Maximizing area production with sunchokes as the main crop

Hello, I'm new here.  I'm a bit of an oddball in my location (zone 7a) and I just want to talk to others that think more like me.  I started eating lots of food around my area; started with blackberries and raspberries then moved to dandelion, chicory, plantain, dock, and whatever else.  Last year I told everyone I wanted to be able to mostly feed myself in 3 years.  From gardeners I got odd looks and most others had no clue about this challenge lol.  I thought greens and nutrition would be the challenge but quickly realized calories were the bigger issue.  This showed how ignorant I was as an American where calories are so easy to get but nutrition is debatable.  I grew about $70 of sunchokes and they have produced so much I won't have to buy any more next year besides a different type (skorospelka) or two (any suggestions and good places to buy from?).  I wanted to know if anyone had grown scarlet runner beans (perennial) in zone 7a and alongside sunchokes?  And I heard peanuts do well with them but will they attract pests or bring disease?  And is there a good ground cover that can survive in a sunchoke thicket?  I have some plans for the perimeter but I'll take any suggestions since I'm new to sunchokes.  I want to produce as much food in the least amount of area as possible in one area (about ten square yards) so I'm willing to fail and cut my losses.

Welcome to Permies, Benjamin!

What a great endeavor. I have a few links that might help you decide what to do. And experiences...

First, runner beans have never been perennial for me in zone 8a, so I'm thinking they won't in zone 7.  There is a theory that you can dig the roots and replant them in spring - I haven't heard anyone pull it off, but maybe someone will pipe up.  They are delicious and lovely plants, though.  I just finished cooking the last fresh ones we harvested before the first hard frost.  Mmm. We had them in a type of Mexican stew with tortillas.

In my experience though, the larger types of runner beans would completely overtake Jerusalem artichokes.  I wouldn't put those two together, myself. When I grow full runners, they need a sturdy trellis.  Also, it would be hard to harvest your runner beans if they were woven among a thick patch of sunchokes.  Runner beans have a fairly tight window of tastiness, in my opinion. It would be easy to miss the majority if they weren't on a trellis.

Now you don't really need a perennial interplanted with a tuber crop, because you'll be digging the tuber.  So maybe consider some annual options if you want to try a bean/sunchoke polyculture?

Here is a great thread linked below about the recent kickstarter and the penny vote that accompanied it.  In the first post, main staple food crops are listed with the amount of calories they provide per acre.  It might surprise you to find out that potatoes produce more than sunchokes!  

In my experience with trying to develop a home-based diet, it's the most pleasant to grow the things that are
1. tastiest to you
2. easiest to store
3. grow very easily in your area.  I leave sunchokes in the ground here because they have such short storage compared to potatoes.  But that means loss to animals.

How many calories per/acre do common staple crops provide? Read here to find out! https://permies.com/w/penny-vote

You also may want to check out one of my favorite threads. Best Crops for a Survival Garden?

In that thread, people from all over post their zone, region, and their best survival crops.  I posted my list for zone 8 in wet western Oregon, and then later posted my list for zone 8 in the dry, very hot and somewhat cold desert SW - and the two lists are quite different.  That is such an educational thread. I love reading everyone's experiences.

And this is a fantastic video you might enjoy just for seeing the potential of even a small garden.  It's very inspiring and has some answers that I've found helpful when people ask me things like "Is it really worth all your effort in growing food when you can just buy X at the market?"



Keep us posted with your progress!

Have you had good success with sunchokes so far? I ask, because despite all the warnings not to plant them because they're Invasive (in this case meaning they expand aggressively), I've had very minimal success growing them. They disappeared completely in three years in central NJ and I haven't quite lost them all here in SW MI, but after planting many pounds of tubers, I have perhaps six plants left after 3-4 years. In other words, if you have good experience at your site with them, great, but if you're relying on their reputation, test it ;)

One of permaculture's guiding principles is diversity, and for good reason. If you rely on one crop for your caloric production and it fails? Variety, redundancy, efficient, dense planting of compatible crops. As was mentioned, putting other perennials in with a root crop is an incompatible combination. There are often exceptions to rules, and I might consider planting Turkish Rocket with sunchokes, because TR is notorious for reproducing from root fragments, so if you bust up the TR harvesting sunchoke tubers, you might just be increasing your TR population. OTOH, it might not do well with all the shade from the sunchokes. Something else with sunchokes, they are allelopathic, so you might have some additional challenges finding things that will grow with them.

