldnt recommend her enough! It was actually her store where i found the ruby jerusalem artichoke i was interested in. But $22 for the chokes plus another $25 for shipping adds up! Totally absolutely worth it when i have the extra cash to spend but for now im glad i was able to find a couple $5 baggies of nameless variety sunchokes at the local garden centre. But yes, i love garden faery botanicals as well! Found her shop through etsy.

Ooh, ill have to check out the superior garden link, thanks! I do actually have ground nut (ordered from garden faery. Ha!) I planted them last summer in pots and was actually thinking the same thing in regards to planting them in my boggy area! Only one out of four sprouted but im hoping to see them come back this spring.

Cicada seeds and metchosin farms are a couple other sites i like. Ive ordered a wack load of interesting perennial seeds from cicada seeds, including potato onions of which i was on the hunt for a long! Michalina is so kind, understanding and friendly, with such an awesome selection! And i found local painted mountain corn along with true potato seeds through metchosin farms. Good stuff

I appreciate some local recommendations. Everyone is so helpful on here and it is nice to find new Canadian shops!

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47

That’s awesome, sounds like we shop in the same circles lol! Yeah totally, even seeds have gotten a lot more expensive recently and shipping has gone up as well.

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48

Oh, and the prices will just keep goin up! That’s why im all gung-ho about stocking up now then seed saving every crop i can, adding resilience along the way. Though, im pretty sure just about all of us are on that same wavelength, eh? :wink:

Have you grown chufa before? I was curious about it but ive aquired such a crazy variety of seeds that i need to balance out trying everything vs mastering key survival crops.

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49

I actually did a “no-buy” seed year this year. I utilized the GTS seed share and some swapping but that’s it. I’m making myself use up my existing seed collection. I usually really enjoy getting experimental seeds but I’m in the same boat as you I have to scale back this year and focus on production.

No I haven’t grown chufa. I’m really interested and I read about it a lot but I think my yard is too dry to grow it well. I would like to grow it though, nut trees take forever to grow and my kid loves nuts as snacks so it seems like a great alternative. Let me know how yours does!

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50

Ooh brilliant! Smart way to include diversity without going too over board. And a good way to focus on what seeds you already have! I plant on sorting through some of my old seeds and chuckin em into a corner somewhere, see what grows, then save seed from the survivors hahaha

I’ll let you know if i ever do decide on planting chufa! For now im pretty content with what i have. Super excited. Plus i have wild hazenut and black walnut trees growing everywhere near me and around town/forest. I totally understand picking certain crops for your kiddos though, i do the same with my little one!

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51

My sunchokes set loads of seed last summer. Assuming they wouldn’t be fertile, I scattered them all around. I’m interested to see if any come up – I might regret the scattering!

I’d love to try chufa, but I suspect my garden is just too dry in summer for them.

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Oh boy, I am both equally excited and nervous for you! If you remember, id love to see an update as to how that seed scattering went for you. Hope the results are what you’re after :grin:

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It will be interesting, for sure!

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54

Ooh, what’s the totally smooth ruby–colored sunchoke you’ve been eyeing? I’d be interested in looking that up.

I’d offer to send you some of my sunchoke tubers, but . . . because you’re in Canada and I’m in the US, I don’t think that’s feasible. :frowning: Maybe you could check the Seed Savers Exchange and see if there are any Canadians there with sunchoke varieties you’re interested in?

I’m often happy to set up trades for some of my little sunchoke tubers with anyone in the US around January or February. I’m only willing to share the little ones, because I eat or replant all the big ones! :winking_face_with_tongue:

Here are my thoughts about sunchokes becoming weedy.

People seem to clutch their pearls a lot about sunchoke invasiveness, but in my experience, they’re really not hard to control. Whenever you see one in a place you don’t want one to be growing (like in the pathway, where they will definitely spread), just dig up that tuber and eat it. It’ll be easy to find: it’s always directly underneath the sprout. If digging sounds like too much effort, just pull up the stem, and either eat it or toss it onto the garden as mulch. Once you dig up the tuber, it’s gone. Even if you don’t, pulling out the stem three or four times expends all the tuber’s energy, and it won’t come back. (Unless it’s a HUGE tuber, I suppose, and then it might take more times — but why would you miss a huge one? It’s usually only the tiny ones that escape your notice when you’re digging up tubers to eat.)

Now, I’m in an semi-arid climate. Maybe they’re harder to control in a climate that gets a lot of rain? But I dunno, it seems to me that a gardener who’s willing to take a hoe to a few little stems in the pathway every few weeks (or mow them) can easily control sunchoke spread, even if there’s lots of water. After all, tubers only form around late November through late December — there aren’t going to be new tubers forming and spreading out until November or December. Just keep hoeing the sprouts every few weeks, and the sprouts will stop coming.

Or, instead of hoeing, pluck them and carry them to the kitchen to eat. The tops are perfectly edible. When the leaves are old, they get sandpapery, but when they’re little, they’re soft and taste similar to the roots. So you can chop those up and cook them just like you would the roots. It’s a nice little bonus harvest to munch on in spring.

