The better your soil, the more problems with invasive plants. Not even cactus like it here. But buckbrush, sumac, winged elm, hickory and oak trees pop up everywhere. So it is good to know what plants are invasive. But YMMV your mileage may vary. Some things seems to be pretty invasive everywhere, like bermuda and mint.
Haha, take it as a compliments, comfrey loves good soil! I hear that there is a variety of comfrey that has sterile seeds. If you are careful to to plant only that one it will be a little easier to keep it from spreading too far.
Bocking 14 cultivar of Russian Comfrey…. Wonderful plant that doesnt spread. Very hardy and grows rapidly. We use it around our fruit trees, and for medicinal uses as well. Regarding comfrey spreading, what I have read is that there are two forms of comfrey, both with aggressive but different growth patterns.
True Comfrey propagates by seed, so clipping the flower shoots at minimum or cutting it back several times a year and punctilious weeding of seedlings is a way to control spreading. The other form spreads by the root, so corralling it with a deep edging and further punctilious weeding are possible control measures.
Clipping of foliage frequently will probably help to starve the plant into meekness.. Comfrey is a very beneficial plant for humans and livestock as well as making dynamite compost if no seeds are included. I planted both forms this spring. The True Comfrey put up numerous seed shoots and the ripe seeds drop out easily, so I may regret not clipping them all back in spring 2. This is the one I planted near a baby crab apple as a guild plant. The soil there is gravelly, thought the planting hole got lots of good stuff, and I kept a wide, dense ring of mulch around it.
It grew well, but did not spread beyond the mulch ring. Smells nice when you step on it, but totally invasive. I let my lemon balm go to seed and have it everywhere now. Used to pull it and feed it to the chickens in bunches, then lost my chickens.
Guess what came up thick besides wheat after they were gone. Lemon Balm. Bought a package at Safeway of a few tubers and stuck them in the ground. Years later, scads of them but they stay in the same area as planted for me. The patches get thicker when not harvested but mine are staying in bounds.
Like potatoes, comfrey, johnson grass and most any tuber, ya plant em once and ya never hafta plant em again. The inulin is an indigestible form of fiber and is the cause of their being called fartichokes.
But that changes after the first frost or freeze. Inulin changes into sugars if I recall correctly or perhaps a digestible form of fiber removing the flatulence factor. I just had a few nice sized tubers that I yanked from the garden along with some freshly plucked fuyus for breakfast. The recent snow and freezing temps has really made both of them delicious. Thanks for the tips, Sean, especially the drying and using it for sweetening.
I just chopped up 3 or 4 of my friends tubers and planted them…they seem to like that. Looking forward to the sunflowers….. My dad had a bunch of lemon balm growing after it spread and took over much of the hearb garden it was in, he dug it out and tried to feed it to his goats. I love to eat some of the leaves but it grows faster than you can possible consume it unless you drink lemon balm tea for every drink you have every day.
Still it has wonderful health benifits. I too have lemon balm taking over my yard! You can make a great pesto with it. Half lemon balm, half basil… or even all lemon balm! Just adds a bit of lemony zing. Stick to the younger shoots. I found if hubby mows it down, it come back with nice young shoots all summer long. My neighbors across the street planted lemon balm under their mailbox in their median strip. Next year there was one growing in my median strip. The following year it popped up in the backyard as well as the front.
We mow it, it smells nice. The ones in the flower beds stay until I have something else to plant there, then come out bodily. I use the leaves in smoothies. I had the opposite problem. It died every time. Maybe in partial shade as part of a food forest? Ialso plant Maximillions, a sunflower type. The tubers reproduce greatly! I like extra food like this for my goats and alpaca. Would love to plant comfrey, just have never seen it anywhere. I live in the White mountains of arizona.
There is quite a bit of discussion about Bocking 14 Comfrey at the permies. Alternately, you might be able to find a seed library or seed swap in your area or perhaps in a more urban community near you. I harvest comfrey root heavily in the fall and infuse in oil. This oil is the base for comfrey salves.
The leaves make great fertilizer. Grab a bucket, harvest a few leaves and place in the bucket with a weight on top of the leaves, Add water and let sit till the leaves turn black and break down in the water. Great for plants and a wonderful compost starter. I had the Comfrey explosion in my garden, too. I also pick the leaves to make comfrey compresses that I put in the freezer for use on sore backs, sprained ankles and such.
Oh well, the flowers are pretty, and I guess the rampant Borage needed a companion! Comfrey is an excellent fertiliser! If you have so much of it, make large batches and sell it at a local market perhaps or give it away????
There is a variety of comfrey that does not spread by seed. Google it. It is THE one plants that has flowers full of bumble bees…which it why I want it to grow. Removing it from an area…. I sympathize with you, HOWEVER, after coming upon my first SunChokes in , I have transplanted them three times to different locations and have not yet had a re occurrence in past locations.