There's a lot of number crunching involved in trying to come up with a garden design that actually feeds a human year round in a cold climate. Incorporating animals helps, but brings its own complications. Greens are probably the easiest part, certainly in the warm season. Winter greens with a hoop house are still pretty doable. Enough carbohydrates, fats and oils are a challenge. A variety that supports health and keeps you interested in your diet and not just surviving on it is advisable, and again challenging.

Storage for the unproductive/less productive seasons. It's not just having the means and knowledge to store the food, but the space for storing it and the time for preparing it.

Don't get me wrong, I like sunchokes and I'm going to keep trying to get them to grow for me. I know in my location I can't rely on them as a main starch crop, and I'm uncertain about the advisability of relying on them as a main calorie crop even where they grow well, because of the challenges with regard to compatibility with other plants.

You might be able to grow spring peas in a sunchoke patch.
I find the stalks overwinter, so maybe they can provide support.
The foilage hangs on pretty late into the fall.

Interesting about the runner beans, maybe I'll try them in containers and overwinter them like peppers.

I have not tried growing sunchokes.  When we lived in the Piney Woods of East Texas there was a plant that grew wild that I thought were sunchokes when ID'd the plant.  From reading the Forums maybe I was wrong?

Also from reading the Forums I wonder if it is possible to "Maximizing area production with sunchokes as the main crop".

It seems that eating a lot of them may be problematic due to both taste and gas.  That is why I have not tried to grow them as I have never tasted one.

Is it really possible to "Maximizing area production with sunchokes as the main crop"?

I tried to cut this down but it is .  I wanted to give more info.  Thanks so much for posting.  In essence; this was my grandparents then parents home and they gardened; 2 acres but 1+ is woods but they've had 5 different garden areas so I can experiment.  I've composted leaves for years for family/neighbor kids to play in which has help me have even more good soil and I'm cutting back some forest which has much better soil than I thought.  So I have a regular garden (zucchini, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, etc; I love salsa lol).  but I have plenty of smaller ones I like to experiment (and I fail plenty lol) such as square foot gardening, normal companion planting, 'this is crazy and you're sure to fail' companion planting, and new things like sunchokes.  I also have trees- apples, walnuts, cherry; I've planted 6 figs, 2 plums, 2 hazelnuts, a persimmon, 2 pears, 2 more apples, 2 peaches but most were done this year so I've only 1 fig and the 2 peaches produce.  I also want to try different potato varieties and even clay types so I do have variety; this conversation has drove that point home that the sunchokes have a reputation I love but I need to make sure they work well here.  Also, the Irish Potato Famine is also why I want to try more varieties for sunchokes, potatoes, sweet potatoes and so on.

Anne- I cook meals to show them if they would work; even picky people have loved these, basically just replace them in potato recipes- mash 'potatoes', chinese dish replacing potatoes, french fries, 'potato' casserole have all gone over excellently- and they say if you cook them in a certain way or ferment them then gas isn't a problem; no one has complained and I warned them lol.  I can eat them raw and am fine but beans never bothered me either).  It is anecdotal but it has gone over far better than I expected.  Some are pure fast and process junk food eaters.  IDK if you can maximize area production but paraphrasing what I've heard, each failure is just one way to succeed in knowing what not to do lol.  

("The Two Perennial Crops You Should Grow in Your Home Garden") Now, this guy grows Scarlet Runners and Sunchoke together and they seem to do well but I always like a person I can talk to and ask so I know if I'm walking into something bigger or harder than I expected.  Scarlet runners are supposed to be perennials in my zone that die down in frost but come back in spring, I have no experience with them though.   You make a good point so I will try this in a small 'garden' of sunchokes of about 4x4 with a small number of scarlet beans around one perimeter side (sunny side) and perhaps try the TR Peter mentioned in-between that so the runners will hopefully crawl through the greens and reach the chokes and climb. and So the the sunchokes can spread and I can dig them up too (idea was to dig up alternate plants to keep some in the ground to expand but if it fails in a small area then no big deal) and if the two fail together then I'll try to trellis them or just cut them and hopefully move them.  I will try the annuals too such as the spring peas William mentioned could be a winner.  I used to hate how much land I had to mow and for the first time in over 30 years, I'm so grateful and want even more land.  I guess this is what people call wisdom lol.  

