The great big thread of sunchoke info - growing, storing, eating/recipes, science facts

Faye Streiff wrote:The deer only topped the sunchokes while they were small, as I think they were mostly after the ripening wheat.  Sunchokes grow back bigger/better than ever and did produce blossoms.  I have them in several patches, and these were just as productive as the others.  

Hmmm... Good to know. Maybe I will head off a few by hand when they are small. Wouldn't it be something if trimming my sunchokes could make them produce bigger or more chokes? You know, trees need pruning to make bigger [but fewer] fruit.
I wonder if something like this is in play here, although you are saying 'just as' productive as the others. [not 'more'].
If nothing else, perhaps being trimmed early in life allowed them time to recover?

Faye Streiff wrote:This past year I started a new patch for the sunchokes.  Threw out winter wheat in Late November over the patch, and a little light mulch of grass clippings since I could not rake it in.   Both did well in spite of deer damage to both of them, but I think that light “deer pruning” was good for the sunchokes as it made them bunch up and grow much denser tops, and more able to send energy to the tubers.   When the wheat ripened in late spring, I just cut off or broke off the tops and left the long stems, which fell over and further mulched the sunchokes, now 12 inches or so high.    I also save those dried sunchoke stems for kindling and firestarter.  

Hi, Faye, the combo of sunchoke and winter wheat worked out great. Thanks for sharing.

I am tinkering on using sunchoke in a polyculture of chicken feed. There will be sunchoke, broomcorn, mung bean, daikon radish and winter rye. The reasons for choosing these species are multi folds:

They consist of warm and cool season broadleaf and grasses, plus nitrogen fixer to keep ground covered and have living roots in soil year round. Two major principles for building soil in the book " a soil owner's manual".

Besides, deep roots from broomcorn will draw water from deep ground and the tall stalks help supporting the sunchokes growing in poor and compact soil. They tend to need irrigation and topped over in high wind later in the season.

The leaves, seeds and tubers are favored by my chickens. Above ground growth provides lots of biomass for mulching.

Kind of a 5 sister version for chicken! Let's see how it turns out.

May Lotito wrote:

Hi, Faye, the combo of sunchoke and winter wheat worked out great. Thanks for sharing.

I am tinkering on using sunchoke in a polyculture of chicken feed. There will be sunchoke, broomcorn, mung bean, daikon radish and winter rye. The reasons for choosing these species are multi folds:

They consist of warm and cool season broadleaf and grasses, plus nitrogen fixer to keep ground covered and have living roots in soil year round. Two major principles for building soil in the book " a soil owner's manual".

Besides, deep roots from broomcorn will draw water from deep ground and the tall stalks help supporting the sunchokes growing in poor and compact soil. They tend to need irrigation and topped over in high wind later in the season.

The leaves, seeds and tubers are favored by my chickens. Above ground growth provides lots of biomass for mulching.

Kind of a 5 sister version for chicken! Let's see how it turns out.

Keep us updated on this mixture. 'Chokes are a bit allelopathic, good at keeping some of their competition at bay. Mine don't hold back strawberries, have some effect on Lemon Balm, no effect on garlic, wipes out horseradish, have some effect on Day Lilies, cuts most grasses right down and stunts Lambsquarters etc. The effects aren't consistent at all, so I'm VERY interested in what succeeds, what does so-so and what doesn't make it.

Blaine Clark wrote:

Keep us updated on this mixture. 'Chokes are a bit allelopathic, good at keeping some of their competition at bay. Mine don't hold back strawberries, have some effect on Lemon Balm, no effect on garlic, wipes out horseradish, have some effect on Day Lilies, cuts most grasses right down and stunts Lambsquarters etc. The effects aren't consistent at all, so I'm VERY interested in what succeeds, what does so-so and what doesn't make it.

That's quite a list, I'd like to see others sharing results of sunchoke compatibility.

My pear sapling and sunflowers grew alright among sunchokes. Not so much for zucchini maybe due to sunlight blocked by the tall stalks and thick leaves.

For the combo, I will space the sunchoke and broomcorn by 2ft, while shorter plants go along the south border. If necessary, I can thin the sunchoke shoots aggresively to let light in. Last year I stripped several down to bare stalks as bean trellis. They grew back later and still produced.

