copy :
receive back !
It ’s still wintertime ( at least for a few more minutes ) around here but in lower Alabama and the Florida have panhandle this is actually spring . thing are originate to produce and we have to get stuff in the garden right now including the plant that I both hate and love . I ’m plump to plant it even though I detest it and I love it because ambivalency is a cracking incentive .
At the end of last class we delve up our Jerusalem artichokes and I wedge them in this skunk with some Mulch , then I covered them up . They could take a lot of cold but I did n’t require them where they were .
This area aright here behind me is where I had my yam this last year and I ’m conk to throw out and put some Jerusalem artichokes in here but when I went and checked on these the other mean solar day , I agnize they are starting to grow .
They actually really need to get growing in the soil decent now . Some of them are rotten but that does n’t matter , we ’ll plant the good ones . you could can establish them anytime from the declination to the early springtime . I just dig a whole duo inches bass , cover it over , and I lead a lilliputian pocket in my mulch . I permanently mulch the rows in my Grocery Row Gardens as much as I can .
We just take these puppies and stick them in the dry land and give them at least a twain of feet – usually more like three – and put them in .
Now when you ’re keeping them through the winter , I have find out that they really really do not like dry out out , so if you ’re going to harvest some Jerusalem artichokes and keep them for later , you have to breed them up with something . Or ideally , you simply leave them in the ground . If I entrust them in the flat coat all through the winter , they would keep to live because they do n’t dry out out . But if they get take up out of the undercoat and I leave them on the parry for a few days , they get dry and gristly and they complain off on me .
I have lost some really nice Jerusalem artichokes that way of life . If you purchase some through the chain mail off of Etsy or something , generally you ’ll find that they ’re nicely package in some sort of grunge medium because you ’ll get a lot of complaint otherwise . They simply just do n’t keep .
You ’re probably expect “ okay so if you do n’t care this veg why are you planting it ? ”
Well the animals can deplete it . My hogs , my cows – both the tops and the Tuber are very salutary for them to eat .
I do n’t like it because I find it near indigestible . multitude have said different things like , “ well if you soak it or you work it or you wangle it like this or you do like this ( you could abide them , ” but I do n’t really deal that much about it to do it – especially when I can turn it into raw milk by feed it to the cows or I could tip it to the pigs and deform it into bacon or I could eat them to the chickens !
They also make all this beautiful biomass and these lovely flowers . I would grow them just as an ornamental , but if you could feed it to the animal and get your intellectual nourishment that way that ’s a good reason to grow it .
I might judge cook them again at some point or doing something with them but the amount of intestinal suffering they do is unlikely . I ’ve been develop them for year since I lived in Tennessee from about 2004 , and then I had to search for a while to find varieties that grew well in Florida . When I lived in South Florida they did not do well . Quite a few sort did not do particularly well when I was in Central Florida either , but I institute three or four different types that I beat from various places ( I have no idea what type or what name I just got dissimilar 1 from an organic food market and some online ) and I planted them without names , and the ones that made a big mess of roots at the end of the class are the ones that I kept . So that ’s what I ’m plant right now . The one that made me a mess of etymon last class are the ones .
I ’m not going to use this intact seam for Jerusalem artichoke plant . I just thought if I could thrive and have with child piles of them that I could feed through the wintertime when thing are hungry , since this is a genus Tuber that maintain in the ground . It originate tuberization later in the year when it ’s blossom , and you get these dainty tubers that keep in the ground very nicely all the way through the cold and that ’s when things get hungry , when the pastureland is gone , when the leaves fall from the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , etc .
That ’s when I really need food for animals , so I think if I could spread out the seed stock that I have and then maybe spread out even further next year – maybe even make a big stand of it at some sharpness of the prop since it admit poor conditions . It grows well , produces a lot of tuber and biomass , so why not ? I could have a whole ton of them and just keep thing fed all the fashion through the winter .
( I ’ve will my tubers all the agency down to the other death where I dump it .
Are you guys hunky-dory ? There ’s a lot of screaming from the pool . This is not an Occupational Safety and Health Administration approved workspace . )
I used to think that Jerusalem artichoke would be one of those survival staple crops . I did a lot of planting and research on them but I find that calorically they ’re just not easy to digest . In our climate , sweet murphy and cassava are unspoilt and honest yam are even well and even white potatoes ! These just do n’t fulfill you up that much .
It ’s a great theory . They might keep you from starvation but they ’re not that with child at it and you ’ll see it reprize again and again and again on these various survival video recording and stuff , about how people keep rediscovering the incredible Jerusalem artichoke . It ’s possible , but there ’s a cause that potatoes are winning over a lot of other stuff . It ’s really hard to ticktack potatoes they ’re enjoyable and filling and the after effects are pretty nice comparative degree comparatively . They just experience good without a horrible digestive upset afterwards . I would call ( Jerusalem artichokes ) a lowly survival crop . you could have some and you could eat on them if you have to , if you could figure out how to do it . Some people do n’t have trouble with digesting them . It may be a genetic matter or a diet thing over time but , secondarily , I would call it a natural selection crop that ’s utilitarian just because it ’s such a right animal feed that makes a good amount of biomass on the top . It ’s gruelling to kill , very well-situated to get , do tubers that last even through hard freezes you’re able to hack them out of the priming and feed them to your pig or your kine – that ’s all very utile stuff !
So I ’m growing Jerusalem artichoke plant again and figured I ’d bring you along and explain why I would actually grow them even though I have huge ambivalence about them . Really , if it ’s a plant , I ’m in all likelihood endure to examine and find a path to keep it live no matter what it is but this has its manipulation . It ’s a sound niche crop and preserve my brute fed so that ’s why , and biomass , and you know it ’s pretty and all that hooey but that ’s it that ’s where I ’m just going to stop today . I do n’t really have anything else to say . If I was on Instagram , I would say to go like my posts but I ’m not . I could show the fountain again I guess .
If you really desire to learn about survival gardening and the stuff and nonsense that we ’ve figured out that work – very simple solutions for the zombie apocalypse – check out the bookGROW OR DIEif you ’re upset about food security department . GROW OR DIE : The Good Guide to Survival Gardening .
Thanks for joining me . capture you all next fourth dimension and until then your thumbs always be green .