Peter- Sunchokes did amazing this first year and surprised many long time farmers in how much they produced and only 1 had ever heard of them; I offered them some to plant next year and some will try it.  I'm testing it right now and hoping.   The TR is my type of plant so I'll have to grow them (as I say above some with the sunchokes and maybe some in a safe area or pot where they can't take over.  Last winter I ate dandelion, dock and other hardy greens but I'm trying to remember how they did in January and February when it stays frost since we almost always seem to have a warmish week in December (I remember because I rode a motorcycle and would dress up well and ride).  Great point, next year I'll have more knowledge and see where they fit as a calorie crop for my location and me.

Kim- that video was great and one reason I started gardening seriously and have tried to get people to try at least small ones (why I tried sunchokes due to how easy I heard they were for people who are afraid they can't garden). It was a bit depressing since I knew some costs that are hidden and things like nitrogen causing the dead zone in the Gulf Coast and something like 75% of it gets into our rainwater but not the millions upon millions for one facility.  I store the usual in my basement like potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, huge and huge/hardened zucchini for next year seeds (I thought about building a root cellar but I am afraid of it falling in on me; I've worked on houses some but I know nothing about building this) AND that is why sunchokes appealed to me- the ground can store the sunchokes for me.  Some will be gone but in one area my neighbor has about 10 unleashed dogs that I like which should keep them a little safer.  I was about to post that the penny vote says sunchokes produce more but is 15M vs potato's 17M but you had a post about it LOL,  Either way it works but I like sunchokes (in some areas) due to being perennial, disease and pest resistance (neighbor had many issues with this but I haven't), not having to hill and the stalks for biomass/compost plus the leaves and flowers for teas which Native Americans apparently did. I planted two hazelnut trees this year and maybe I should get more of them due to how popular they are.  

Joseph Lofthouse, who is very active on here, has lots of experience with sunchokes including breeding varieties for his own area. He can probably give you a realistic indication of how much production you can expect, and how much work it will take.

You might search permies for his name and sunchokes/jerusalem artichokes

Michael Cox wrote:You might search permies for his name and sunchokes/jerusalem artichokes

I agree, but I wanted to point out that he tends to call them sunroots, so consider that in your search terms.

This is my post about my experience with the sunchokes so far.  Long story short, I highly recommend them, they are my favorite plant.  I give more details on why below but my quick reasons: little work, no watering here, very productive, potato taste, aggressive (aka invasive) so even less work, perennial, compost, pest and diseases aren't issues like with many plants AND no gas (maybe I'm just lucky) but I left mine in until after a couple of frosts or more and we mostly cooked them in some fashion and no one reported any gas issues.  Some might've just been polite but quite a few I know would've let me know one way or another lol.

PICTURES of a sunchoke patch with a few scarlet runner beans climbing it.  I have about 20 beans climbing the sunchoke edges and none inside and most are doing great.  In contrast, I made trellises out of trees that had fallen down and had about 30 plants doing amazing but a week of vacation and miners (it seemed to me) had done their work and they were through.  But the ones I companion planted are very good, anecdotal but there you go.

I bought about $50 of sunchokes last year and gave quite a few away to try the sunchoke revolution but it didn't catch on completely....yet lol.  In any case, I counted almost 500 plants this year and quite a few were full tubers since some recommend that with potatoes (Paul Gautschi, Back to Eden).  But Cultivariable says he sees no difference from full sunchokes or 2 inch slices.  I tried many different things.  This patch is all the same sunchoke type and in very similar soil and other conditions but one side is huge and the other side is a few feet smaller.  There is a blackberry patch to the left but also some big trees so they get a bit more shade so maybe that's it.  I also have a patch doing well (7 feet ish) that are surrounded by huge trees (30 feet or more) so it really only gets lunch/afternoon sun so we'll see if the tubers are greatly effected by this since I've read the size of the plants affect the tuber size.

Spacing for plants were generally based on Mr. Lofthouse's recommendations.  They've been almost no work: no weeding, no watering.  We get a good amount of rain but we had about a week and a half in high heat drought (85-95 so not desert hot but hot here) and I only watered the ones I have in a big tub.  I even left all of them in the ground during the winter which was a leap of faith that scared me a lot.  I kept checking every day in Feb or March hoping to see one and then was checking every day to see if any more had come up.  It was slow so I knew I had messed up and most of them were dead or ate but they kept coming and coming until most popped up.  I experimented with the soil also with some in hard clay which mostly did great (7-10ft in general) and I plan to compost them there to build the soil and grab the easy tubers and let the rest come back next year.  I've grown some in woodchips.  Some in part of an old garden (the ones in the pictures).  Some in land I cleared of trees or wild blackberry/raspberry/etc brush.  Some of them was just in a grassland and I just dug a small hole just big enough for them to fit, trying to keep the soil as untouched as possible, then dropped it in and covered it with a little dirt and they've done as good as the ones in tilled land.  IDK if the tubers will do as well so we'll see.  They were planted thick so I wasn't worried about weeds which they've shaded out of existence.