Because sunchokes can be quite aggressive and conquer a lot of territory in one season, it will be interesting to figure out what *else* they can grow with, to save space. I realize there is a law of diminishing returns as I pack more and more in the same space, but I'll try.
Last fall, in November, I planted my garlic in 2 beds and also some Star white sunchokes [that do not roam to terribly much].
Someone mentioned that sunchokes have "no effect on Garlic", so that is good. Because both of them are root crops, I was concerned that they might not grow well together, or crowd each other.
The sunchokes can get trimmed so there are not 10 stalks emerging form one tuber. I plan to keep selecting the strongest shoot as my trellis for pole beans: Garlic requires mulch so I mulched with autumn leaves. I added the sunchokes later since the beds are on the North side of the garden, so they will shelter the rest of the garden somewhat from rough winds and protect everything to the south of these beds. At least, that is the plan.
When they all start coming up in the spring, I plan to select the best shoots of sunchokes [one stalk to a tuber, 2 max] and plant a couple of [grain] pole beans by each stalk. The whole patch could be harvested around the same time, in the Fall for minimum disruption.
It if all works according to plan, I should have 3 crops essentially in the same beds. The beans might enhance the other 2 by nitrogen nodules The garlic will have a little shade. Sunchokes are so vigorous that they should do all right in there.
I can see that as the sunchokes grow I would have to remove the lower leaves perhaps to facilitate the climbing beans but I may not have to. The chokes tubers grow deeper than the garlic while beans have shallow roots, so they should not get in each other's way: Chokes on bottom floor, garlic above the chokes and pole beans above the garlic. 3 floors of growing zones. That should take advantage of the whole thickness of the bed.
Wish me luck!

If you don't need that many sunchokes or have other plans for the land, spring is the time to get rid of the excess. When the plants are about 1-1.5 ft tall, they have partially use up the stored nutrients in tubers and new roots are still weak. If there are more than one stalks growing from a single tuber, grab and pull them all out at once. That will leave no tuber or roots in the soil to grow back. Check back in a few weeks for any leftover.

For the biomass, I like to turn them quickly into fertilizer by submerging under water. The leaves are so tender they basically melt in a few days. Survival gardener website has a recent blog on this.
https://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/make-free-liquid-fertilizer-almost-anything/

I thinned out some weaker plants and made the fertilizer out of them and took pictures this time.

I simply submerged whole leafy stems in a kid's sand box filled with tap water. After 3 days ( temp 50s to 70s) most leaves have disintegrated and turned into an olive green suspension. Part of the stems also rhetted and showed bundles of fibers.  I only stirred a couple times briefly. There was no air bubbling or foul smell, so few anaerobic decomposition has happened.

I used the solution as is right away, since there is no need to let it further break down or let the stagnant water breed mosquitoes. It's still early to tell how effective this sunchoke soup works as fertilizer but the potted tomatoes showed no ill effect so far.

I reserve a patch of sunchoke for biomass production like this. It's an useful plant even if you don't like eating the tubers.

I planted my first tubers 3 years ago, so I'd say I'm still in the experimentation phase, but have some insight that some may find useful. I planted the first group of tubers in a section of my garden beds that I also planted hybrid poplars at 2 foot intervals to grow for firewood (currently in the process of replacing these with black locust seedlings). I have had no issues with them spreading, but this is likely because I harvest the majority of them each fall to transplant to other areas and the deer give them a beating all summer. However, they respond beautifully, by becoming bushy, almost like a coppiced tree after the deer clear their foliage and soft parts of the stems. In essence they have functioned as a trap crop for me, keeping the deer off of the young trees (that are now 15-20' tall in their fourth year!).

I also have bulb flowers growing in the spaces between the trees. This works very well, as the flowers come up and finish flowering before the sunroots wake up for the season. In mid summer, save for deer trimming, they provide a dense shade that helps keep weeds and soil temperature down, reducing work and watering needs for the young trees.

Overall, as with any plant or animal, sunroots are great when used in the right context. This year I dedicated a 30" x 100' bed to growing them, as I intend to integrate them into a future hedge to keep the deer out of my main garden area, and I planted comfrey root cuttings along the outside edges of the bed with 3 rows of sunroots at about 3' between each tuber. Next year, once that is all established, I will also seed pole beans with them.

For the stalks in the fall, I cut them and put them through the wood chipper, they become a very renewable source of mulch for my young trees and shrubs. This is the first year doing that, so I'm not sure how quickly they will break down, but I see no down side. I may also mix these chipped stalks with regular woodchip mulch to try and speed up the decomposition cycle of those (adding a green nitrogen source to the brown woodchips). Maybe the allelopathic properties also extend to the stalks, and will help make woodchip mulch even more effective at keeping weeds down, we'll see.

