Perennial Food Garden Series - Sunchokes

A perennial garden of fruits, vegetables, and herbs is one of the best ways to insure that no matter what happens to your income because of the stock market or job lay-offs, you will have good food to eat that is free and will multiple rather than diminish as years go by.

One of the best perennial food plants to start in your garden is sunchokes (also known as Jerusalem artichokes). While some perennial food plantings such as asparagus, raspberries, or fruit trees take years to establish themselves as big food suppliers in your garden, this edible will be prolific in one season. And unlike annuals, once established you never have to purchase or plant sunchokes again.

Sunchokes are tubers like potatoes that can be planted in the spring or fall. They can be used like potatoes in cooking. So versatile, you can boil, fry, sauté, or bake sunchokes to eat as a side dish, or cook them in soups, stews, and sauces. Fresh sunchokes can be used uncooked as crunchy accents much like radishes, cucumbers, and chestnuts for salads and hors d'oeuvres. But unlike potatoes, radishes or cucumbers, which are annuals, sunchokes are perennials that keep re-sprouting and multiplying year after year.

Sunchokes can be purchased by the pound through commercial seed and plant companies on-line or at nurseries that sell plants and seeds. Most commercial growers will only dig the tubers in the fall, and shipments will arrive for fall planting, but it is possible to find suppliers who will dig tubers in the spring before they start growing and will ship to you. Prices decrease as the quantity you buy increases, but sunchoke prices from commercial growers can range from $7 to $18 per pound depending on quantity purchased. There are different varieties with variations in size of plants, tubers, and flowers, but all are prolific growers.

Once planted, the tubers grow rapidly and are mature in three months. Sunchoke tubers produce leafy bamboo-like stalks and sunflower-like flowers. At the peak of their growing season, sunchokes can grow to heights of more than 10 feet.

The sunchoke tubers can be dug up at intervals, but it is best to harvest at the end of the summer and in early fall before the ground freezes. Quantities of sunchokes can be preserved by keeping them fresh in the refrigerator, freezing them whole, or cooking them in dishes such as soups and stews that can be frozen. Sunchokes can also be sliced and pickled like cucumbers.

Nutritionally, sunchokes are winners. According to a label on Melissa's Sunflower Chokes distributed by World Variety Produce, Inc., a half-cup serving is only 70 calories and contains 0% of the Daily Values for fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sugars, and sodium. The sunchokes supple 5% carbohydrates, 3% fiber, 6% Vitamin C, and 15% calcium. The Nutrition Facts Daily Values are based on a 2,000-calorie diet.

Sunchokes are aggressive growers that will expand in their plot on their own, but they can also take over large areas if not controlled. The tubers send runners underground that will sprout and grow. You can control the growth by mowing the unwanted sprouts with a lawnmower.

If you find that your production of sunchokes far exceeds your consumption, you can leave them in the ground and they will take care of themselves, or you can become a commercial supplier. One of the best outlets for a home-grower is the local community co-operative, which will buy your extra sunchokes. If you do not use chemicals, you can have your plots organically certified, making your crops even more valuable.

Sunchokes also make attractive privacy hedges in your landscaping plan and are great as windbreaks in the garden. They can also serve as a fence-line for your garden. You can keep lengthening and widening your rows and in a couple of years you will have a hedge four feet wide and 50-feet long from only a couple of pounds of initial tuber plantings.

Once started, sunchokes are also extremely easy to transplant and can be dug up to expand more plots around the garden or given to friends to start their own plots. They are hardy survivors of almost any type of weather, soil, and insects and require little care other than water.

And as an added bonus, you will have masses of fresh yellow flowers in late summer!

The Perennial Food Garden Series highlights fruits, vegetables, and herbs that are easily grown, mature rapidly, are prolific in production, versatile in recipes, and return year after year. The series highlights the top perennials to create a perfect food garden that is economical to start and easy to maintain.