I plan on buying some more from Cultivariable (I love the Chinese one due to size and uniform shape).  I've heard mostly good things from them.  If Mr. Lofthouse offers his I'll have to get some of those but I know he said he didn't like to dig them up or something like that.  I also plan on trying more experiments next year.  The hog peanut and sunchoke one.  I've read from some that tried Chinese artichokes (Mortal Tree, etc) that they didn't do well.  I was going to get Florida Betony (native so some say 'aggressive' instead of invasive).  But I thought about planting some around the sunchokes and if they grow together that's great but if the sunchokes keeps them out of their spot I'm still happy.  And if the betony spreads then I'll be happy to have them since I'll have a specific area that this would be a good thing.  Some suggest Apios Americana but I heard these didn't do well for some and I plan of getting the LSU ones so I don't want to risk them.  I even thought hardy yam/cinnamon vine might work in some way since it is a vine but I've never grown it so maybe that is an experiment a few years from now.

When the sunchokes get going, nothing much grows between them, they make a really tight patch for us. But if you let them get tall they can support vines, we had morning glories crawling up ours.

We are using ours and roadside patches for rabbit forage this year, it's tradition to harvest the roots once foliage dies back, around November or December in South Korea (zone 7). Then the roots are supposed to be sweeter or more full of nutrients. There's a neighborhood guy making some kind of jelly from the sunchokes fiber, I can try to look for that recipe in you're interested.

You can try to plant a pole bean, but you'll need a late variety because it takes a while for the sunchokes to wake up and get tall, so only the September blooming morning glory climbs ours. They handle a fair bit of soil disturbing, so you might consider planting garlic and onions that overwinter and are harvested in the spring before the sunchokes get going. That might be a good routine. Ours grew next to the onions and garlic we planted and didn't seem to be affected by it. But then you might have to harvest them too early at the time you're planning the onion and garlic bulbs.....

Honestly I find the sunchokes to be a poor substitute for potatoes, which seem to grow more bountiful anyways. But the leaves are very nutritious and edible, opposite from poisonous potatoes, so I suppose they are a more useful plant.

What's the name of the variety that is blooming already? They are likely to have tubers filling up faster than the late bloomers. Last year we had an early frost and killed off most sunchokes that just finished flowering and the tuber yield was much lower than normal. Having an early variety would ensure harvest in a bad year.

K Kat wrote:There's a neighborhood guy making some kind of jelly from the sunchokes fiber, I can try to look for that recipe in you're interested.

Yes, please!

Those are stampedes.  I have 5 for diversity and want Cultivariable's Chinese and perhaps their dwarf ones.  I have a brown one whose type I don't know; stampedes, clearwater, beaver valley purple variety and hardy red fuseau.  I'm trying to get seeds from stampedes and the fuseau since Cultivariable says it is possible (both are blooming so hopefully my hardy red fuseau works).  I've started hand pollinating to help the odds which I've never done before.  I babysit a 3 year old and she loved 'painting' the flowers.  She was gentle at first but started waving it around quite aggressively near the end.  But here's hoping.

K Kat the jam recipe sounds great.  Sweet tooths run in our family.  I personally disagree (for my location, long-term plans, etc) about the potatoes which I've grown on and off for 20 years (I wasn't a serious gardener) but quite heavily the last 3.  My family is very potato centric since it is about the only veggie some will eat (I'm only half joking) but loved the sunchokes replacing them in recipes (some we didn't tell and they had no clue we replaced anything lol).  Mash potatoes was the only one whose difference was obvious due to a texture thing.  Maybe that was just an error in cooking that needs adjusting.  We'll try that again this year just to be sure.  I have found them to be as productive as potatoes or more so but without the specter of pests and disease which leads to soil rotation while sunchokes research shows it improves the soil each year.  but mine have done especially better in part shade and in clay and the stalks are chopped and dropped which is supposed to change clay soil a lot over time.  I know potatoes aren't generally a clay crop (I don't have the supposed clay varieties) but I had a lot of store potatoes sprouting so I considered there was nothing to lose.  I've learnt it was a bit dumb to use the store potatoes due to diseases which they can leave in the ground for years.  I'm hoping this doesn't happen and if so the sunchokes replacing some of those spots won't get them.

