Solarpunk Farming

I've got a ton of these growing in my fence line this year. I'm excited to harvest them this fall.

I've managed to kill a few attempts at growing it, but then I manage to kill most plants, so I'm not the best example lol
Will be trying again once I get through an upcoming house move.

The reason I've been trying to grow JA specifically is because it makes the most delicious soup, I grew up eating (sadly I don't have a recipe, but would look up JA and potato soup and see which result sounded best).

Aaaaaaaand, now I really want some of that yummy yummy soup.. 😂

I have about 10 sunroot patches in different spots and love it!

It's super easy to plant: push a shovel into the ground, wedge it forward to open a crevice in the soil, drop a sunroot in, and carefully pull the shovel back out. Pat the soil down with your foot. No need to dig a hole! Give it some mulch, and if you live in a dryland area, give it some shade as well.

Easy to harvest: they're mostly just under the plant stalks and are easy to get to and pull out.

Easy to propagate: just harvest some and eat them. If you like them, take some harvested tubers and plant them somewhere else.

Basic cooking recipe: wash and then boil some sunroots for at least half an hour and mash them. Add a little whole wheat flour, some shredded onion, an egg, and a little baking soda and mix. Put some mix into a skillet like a thick pancake and cook similarly, but a bit longer. The flavor is very mild so you can top it with guacamole or a lightly cooked sunny-side up egg or whatever you like. I bet some soy sauce mixed with chili pepper sauce would be nice.

Here's a video from Canadian Permaculture Legacy showing how to make Ukrainian Deruny with sunroot instead of potato:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNPh2Ht1_Cg

Also known as the "fartichoke" because improperly cooked Jerusalems are a bullet train to Gas City.

Thanks! I've actually been seeing these around but hadn't looked them up yet! They sound like a really useful plant. Gonna get a more certain identification and do a little more research, but the recipes sound interesting and worth trying (and maybe we'll try some bonus propagation if we're in the right native range, which I think we are)

I tried fermenting juiced sunchokes into alcohol one time. I've never seen anything ferment that fast, however when it was all done the resultant "drink" had a "dirt in a old boot" sort of flavor. I know that in some areas of the world it's used to make a distilled spirit, so maybe that would have made it drinkable, however I didn't have a still to test.

I also tried lacto fermenting them into pickles. Once again they fermented vigorously, but the resultant pickles were horribly sour and they made my teeth feel rough and gritty after just a few. The flavor wasn't great either.