Perhaps my digs to transplant were overly aggressive. Yes, they can and do spread rather mysteriously as I recently found a new location a dozen feet from my protected grow area of course I dig them out thoroughly but it does take a periodic dose of bad stuff to discourage their life efforts…bad I know! I do enjoy them in salads and like the crispy taste. Mine grow to at least 10 feet tall and reproduce annually with gusto. I welcome contrary views. Good news! To control the growth of comfrey, plant it under evergreens.
Comfrey is a strong nitrogen fixer. Chop and drop the leaves any time to compost them right on site. Add leaves to your compost pile. Comfrey is a vigorous grower so just keep chopping it down and build readily accessible nitrogen.
I only allow two plants by my veg garden. I dig them out immediately. I too made the mistake of planting Comfrey in my garden as an experimental herbal. The only method that I found to work is to cut the above ground part of the plant down to ground level and then cover the site with something opaque. It takes an entire growing season before the underground tubers exhaust themselves trying to grow a new plant.
If you start in the Spring, then by the next season — 12 months later — you can remove the cover and regain that part of your bed. You have to keep an eye out for any sprouts trying to pop through your defenses and do a quick pull and repair job. Thanks for the warning. I just planted some mammoth sunflowers, hopefully I can keep those under control. Very hardy and very vigorous. Considering planting Sun chokes in an abandoned field near my home.
Yes, I accept volunteers as well. I just plant other things around them. Sunflowers attract beneficial insects, butterflies, and goldfinches! I am still growing sunflowers in that same garden space — a small bed around my mailbox, and I have not replanted them. They reseed themselves. I may try to dig up the bed, and plant some Jerusalem artichokes. My chickens love them too. I give the girls the peelings of the sunchokes when I slice them for salads soooo delicious and crunchy.
They go crazy and all grab for those first before eating any other treats I may be giving them at the time! Will they actually grow, or do the chickens just dig them up and eat up any green growth??? I tried a couple of nurseries in hopes of discovering what this wonderful plant was, it grew so tall and quickly, birds would nest in it in summer and the chickadees loved it in winter.
Then I saw it in the backyard of a friend. She hated it. She said she liked it at first too when she moved in, but noticed that it doubled in size every year and so the 4th year she tried to exterminate it, but it kept coming back.
This made me start to wonder. One spring I saw flyers in several nurseries warning about Buckthorn, a plant I was familiar with on property and wanted to get more info on. Japanese Knotweed. Edible, but will take over your yard, and can break up your sidewalk, driveway and yes…even your house and is more or less next to impossible to get rid of, a task that takes many years.
Apparently just one little teeny sliver of a root is enough to get this thing going, and the roots spread underground up to 60 feet away. It was fine, but my hatred for the plant now prevents me from considering it digestable.
Here in Washington State they are trying to eradicate knot weed, the department of ecology will do it for free here.
They asked all of us along the creek if they could check for it, and said they would remove it at no charge. Check where you live and see if yours will.
I was told by a local beekeeper that Japanese knotweed was a great food source for his honeybees. Japanese Knotweed is one of the premier treatments for Lyme Disease. It tends to grow in Lyme endemic areas, and like Lyme, it is incredibly difficult to eradicate once it begins to take over.
If you stop using Roundup, you might be able to sell it as a major cash crop to an herbalist. Resveratrol, the main component in grapes and red wine, is also present in Japanese Knotweed. Worth consideration!
Thought this was interesting. Send the herbalists my way please! If you want to organically kill it, I would suggest using good old vinegar. Vinegar kills any plant. Roundup is sprayed on plants we eat and then slowly poisons us. Again, cut the vines which can get very thick and pour on the fresh cut. We tried eradicating weeds and grasses one summer, using the regular home-use vinegar from Costco, even mixed in a bit of rock salt for good measure…. We could almost watch them perk-up and stretch to the sky again.
Hardly any had wilted over after 48 hours. But then, this is the Pacific NW; soils tend to encourage somewhat acid-loving plants. Any piece, of root or upper plant, will regrow. The municipality here West Vancouver, Canada , hires a private contractor to go around and do stem injection with Glyphosphate Roundup, basically.
Nasty but it is the only thing that will kill the plant AND not lead to more spreading. Are you sure it is edible? Instructions for harvesting and eating below. I planted a guara. It is drought tolerant, grows by runners much like the sunchoke, has lovely white and pink blooms in a meadow effect. It gives us horrid headaches, and it is right outside the front door, and when the door opens, the fragrance enters the house.
It has plagued me for 17 years now! I have solarized, hacked it out completely, repeatedly, etc. Still comes back. Cut it as close to the ground and try a chemical called Remedy. It is used to kill trees. Wear gloves. Thanks for the warning! One small little shrub will grow into another bush, which roots itself along the ground and spreads fast. A plant can become several very quickly, and can take over the yard. The only way to rid yourself of them is to dig up the dirt — all of it, about a meter each side of the plant, and under — remove, discard somewhere SAFE like the bin , and replace the soil in the garden.
Trust me. This advice may save your garden. Just cover it with a sheet of black plastic or a thick layer of cardboard or newspaper. It will die off completely in a couple of months. She planted a few in a flower bed right next to the side of her house, right in front of her dining room windows.