The scarlet runner beans that worked and were in the pics running up them were planted late following the three/four sisters model.  Let the sunchokes get about knee high and it worked mostly but a few of the beans were still too fast but it still worked out mostly since they just went from one sunchoke plant to another which was fascinating to me.  I plan on trying again next year and try to time it better and keep up with when/how/etc.  I never had beans grow so I didn't expect anything.  In fact, I haven't taken a picture personally in 17 years so I'm not the best but I want to keep up with my experiments a bit more.

I'm still going to grow potatoes for a harvest before the sunchokes come in but depending on how much food I get this winter from my sunchokes will determine how much I replace my potato areas (all the clayish areas I'm going to replace for sure.  NCSU.EDU says florida betony can grow in clay so I'll try them and perhaps a couple of other things).  I'm trying seeds next year due to this post on here (https://permies.com/t/173812/permaculture/Benefits-growing-potatoes-true-seed).  Then that got me into Luther Burbank and how he found the russet potato just by a stroke of luck from planting potato seeds.  But I'm trying some camas, day lilies and other things because of him.  

Well, I found that product the guy was making, and it's mostly a pureed bean candy with only liquid extract of the sunchokes for inulin fibre. Since it doesn't use the tuber in its whole form it's probably not the best use of it. They are also being sliced and dried and used as a diet tea, probably also not what you want to do.

I did see a recipe for slicing, blanching, and half drying, then rolling them in sugar to make a kind of sweet snack. Not sure how the taste would be, but that was interesting. Another popular recipe is a sweet soy sauce sunchoke condiment, it keeps well in the fridge.

Don't forget about the leaves though, young leaves can be blanched and seasoned with spiced garlic oil and it makes a great vegetable side (similar to spinach). In the heat of the summer it's a great replacement for spinach greens.

How are you storing your sunchokes and how long do they last? I also have a lot of trouble keeping potatoes from sprouting prematurely. We only grew potatoes because it was something to do with all the sprouted potatoes that we couldn't eat. I don't keep them near my onions anymore, but still haven't found the secret.

I always intend to write a short post but here we go again lol.  I swear I don't talk much in normal life.  

STORING:  I hope this helps you and if you have any other questions I'll try to answer them.  I'm not the best with typing things out. This might be my favorite thing about these plants in my zone 7a/6b: if you have a winter then just store them in the ground which worked perfect.  It makes it so much easier and saves so much space which I really needed and for me, I don't have to worry if I left any since I'll just have volunteers the next year.  This is perfect for me and others I know that want the benefit of gardening but not the extra work and if you are never in a rush to get the harvest because you can just get it in winter, spring or the next fall/winter.  They say these don't store as well as potatoes.  We usually have December and even January days/week where it warms up enough to dig up more sunchokes which I did this year.  February just sucks.  Sometime in March they started sprouting up but many waited until April.  I was amazed they survived all that cold but then I was scared the cold and frosts that kills my peaches would get the greens and maybe kill the plant; no problem at all.  The cold got so bad this year they killed my figs ranging from 3 to 10 years old but no issue for the tubers (one day was 6F but a wind factor was about -16F I think which is the coldest I ever remember here).  I was disappointed but I took it as more space for all my different plants I'm trying.  

I've kept potatoes in a cold basement (it stays 40-50 in winter) and in the dark which delays them long enough for me and I keep sweet potatoes in a closet (70 degrees).  This year I experimented with lots of store sprouted potatoes.  I planted in January, February, March and April.  Surprisingly, they all grew but frost killed the greens off some but others died (January planting) but some I covered with woodchips and leaves and some I didn't just to see.  None of the March/April ones died completely.  You could try it but that is very risky.  I just had so many that people gave me that a few that didn't make it was worth experimenting with.

Pureed bean candy sounds great if they are actual beans.  I wouldn't use the sunchoke like that personally.  I love beans since they are so healthy.  I make them in many ways including desserts and sweets which are mostly nothing more than fruit now; I'm eating an apple or two or three with each meal since we have so many and we are giving them away too....how well does that keep the doctor away.  I'm making apple cider vinegar in gallons and I'm trying some alcohol just to mess around.  

I'll try the sweet snack since my family loves sweets and I really want to try some interesting things at family dinners.  If this different recipes go well there then I might be able to market these to make a little extra money and become a real full-time farmer.  If not then I'll grow them for myself.

The sweet soy sauce sunchoke condiment sounds awesome.  Is sunchoke a big component?  I looked up recipes but couldn't find anything so I assume just make sweet soy sauce and add a sunchoke or two.

