Root crops that can be left in the ground and harvested as needed thru the winter.

I'm looking for root crops that can be left in the ground and harvested as needed thru the winter.So far I've found one,I think,Jerusalem Artichokes.

Mulch deep and cover to keep water from getting into the ground and you can leave many root crops in the ground carrots and parsnips actually seem to get sweeter after a bit of cold.

I don't know your climate well, so maybe my ideas won't work by you. Here in Maine we can't harvest during the winter, with the ground frozen hard as a rock, but lots of folks leave parsnips in the ground, and "spring-dug" parsnips are said to be sweeter after a winter in the ground. I would think that you could leave carrots in the ground as well (you may want to mulch over them if the shoulders of the root are exposed). Other similar root crops would also probably work fine - horseradish, etc. Maybe potatoes, as long as it didn't get warm enough for them to start sprouting. Wild foods like dandelion and burdock would likely work as well.

Again, things might be different in your neck of the woods. I don't know what a series of freezing and thawing might do to roots still in the ground - maybe they'd be fine, maybe not. Hopefully someone from your area will chime in. Or, you could simply experiment with this next year in your garden and see what happens - leave a few roots in the ground and test them over the course of a winter.

Where you are, everything. That's the nice thing about living in zones 8 and 9, the vegetable garden doubles as root cellar.

I hear Sun Chokes(aka Jerusalem Artichokes) are a food source that stores better in the ground than out.

Also, the plant feeds and attracts the insects with it's flowers(sunflower cousin)... and provides all of that plant matter for either animal food/compost/etc.

They are perennial too!

I am growing myself some in a container next year... as I hear they are almost impossible to get rid of once you plant them somewhere.

Marty Mitchell wrote:
Jerusalem Artichokes
I am growing myself some in a container next year... as I hear they are almost impossible to get rid of once you plant them somewhere.

They need the right conditions to be able to come back. The southeast wall of my shed apparently doesn't get enough sun, because they didn't come back the following year. However, out along the fence, bordering the neighbor's open field, they did all right. I say "all right" because while they resprouted the following year, they were in no way invasive or any threat of taking over. But then again, that area was 6" of very compacted dirt on top of heavy, heavy clay. I suppose to get a really good crop, I would have to till or loosen up the soil, and then they would really thrive.

Not exactly a root crop, but I just have to share-

I harvested a red cabbage yesterday. January 21st! It just hung out in the garden, endured sub zero nights, and was still in great condition when I harvested it yesterday. I never would have thought it possible, but I had so much cabbage in the fall that it just got left behind, and then I decided to leave it a bit longer as an experiment. Success!

John Elliott wrote:

Marty Mitchell wrote:
Jerusalem Artichokes
I am growing myself some in a container next year... as I hear they are almost impossible to get rid of once you plant them somewhere.

They need the right conditions to be able to come back. The southeast wall of my shed apparently doesn't get enough sun, because they didn't come back the following year. However, out along the fence, bordering the neighbor's open field, they did all right. I say "all right" because while they resprouted the following year, they were in no way invasive or any threat of taking over. But then again, that area was 6" of very compacted dirt on top of heavy, heavy clay. I suppose to get a really good crop, I would have to till or loosen up the soil, and then they would really thrive.

That totally makes sense that they would need the right conditions to become an aggressive species. Since they are Native; they can't be considered "invasive" in my book anyways.

I live in a suburb... that used to be a growing field(classic). My yard is also an armored plate of clay that was brought in to "grade for proper drainage". I did discover I have some awesome topsoil about 3 feet down while digging a hole a while back.

I have read that the tubers will bulk up if they are hitting against something while growing. So if you were to grow sun chokes in a container... make sure it is plastic as they will almost bust through it. Supposedly that is how they compete with neighboring plants. Not just by growing tall and taking sun... but by swelling up their root tubers and choking the other plants nearby. I only heard this and have not experienced it yet. I will look for this post next fall and report back if I remember to.

Adam Klaus wrote:Not exactly a root crop, but I just have to share-

I harvested a red cabbage yesterday. January 21st! It just hung out in the garden, endured sub zero nights, and was still in great condition when I harvested it yesterday. I never would have thought it possible, but I had so much cabbage in the fall that it just got left behind, and then I decided to leave it a bit longer as an experiment. Success!

That cabbage sounds like a tough plant. I wonder if it is going to be super sweet for you too... since brassicas typically pump sugar into their foliage to protect themselves from colder temps below 40deg F.

There are others too like carrots, parsnips and beets. There are limits however and there may be a point of diminishing return if "left in the ground all year round". With winter upon us here in the northern hemisphere, this is prime time for storing root vegetables right where they grew, though some things may not tolerate a hard freeze. Winter in my area tends to mean a lot of cold rain, instead of insulating snow, and the soils here can get soggy and result in rotting of root vegetables left in the ground.

Horseradish and maybe, just maybe, comfrey if you call it as a crop.
Depending on the climate, garlic can grow wild and even though quality and which part of the plant would differ, it would be avaible year long.
Sweet potatoes and many other plants (like ginger and tumeric) comes to mind for tropics.

Having comfery listed reminded me of Oregon Grape (which isn't a grape at all, it's Mahonia aquifolium). The plant is closely related to goldenseal, and it a powerful antibiotic/antifungal. It's an evergreen plant and so it should be easy to locate the root all year round. There might be better times to harvest it due to roots often storing more nutrients/sugars/chemicals in their roots at certain times of the year, but it should be harvest-able all year round.

hi
I want to say garlic.  here in Canada some people plant it in the fall and harvest it in  the spring, but some people also grow it through-out the summer I guess?  I'm not sure but I think garlic counts as a cold hearty root crop.

In Missouri, garlic, potato onions, walking onions, and bunching onions. Sometimes missed potatoes will come up in Spring.

Depending on weather, daikon radish

All depends on your climate. In wetter and warmer areas it seems that if you don't pull your crop out of many plants that will over winter other places they will sprout anew in what might be called the winter.

In milder climates I think yacon would qualify. If you include marshy spots there's cattail (raupo) and arrowroot.

You can keep things like carrots in the ground through the winter, using mulch to protect them from freezing (use deep mulch if you have cold winters).  However, varmints may find the stored roots and help themselves -- mice and other rodents will tunnel around under the snow.  And if the tops of the roots freeze, you may still have some usable carrot under the mushy frozen part, but you'll have to do some digging to get it out of the ground.

Daylilies have edible tubers and can be left in the ground until you want them.

Camas is another flower with an edible bulb. So is the dahlia (you can leave them in the ground in milder climates).

I leave many of these in the ground until I need them the only downside is voles who are also big fans of this approach

David