Jerusalem artichoke

My wife surprised me.  25 Jerusalem artichokes arrived in the mail.  Of course, it is my job to plant and care for them.  So, how much will they spread over the next few years?  How much sun do they need? When can the first harvest be?  Anything else about them I need to know?

John F Dean wrote:My wife surprised me.  25 Jerusalem artichokes arrived in the mail.  Of course, it is my job to plant and care for them.  So, how much will they spread over the next few years?  How much sun do they need? When can the first harvest be?  Anything else about them I need to know?

Mine haven't spread much in the last three years and I rarely dig any of them.  As far as sun, the more the better.  I think mine haven't done as well as they would because they are shaded in the morning until almost lunch time.  At my old place, they were in full sun and did much better.  I never harvest mine until after first frost, but in the past I harvested them in late fall before the frost.  They blossom very late for me, so I don't harvest them until after the flowers die off.

You will want to harvest some this fall after they flower/start to die. If you don't, they will want to take over NY. You will likely also want to harvest a few in the spring, before they send shoots up everywhere. How much do they spread? I don't know. I keep pulling them out!

Note: J Choke stems are squishy like foam and do NOT compost like leaves, etc. I put a pile of them at the bottom of my twigs/kindling pile. They will last (here at least)

I pulled most of mine last fall and tried to start them in a contained (open bottom) area. No sprouts, so far. But where they were? Oh, it looks like I hadn't pulled any nor did I pull some this spring -- but I did!

LATER: I uncovered where I'd put them in the contained area and had lots of sprouted tubers, but nothing green yet. Covered them lightly with soil and left them alone

Hi,
I have only grown them for one year. I was able to plant in the spring and harvest in the fall. They were in a minimally raised bed and spread over half of it... nothing outside that I noticed.

This thread might help. Lots of good info on Jerusalem Artichockes. https://permies.com/t/sunchokes

Do you know what variety your are?

When I was researching them I could not decide which variety to buy so I never bought them.

It is my understand that different varieties spread differently.

Different varieties can have variations in tuber size, color, and shape.

I have read that some varieties have short stolons (runners), making them easier to harvest, while others spread more widely.  

I had ask the seller to explain about the difference variety though this just lead to more confusion.

I too, have always harvested between fading flowers and the following spring. I've been wondering, is there any time of year that is a bad time to harvest? For example, turnips are woody and inedible when it sends up its flower stalk.

Although sunchokes can grow in different soil types, higher fertility will give rise to bigger plants and more tubers. In good soil, a single tuber can grow into a 12ft tall plant with multiple 1.5" thick stalks with several pounds in yield. I let the plants die back after freeze and cut the stalks down to 1 ft above ground. That leaves some leverage when I come pull them out later. For some area I harvest as needed and for others I dug them all out and sort for replanting or eating. Tubers can be stored in the fridge for months until buds are sprouting.

I started with red and white chokes, but have mostly been spreading the white ones (they are larger and more vigorous in my area).
I plant mine in the sunniest areas available (I get late afternoon shade everywhere). Every fall after they all have made flowers (mine start to flower in September), I pull up everything by the stalks and collect roots to eat and replant somewhere else. The area that was pulled gets the stalks for mulch and will regrow again the next season (since I don't dig them and surely miss a lot of roots). I have noticed that if I don't pull the big roots out at the end of a season, the following years patch will be less vigorous and won't produce many new large roots.
I consider them a perennial cover crop and will use them as a chip and drop around young trees. After a few seasons of chopping, the chopped plants will eventually die. By then, they've served their purpose and the tree is well established.

I'm growing out fragments of the root in sand.
The aim is to get clean white shoots to eat.
Turns out sand is too heavy to really pull them strait out, but the bits I get are delicious.
I will be trying a mostly empty and  entirely opaque bucket and lid, to see if I get white shoots that way.
I'm a concerned about mold and mildew in a closed container.
Suggests welcome.

I've grown them in garbage cans full of leaves and sticks, to promote composting and in clay to promote soil bacteria.

Last year I grew them in the same hole as a raspberry plant and both seemed to thrive.

I was clearing the space in front of a basement window and the plants I pulled up had roots but no tubers.
I planted them in buckets.
They looked bad for a while, but have bounced back since.
Because of this, I tried transplanting a different group of tubeless jchoke plants by laying the bundle flat and dumping dirt on the roots.
If it works at all,the effort saved will  make this my go to method of propagation for sunchokes.

I've watched one allotment grower demonstrate better yields in  quart containers than in large bags containers.
The theory is the plants react to the constrictive environment by filing all available soil with tubers.

If you have rabbits, they will love the greens.
Hanging in bundles on a covered porch, they dry readileyy, but the  leaves become crunchy and messy.
I prefer to strip the leaves from the stalks and feed them fresh to the rabbits, drying just the stalks.
If I can use grape vines to wrap the bundles this year,  I'll have the perfect  no waste packaging for bunnies.

I know they are related to sunflowers and they certainly seem to exclude other plants pretty well,but I feel safe planting them in a perennial bed.
They will tire out and die off if cut down often enough.