LEAVES: I've used the leaves and flowers in teas a few times like the Natives apparently did but I've rarely ate them and they weren't bad like some say but they were younger.  I might try the tubers in tea and then eat the tuber afterwards.  I have found that most people like many types of tea as long as you add tons of sugar in it lol.  But the spinach replacement is perfect because I always want plants that provide as much as possible.  I'm going away from annual greens to shrubs, trees, etc so this fits me well.  I do grow amaranth for the 'cereal' which also has spinach like leaves and next year I'm trying purple hull-less barley since some recommended it on this site and those leaves are very nutritious apparently.

Why write short posts when you could be thorough and describe in detail!

I'll follow your suggestion and store my sunchokes in the ground, I prefer lazy methods anyways.

I'll work on translating some recipes for you to try. I found a giant sack of mung beans in the back of my mum's cupboard and I might try making Chinese bean desserts with some. I like the sweet bean desserts, they are less sweet usually and have healthy fiber and nutrients.

When I started farming I imagined I'd be succession planting lettuce to eat all summer in pretty rows. But I'm far too lazy and 9/12 months there's something green to forage to eat, and that seems to be my style. It turns out that called seasonal eating and it's also really good for you, haha. Now I look forward to having Shepard's purse greens in the early spring, and hot weather spinach alternatives, and radish leaves in the fall. If you grow pepper plants, the leaves you're supposed to thin out are very tender and better than spinach. Mulberry leaves are also supposed to be edible and on my list to try. Still waiting to try hostas shoots, couldn't find a big enough patch this spring. If you have foraging suggestions share them, I'd love to try!

Cider sounds delicious, we don't have apples but we make our own beer here.

I'm sorry to hear about your figs, I have one and was thinking of training it to grow real low, step over style, to cover it well for the winter. But it's in a pot still now because we have to move yet. How big were your figs?

I planted amaranth for the first time this year, haven't decided what I should do with it. Do you make a hot cereal from it?

Thank you, I appreciate the effort.  I tell people beans are more versatile than they're treated around my area.  If I eat sweets I definitely try to get some health in there in hopes of counteracting some of the bad.  Fiber to slow the sugar rush, nutrients and antioxidants to counter sugar's inflammation.  I've been making quite a few with zucchini since I have a lot.  Zucchini chocolate cake, zucchini mock apple pie before our apples came in, zucchini banana bread.....and quite a few others and they are generally well liked.  Some aren't but the only complaint is that it isn't sweet enough instead of it being bad.  On one I just put some icing on top and that fixed the problem lol.  

I forgot to add but I heard sunchokes can have issues with voles if left in the ground.  IDK if that is likely for you or not but I wanted to warn you because I'd hate for you to lose them due to that.  I don't kill snakes and let them roam but I know all the poisonous ones in my area has rattles which I've never encountered and our neighborhood cats help with voles.   Some call it lazy gardening but I like to term it smart gardening or perhaps something snazzier like CEO gardening.  I'm over the total picture but the underlings do most of the work lol.  

Amaranth (mine is red garnet) works as a cereal/porridge, some soups work.  Last year was my first try so I didn't have enough plants to save seed and eat a lot of things too.  I also wasted a couple of heads since they said they'd reseed  but apparently not here.  Lesson learnt.  I saved two tops of seeds to replant in different spots to experiment again with spacing, clay, shading, companion planting, wood chips vs normal ground and whatever else.  Most of the seeds I didn't dig at all (no til); I just moved the woodchips that drowned down the weeds and threw the seeds on top of the ground.  I would say about 3/4ths did great like this but they struggled in hard clay.  Very pretty, I've had quite a few people stop by praising the look and asking what it is and where to get some seed.  