(Contrast this with bindweed, which you can pick one hundred times every summer, and it still keeps coming back vigorously the next day, even if it doesn’t get any water . . . :grimacing:)

Compared with bindweed roots or Siberian elm roots (which, unfortunately, I have in great abundance in my yard :sob:), sunchokes are no problem at all. They’re very easy to remove by hand or by hoeing, they never spread more than a foot or two away from the parent plant, and if you dig up the tuber that’s giving you sprouts you don’t want, that’s the end of it. They’re so easy to control, I don’t even consider them particularly weedy.

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I wish mine would behave a lot more weedy! In dry summer climates, they really don’t seem to spread much at all unless they’re irrigated well.

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Here is a link to the ruby sunchokes.. perhaps someone south of the border has a similar variety!

Id love to accumulate many varieties but it just hasn’t been my priority now that i have atleast one to grow in my garden.. better than nothing at all! It is so generous of you to share, all ya need is a little tuber to kickstart things! I do hope to try out some other varieties eventually. Sooner rather than later.

I love your words of encouragement towards the sunchokes. Seems like it is fairly straight forward to keep on top of things when it comes to growing out of control. I rather those take over then some of the other crazy weeds i gotta wrestle with!

I forgot that you could eat the greens too! Brilliant! Alre they easily digestible or is there any discomfort to be aware of?

Honestly, i think it is really beneficial to have a crop that has some weedy tendencies. That could very well become an extremely handy trait someday if/when challenging situations arise, including food shortages. Good to have in your back pocket or.. erm.. garden corner :wink:

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Yeah, I find sunchokes not that big a deal to control. You will get sprouts in places you didn’t expect or want them, but only near wherever you grew them last year. Just pull those out.

I’ve never had any problems eating the sunchoke greens, but I’ve also never have any problems with eating the tubers. (This is partly because I am wise enough in the ways of fiber to be aware that one should never overdo it with too many sunchokes if one hasn’t eaten them in awhile. Start with small portions and work up to larger ones over the course of a few weeks.)

The main thing to be aware of with sunchoke greens is that the pine-needle-y aftertaste is stronger than the tubers. Because of that, I prefer the tubers. The greens aren’t unpleasant or anything, though — just strong. Chop them up well and cook them with a strong-flavored sauce so they won’t be overpowering.

Yes, I completely agree about the desirability of a crop that has some weedy tendencies! I don’t want to grow something that may become a nuisance to my neighbors — which is a very strong argument for not growing anything thorny that has invasive tendencies — but if it’s something that looks nice and is tasty and isn’t a nuisance in any way except for being rather vigorous and good at spreading, I consider that vigor and ability to spread a wonderful bonus.

I also plant mint in the ground, rather than in a pot. If it grows where I don’t want it, I just poke down two inches, pull out the rhizomes, and remove all the leaves to dry and put into my kitchen. It’s not hard, and I’d MUCH rather have mint as a groundcover than bindweed, or any of our many native grasses that have thorns or burrs or other horrible bits. (Granted, in my semi-arid climate, a mint patch only spreads about one foot a year. Your mileage may vary if you water daily, or get lots of rain in the summer.)

It also boggles my mind when people clutch their pearls over thornless fruit bushes that have a suckering habit. If they’re thorny, sure, suckers can be a big deal because you don’t want to step on them. But if they’re thornless, just pull them out and plant them somewhere else, or give them away!

In one of his foraging books, Samuel Thayer talked about creeping bellflower and how people make a big hue and din about how impossible it is to eradicate it. He discovered that if you pull out the shoots to munch on every day for a week, you can easily eradicate the whole patch . . . to his disappointment.

I have come to the conclusion that when a plant is edible and something you enjoy eating, ease of spreading is a huge benefit. If you’re going to be regularly harvesting from that patch, you want something that regrows quickly enough that it is hard to accidentally eradicate it.

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I grew a patch of Joseph’s sunchokes last year in a cinderblock raised bed (in the hope of containing their spread). It looks like I have a few seedlings this spring, on the ground next to the bed, judging by their size relative to the mother patch. I didn’t make any effort to collect seeds last year, these seedlings are volunteers. I probably should move them somewhere else before they take over the entire area… they very much can do that. Something i appreciate where space allows, but where i have them i want to keep them confined to the bed.

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Last year I planted 13 little tubers I got from Joseph. All survived and thrived. This is what the bed looks like today… the tallest ones are head-high now.

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Here are some photos of seedlings on the ground below:

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There are quite a few seedlings and i expect they are likely to fill out rapidly like the mother plants. I’m considering moving them out to somewhere with more room to spread…

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Wow! My beds are never even close to that tightly packed. I dig mine up every season to eat them, and then replant a representative sample of the biggest ones about a foot apart from each other. It’s neat to know that they CAN be that thickly clumped together and still do well! Do you need to water them a great deal? (I usually water mine every two weeks or so, so I’m wondering if I could get a lot more in the same space and still keep my stingy watering regimen. :winking_face_with_tongue:)