Jonathan Hodges wrote:I planted my first tubers 3 years ago, so I'd say I'm still in the experimentation phase, but have some insight that some may find useful. I planted the first group of tubers in a section of my garden beds that I also planted hybrid poplars at 2 foot intervals to grow for firewood (currently in the process of replacing these with black locust seedlings). I have had no issues with them spreading, but this is likely because I harvest the majority of them each fall to transplant to other areas and the deer give them a beating all summer. However, they respond beautifully, by becoming bushy, almost like a coppiced tree after the deer clear their foliage and soft parts of the stems. In essence they have functioned as a trap crop for me, keeping the deer off of the young trees (that are now 15-20' tall in their fourth year!).

I also have bulb flowers growing in the spaces between the trees. This works very well, as the flowers come up and finish flowering before the sunroots wake up for the season. In mid summer, save for deer trimming, they provide a dense shade that helps keep weeds and soil temperature down, reducing work and watering needs for the young trees.

Overall, as with any plant or animal, sunroots are great when used in the right context. This year I dedicated a 30" x 100' bed to growing them, as I intend to integrate them into a future hedge to keep the deer out of my main garden area, and I planted comfrey root cuttings along the outside edges of the bed with 3 rows of sunroots at about 3' between each tuber. Next year, once that is all established, I will also seed pole beans with them.

For the stalks in the fall, I cut them and put them through the wood chipper, they become a very renewable source of mulch for my young trees and shrubs. This is the first year doing that, so I'm not sure how quickly they will break down, but I see no down side. I may also mix these chipped stalks with regular woodchip mulch to try and speed up the decomposition cycle of those (adding a green nitrogen source to the brown woodchips). Maybe the allelopathic properties also extend to the stalks, and will help make woodchip mulch even more effective at keeping weeds down, we'll see.

I am in extremely sandy soil as well. I would only chop the stems and branches for mulch. For the tubers, you must make absolutely sure they are dead:  Even a tiny fragment of a root will spring up and give you a full sized plant. They spread far and wide from a chunk no bigger than my thumbnail, Deer will graze them down in the spring of the year, which will help contain them. Pigs, chickens will love to eat them if you chunk them first. This might be a better use of them if you do not want to eat them. They are delicious raw but cause farting and distress for some, although when they are cooked, they don't cause me any trouble.
Good luck I'm [sunchoke] rooting for you.

Another advantage to sunchokes is that the tops are excellent fodder for grazing animals.  Alfalfa is just too expensive here and I sometimes feed the Sunchoke tops to the goats as a good source of protein.  

Faye Streiff wrote:Another advantage to sunchokes is that the tops are excellent fodder for grazing animals.  Alfalfa is just too expensive here and I sometimes feed the Sunchoke tops to the goats as a good source of protein.  

Indeed, there is research showing the nutritional value of the tops is comparable to that of alfalfa. Also the tuber contains a high level of essential amino acids.
A recent review on Jerusalem artichokes:
A weed with economic value Agronomy 2021,11,914

Animal nutrition 2020 volumn6 issue 4 p429-437
Nutritional value, bioactivity, and application potential of Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) as a neotype feed resource

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Yesterday I dug a bushel of sunroots. Used some of them to start a batch of sauerkraut. I really, really liked digging the plant that had super-short stolons. All the tubers were right next to the stalk, so it made digging really easy. I expanded my patch by planting more of that variety...

My tubers rarely seem to be near the plant, and this is true for all the varieties I grow. I think the tubers must be deep underground because I can dig a whole area over and find few or no tubers, even though it was teeming with medium to huge sun root plants. I know the tubers are there somewhere because the plants will spring up again thickly the next season. It’s incredibly frustrating and I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem.

Sandra Graham wrote:My tubers rarely seem to be near the plant, and this is true for all the varieties I grow. I think the tubers must be deep underground because I can dig a whole area over and find few or no tubers, even though it was teeming with medium to huge sun root plants. I know the tubers are there somewhere because the plants will spring up again thickly the next season. It’s incredibly frustrating and I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem.

Have you tried gently loosening the soil around the plant then pulling the entire stalk out of the ground? Even if some of the tubers break away from the root stolons, you'll be able to see where they were leading as you pull, helping you to find the tubers.

Jonathan Hodges wrote:

Sandra Graham wrote:My tubers rarely seem to be near the plant, and this is true for all the varieties I grow. I think the tubers must be deep underground because I can dig a whole area over and find few or no tubers, even though it was teeming with medium to huge sun root plants. I know the tubers are there somewhere because the plants will spring up again thickly the next season. It’s incredibly frustrating and I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem.