FORAGING: I hope you meant you like more detail since this feels like a bit too much.  Most of these are like any green, if you get older and bigger leaves they are stronger and tougher but most of the younger leaves are fine.  I'm not good in a forest either but I would like to be able to go into fields or the woods and survive just on foraging like some people do.  Some taste fine but others are for health.  Here are the ones off the top of my head- chickweed, daisies (these are horrible tasting by themselves, perhaps the worst thing on here), black cherries, persimmons, purslane, flax seeds (never tried the flowers), roses leaves and flowers (wild and domesticated), Sassafras leaves, wild blackberry and wild raspberry leaves, hack/sugarberry leaves, dandelions and plantains (pretty much any part but I don't like how they taste but I'll eat them in colder months when nothing else is there; apparently they did a study in the USA showing that these two were superfoods and great for overall health, IDK), maple leaves and seeds sometimes (they say Natives drank the fresh sap and you can eat the inner bark but I've not ventured into that yet lol).  I've even ate some thistle (some are edible and others aren't) when they're very young and I'd roll it around in my hands until it was soft and had no obvious spines and then check with my tongue to be sure; needless to say I don't generally eat these but I like to see people's reaction.  I like grape leaves as wraps and the such (Mediterranean).  You might like growing things like kale trees; I want collard trees but the cold will probably kill them.  People talk like one of these trees/shrubs provide more than enough greens for an entire neighborhood.  This year I'm also trying day lilies bulbs and I'm transplanting them in hopes of creating an edible flower garden.  It'll start small and I'll try to build a sort of hedge with it or fail miserably lol.  Why just have beauty when you can have beauty and calories and nutrition?  
Burdock is gobo in Japan and is cultivated if you have any of that; 1st year root.  I thought about trying bull thistle root which is similar I guess.  I never heard about mulberry leaves and I even have one.  I went looking for apios americana and cinnamon vine/hardy yam for hours the other day and even talked to the park's managers in hopes they knew of any but they didn't.  I found wild yam but that is more medicinal.  Some research has shown hardy yam to be the most productive calorie food possible (due to vining bulbils and a tuber that can get 1 meter long and it goes straight down into the ground; one said it tasted better than potato but not as good as a sweet potato but I haven't tried it).  I really want that and skirret in my garden and I have seeds of both which I hope work.

FIGS: something kept eating back my small ones in winter so they were only a few feet tall.  My biggest got to about 12 by 12 feet or so.  

I thought about succession planting but I agree that's too much work.  Most of the methods I'm trying to figure out is for the greenthumb or lazy gardener.  I've gotten a few people to start gardening like that.  I went from growing a small amount to a whole lot because I don't have to baby everything which I hated and I don't have time.  I imagine weeding is a lot of people's most hated gardening activity.

Sweet Dried Sunchokes

Translation of a Korean recipe for dried "pig potatoes"

For about 4kg of sunchokes, trim the nobs/bumps off and scrub well. Slice lengthwise into thin slices and rinse slices in cold water.

Place sunchoke slices in a cloth lined steamer and steam for 15-20m.

Place in thin layers on a dehydrating rack and dry at 70C 160F for a couple hours or until they are slightly damp. Wet sunchokes will dissolve the sugar so it's important to part dry them.

Coat the slices in white sugar (raw granulated sugar should also be fine) and arrange them neatly on the dehydrating trays. Dry them for 9 hours at 70C flipping them 3 hours in.

Store them in a cool dry place, they make a great snack.

Sunchoke Soy Sauce Pickles &
The Basic Soy Sauce Pickle Method

Translated from many Korean recipes for "pig potato" pickles (doeji gamja jangajji)

Note: Because harvest amounts vary, pickle making, unlike baking, is better suited to ratios rather than exact measurements. The following recipe is given in ratios than can and should be changed slightly to suit the tastes of the family.

Vegetables:
Sunchoke roots

Optional suggested flavoring vegetables:
Peeled garlic
Fresh hot peppers
Peeled and sliced ginger
Onion petals or quarters

Any other vegetable that can be eaten raw and will stand well in brine and you have on hand can be added

Brine- measured in roughly equal parts according to volume of raw vegetables

Plain water or anchovy seaweed broth
Soy Sauce (not low sodium)
Vinegar ( recommended fruit or rice vinegars)
Sugar or sweetener (start with half the measure and add more to taste)(brown or sugar like syrups could be substituted eg honey, maple syrup, fruit syrups)
Seasonings such as black or chili peppers, bay leaves, dried mushrooms etc can be added.

Note: do not attempt to reduce the soy sauce by too much, salt is important for preservation and salt reduced by too much will result in a pickle that spoils quickly. However; reduced salt pickles may be made for quick consumption and pickles meant for aging should have a higher ratio of soy sauce.

Method:

Thoroughly scrub and clean the sunchoke roots, trim unpleasant bits, and slice into bite sized pieces or thin rounds.

Prepare the other accompanying vegetables, wash clean trim slice, etc.

Place all prepared vegetables raw into clean or sterilized container/s and set aside. Containers may be sterilized by boiling water or steam.

Prepare the brine enough to cover the vegetables in their containers/s.

If making anchovy broth, boil dried anchovy and seaweed first, if not, begin with fresh water. If using dried seasonings simmer in water or broth first to release flavor. Add the remaining brine ingredients to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from boil and taste the brine, add sweetener/water/soy sauce/vinegar until desired taste is reached. Brine should be salty and slightly sour and sweet and just a little bit strong. Pour hot brine over the prepared vegetables. Cap loosely and let cool to room temperature. Cap tight and place in fridge once cooled/next day. Wait 3 days for flavors to develop, the pickles will keep for several months stored in the fridge under the brine. Remove portions with clean utensils only and pickles will not spoil, but may lose texture if kept for too long. Never return uneaten portions to the main container.

Serve pickles in small portions alongside main dishes or dice and add into recipes. Do not discard the brine, it's delicious as a dipping sauce or marinade.

This is a basic pickle that most Korean families have at all times in their fridge as it is quick and simple to make. Often huge batches are made with a harvest of seasonal vegetables and shared among friends and family. They make great gifts, I still have a large container in my fridge from a neighbor who has since moved away. If the brine is plentiful and still good, fresh vegetables can be added into the brine (if someone has cherry picked a certain veg out of it more can be added) and the pickle can be fed this way for a while.  The flavor deepens with age and the spiciness of the hot peppers and garlic mellow out. The sunchokes are not essential, try making the pickle with garlic scapes, garlic, onions, peppers, spring onions, cucumbers etc.

Thank you so much, those sound great.  Especially the sweet dried sunchokes.  I have such a sweet tooth.  I'll try those out at a party with friends and family.  It'll be around November before I can try any of these though since I'm letting them be killed by frost because it makes fructose from the inulin.  This is what causes gas because we can't digest it BUT helps with the gut microbiome and only has 2.2 calories instead of 4 in case anyone is interested.  So I'll definitely let you know how they are then unless I get impatient and dig some up sooner.  

There's always so much to do this time of year, it's nice to have things that can be done at slower times.

I hope you get a chance to try them this winter, and think I'll try making them myself too : )

Update: for those interested in earlier producing sunchokes (Stampede); not as productive as the longer season ones as expected.  The smaller amount was from one with two stems and about 5 feet tall and in very hard clay with no woodchips.  They are right next to the house so they got no afternoon or evening sun; even the morning sun is late due to all the trees but still close to full sun.  It's clay that almost nothing else I've planted has grown.  The big amount was from one plant with four stems and about 7 feet tall which was also in clay.  They fell over about a month and a half ago so they had lots of woodchips put around them just to hold them up.  I don't know if that helped them get bigger or the fact that they got full sun.  The first one I dug up was on 9/15 but I could've dug them up the beginning of this month and maybe earlier but I don't know exactly when.  They were planted last year and started coming out in March or April so this was about 6 to 5 months.  Sorry Kat, I haven't ate many of these since I didn't have many plants so I've planted about 70 tubers, none shorter than 2 inches.  I got 32 tubers to plant just from that big bowl and could've planted 46 if I wanted but these were tubers less than 2 inches big.  I have a lot of the big plants that I will eat but I'm waiting.  Many were blown down by the wind but they keep growing without a care and it creates a pretty cool effect in real life that a picture can't emulate.  

I've read in a foraging book that hopniss often grows alongside sunchokes.  They seem to be often together in nature.  And hopniss is another edible root, so you could harvest them at the same time and in the same way.  Will hopniss do well in your climate?

Meanwhile, if scarlet runner beans will make seeds for you, and won't live as a perennial anyway, you can treat them as a root crop as well as a bean and harvest their tubers at the same time as the sunchokes.  The tuber is supposed to be edible, and very tasty.

Emily, great suggestions.  Sorry, I haven't responded but there were in our family were surgeries, a few sicknesses and even a family death but he had a good long life.  I've actually tried to find the LSU hopniss variety but I can't seem to.  I'd love to try that and I've heard florida betony/chinese artichokes might be able to grow with them and I want to try that out also.  I'm in 7A so hopniss should do very well here from what I know.  
And the scarlet tubers/root is definitely an idea in the future.  This year I'm trying to overwinter them with lots of mulch and hope for the best.  I saved enough of my own seed to replace any that die and if they don't overwinter here then next year I'll try them out.  

These pics are of one stampede plant so some make a lot of tubers.  This was in clay also.  It was right beside ones that only produced a big bowl size of tubers so I was shocked to see this which produced about 6 of those bowls which I planted out- about 50 plants for next year.  This was harvested at the end of September too but I had other things I had to do so I didn't post it.  The shoe is size 12.  Once again I didn't do an extensive dig so I'll probably have quite a few grow in that area, no work planting.