Have you tried gently loosening the soil around the plant then pulling the entire stalk out of the ground? Even if some of the tubers break away from the root stolons, you'll be able to see where they were leading as you pull, helping you to find the tubers.

I have tried pulling the stalks gently out of the ground, though I haven’t loosened the soil first. Rarely is there a tuber attached. The broken roots head off in all directions. I usually dig throughout the whole bed, down to about 4 or 5 inches, without finding very much. It’s hard to dig much deeper than that as the soil becomes dense clay. The first year I had planted them, I found plenty of large tubers near the surface. Since then though, I have lots of fat healthy stalks, but the tubers are eluding me.

Sandra Graham wrote:

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Yesterday I dug a bushel of sunroots. Used some of them to start a batch of sauerkraut. I really, really liked digging the plant that had super-short stolons. All the tubers were right next to the stalk, so it made digging really easy. I expanded my patch by planting more of that variety...

My tubers rarely seem to be near the plant, and this is true for all the varieties I grow. I think the tubers must be deep underground because I can dig a whole area over and find few or no tubers, even though it was teeming with medium to huge sun root plants. I know the tubers are there somewhere because the plants will spring up again thickly the next season. It’s incredibly frustrating and I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem.

What kind of soil do you have and what zone are you growing in. Also, what are your tuber cultivars? All these factors may influence your results.
I'm in very sandy 4b. I bought mine from Oikos. Although I can't see the type I bought previously, they now have more cultivars that are "non-runners" or "clustering". They did a lot of selective breeding to arrive at tubers that really deserve to be cropped. Some have less nodes for easier cleaning, others make large tubers...
Also, because they can burrow almost one foot underground, I plant mine in deep raised beds [11" boards]. This alone is what makes it easier for a 73 year old to dig them all out in a couple of days.
When it is time to harvest [and you can spread the harvest over a few weeks but they seem sweeter after a killing frost], I cut all the stems leaving enough to have a good grabbing handle, then I lift the entire bed boards. I have noticed that when the root encounters an obstacle, it stops and the nutrition behind it causes the root to swell and make another tuber. Also, this way, I don't have to chase for them beyond the bed board. Now, I'm not sure about it, this is just a personal observation, but the hills I pick earlier in the season are not as deep as they would be later. Do they sense the cold coming and decide to burrow to escape it? I don't know but it seems to hold true for the most part.
This is the Oikos page:
https://oikostreecrops.com/products/perennial-vegetable-plants/sunchoke-Jerusalem-artichoke-tubers/
Also, even in my zone 4b, they do seem to keep better *in* the ground than out. Any that I miss in the fall will sprout and be delicious in the spring. I suspect that like potatoes and carrots, they keep better in a cold and damp environment. If they don't have sand/ soil attached, they dry, freeze and go mushy on you. [Ahhh! how I wish I had an old fashioned root cellar!]

I added two more varieties of sunchokes and they cross pollinated and produced seeds, thanks to the soldier beetles. I checked a few immature seedhead and each had a few to dozen seeds inside. If I leave them for the wildlife, is my yard going to be weedy next year?  How easy will sunchoke self seed?

May Lotito wrote:I added two more varieties of sunchokes and they cross pollinated and produced seeds, thanks to the soldier beetles. I checked a few immature seedhead and each had a few to dozen seeds inside. If I leave them for the wildlife, is my yard going to be weedy next year?  How easy will sunchoke self seed?

In zone 4, it won't: It need a long season for seeds to mature. Kudos for your success in getting seeds! However, you are in a zone 6, so beware. This is what Brambleberry permaculture had to say on the topic:
https://www.brambleberrypermaculture.com/2022/02/08/smooth-red-sunchoke-jerusalem-artichoke/#:~:text=Will%20self%2Dseed%20readily%E2%80%93beware,the%20tubers%20in%20the%20fall.
Were they only talking about the smooth red sunchoke? I don't know.
They hail from Southern Indiana and they have zone 5 and 6. Perhaps you will want to hedge your bets and  plant them in a clean location, perhaps in potting soil? This way, if they all come, you can pick and choose and place them exactly where you want them. You may not want to scatter them to the 4 winds.

Thanks for the info. I got mine from Pearl, one of them has purple skin and maybe that's what you mentioned. She just confirmed the seeds will spread and sprout and she has to pull up the seedlings. So I guess I will save a few seeds to play with but cut off the rest of flower stalks to keep them under control.

Yeah, mine definitely have viable seeds. I'm pulling them as weeds.
I have 6 varieties at this point, crowded way too tight in a space, and they are cross pollinating like crazy things. As far as I am aware, it takes multiple types mixing to get fertile seeds.
Rowdy beasties!

Bad year this year, they all have super thin stalks, maybe as big as my thumb. Last year there were some as big around as my forearm that I had to use a saw to cut the stalks, I couldn't get my clippers on them.

Pearl Sutton wrote:

Bad year this year, they all have super thin stalks, maybe as big as my thumb. Last year there were some as big around as my forearm that I had to use a saw to cut the stalks, I couldn't get my clippers on them.

My stalks are ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 inches in diameter, even from really large tubers. I dry and use the thicker ones for trellising. If not stuck in the ground, they are good for the whole season. What did you do with the the stalks big as your arm? Did the plants also produce large amount of tubers too?

I've also had stalks as big as my forearm as well as thin stalks. The size and number of tubers seemed to be related. It's hard to tell if some years are better than others, but I think not: Every year, I have large and thin stalks. At this point I suspect either crowding, an inferior tuber, unless they were grown in the same spot 2 years in a row and the soil nutrition was exhausted.
Could it be that this tuber, which seems to be able to give a big crop in really adverse conditions has an Achille's heel? I'm thinking of an element in the soil that they must have, and if they don't get it, the tubers are inferior? Using the soil one year might deplete a crucial element and make it harder for the tuber to develop a large root?
Could it be also that by trying to keep the flower, the plant expands energy in flower production and the tubers are smaller?
In zone 4b, I know I will never get mature seeds anyway, so I clip the tips where blossoms appear. The size of the tuber seems more consistent with the cultivar than other factors.

Will sunchokes grow into mulch the way potatoes do?

I've planted them twice now and they keep dying, either too dry or too many gophers or both. I thought I'd try putting them in a lasagna type bed. The paper bags on the bottom should keep the gophers out long enough for the sunchokes to get established and the extra organic matter might hold enough moisture for them.

The bed won't be fully broken down by spring, so I thought I'd dig into the bed and put mounds of soil here and there through the bed and plant the tubers there.  Think they'll grow out into the surrounding material?

They'll spread to their limit or until they hit something solid like a rock or timber wall.
I have one variety that only spreads about 10" - 12" and another that spreads about 24". They spread into hard clay the least, loose material like sand, mulch or well loosened soil the best.

May Lotito asked above what I did with my stalks. Well, some of them I apparently killed a hugel type thing with. I didn't realize they are somewhat alleopathic, I knew the growing plants are. I put the stalks into a trench with other things, and whatever I planted there grew a bit then vanished. either the bunnies or the sunroots got them. Hard to say which.

So if they ARE that alleopathic, perhaps the problem is the solution! Has anyone chipped the stalks and put them on paths and driveways to kill grass and weeds? :D

And the thin stalks are probably due to multiple reasons, horrendous weather pressure on them, probably overcrowded (I didn't have energy to harvest much last year) I did add nutrients to the bed, so I don't think that's it. This has been an absolutely horrendous year in my garden. It's Oct 1 today. I have around 50 cherry tomato plants, I have picked about a total of 2 gallons of tomatoes all summer. We should have been drowning in them since June, they looked like they were going to. We got our first ripe one right around Sept 1. The about 2 gallons was mostly this week, they are finally bouncing... as the night temps are down to 41. Won't get much off them this year.

Pics of the sunroot bed, same bed, pic from 2021 is dated 9/19/21. The pic from 2022 is dated 9/30/22, so pretty much the same date.... Horrible difference.

Sunroot bed 2021

Sunroot bed 2022

Pearl Sutton wrote:So if they ARE that alleopathic, perhaps the problem is the solution! Has anyone chipped the stalks and put them on paths and driveways to kill grass and weeds? :D

As a splatter of fact, there has been some research done in Europe using the extracted 'choke chemicals as herbicide. Their problem is the lasting effects in the soil. It seems to last for a couple of years unless it's well flushed by a lot of rain or irrigation. It seems to have no to minimal effect on stouter growth such as trees and shrubs as long as they are well established. In other words, you may be able to use or mix the chips in mulch around such. I've always chipped the stalks and scattered them over the same patches I've pulled the stalks from. I've built the soil up pretty nicely in patches doing this.
Some plants aren't bothered at all. Along one patch I've got strawberries that don't hesitate creeping into the edges. As far as I know, no one's done any work to find out what plants are immune.