They were very effective at blocking said windows from getting any kind of light! Anyway, that was 10 years ago and she is still pulling a few up every spring. I have heard that pigs like these and they are about the only thing to be able to find and dig them all up.
If I get pigs in the future I may plant these to give them something to root for. Try getting rid of that in soggy, shady areas of WA state…Our goats and heritage breed sheep would have made quick work of them if they had been given access as they devoured what we had in another plot.
We also have mint and lemon balm that grow out of bounds quickly here. It was a valued fodder in times past and is quite high in protein. Thanks for sharing your experience, Staci.
I think adding herbs to homestead animals forage options is a great idea that should be more widely used. The bane of my existence.
The previous occupant of our home had a small garden last year. In one corner was a lemon balm plant. I left it there and it came back this spring. With a vengeance. I have since removed it from my garden because it was trying to overtake everything and it is happily thriving in my flower bed now. The garden, I fear, will never be the same. I have baby lemon balm sprouting up everywhere. Crowding out my veggies and even growing throughout the beams surrounding the garden.
Anyone want some lemon balm? I have a never-ending supply! Need I say more?!?!?! BUT you can rub the leaves on your skin to repel bugs. I use handfuls of it along with catnip to mulch other plants to keep bunnies away.
It is indeed a member of the mint family. While it does sprout runners, I just clip them back. In the spring before I put in transplants, I put a weed barrier cloth on the area around the lemon balm giving it about inches of bare ground around the main base and pin down the cloth. It keeps contained without any problems. Lemon balm, me, too, me, too. So invasive. Spread all through my lawn, from its enclosed in ground pot. Yummy, though, but not yummy enough to need a whole lawn full of it.
We planted Lemon Balm around a boggy area — helps keep the mosquitoes away! I have gotten to the point that lawn too expensive, always trying to keep it alive, in woods I have started growing herbs, lemon balm did over run my lavender but it is a great addition to wild yard, mowing does smell so good.
Plus the ability to use something Non Chemical on my skin against fleas, mosquitoes, gnats… Too many people jumping to kill things, instead end up with round up in their wells, food. I have fought round up for years but now it is in wine, beer, bread so keep using.
I was thinking of planting some…. Most gardeners already know that mint can be rather invasive. But it is one plant that I enjoy mowing and weeding because it smells so good! Easy solution.
The you have all that nutrition but under control. Why let plants control you, when it should be the other way around — good nutrition and valuable probiotics sic. I only cut up a little for salads to give it crunch and a nutty taste so never eat them in great quantities to give me digestive issues.
Just use common sense in planting and eating. End of story. Sorry, I am referring to the sunchokes. If the containers get too bulging you can always break them apart and have new containers next year. I checked out the link, you are right about the presenter.
I checked his video on kombucha just yesterday. It was an hour long, had good info but could really have been shorter or done in 2 parts. We live in Texas, land of high heat, loads of intense sun, and infrequent rain during the summer.
The plant police would likely arrest me for cruelty to plants if I ever attempt growing something in a pot again. Unless there is some defense for utter forgetfulness and oblivion. I have pots on my patio, right outside the back door, that I pass several times a day.
And still forget to water. Then again. They just wick the water out of everything. Have you considered a hugel pot? Bury some pieces of wood in the bottom. They absorb water and release it back. Look up hugelkultur. Same idea on small scale. Oregano is part of the mint family.
The entire family are voracious spreaders. We live on limestone. Every time we plant a tree or bush, we have to dig out rock. And gardening is easiest done with raised beds. So I have my chokes in a raised bed. Sorta like mulberry seed. I find it everywhere on the property. I have catnip all over, too, but I like that — as do the cats.
I use it for mulching new seedlings to keep the bunnies away. Oh my! We have at least 6 acres that is tilled ground with out anything planted on it! I would have a chuffa invasion for sure! I planted them in hopes of finding a healthy snack for my husband who is diabetic! I think turkeys like it too if I remember right. I am amazed. I still have the very same ONE row that I originally planted several years ago???? It is in the back of my garden and I love it. Too many walnuts trees!
EIGHT years ago we built a little house in the woods and ran out of money for landscaping. Some nice person gave me free Yarrow. It has now taken over parts of my yard. Do not ever plant yarrow or snow on the mountain no matter how much money you do not have…. Have Mercy! Try to avoid ones made in China as they are often weaker mixes than they claim. I would mix more concentrated than the directions say, especially if you have hard water. One or two applications should do the trick if there are no seeds waiting to re-establish the plant.
Just be prepared to deal with that plant in your garden forever. Eventually, our animals, an older and wiser retired farmer, and a study of how the Native Americans used Sunroot, taught us what a fantastically productive and nutritious crop that Sunroot truly is, and we planted acres of them, instead of fighting them. All animals benefit in health by consuming them. No one gets gas from them, if they have the right beneficial gut flora, so, if you want to avoid any possibility of gas, eat your first one straight out of the dirt, unwashed, when you are digging them, as the dirt around the tubers attracts all of the necessary pro-biotic bacteria needed to digest them.
It is a very special and peculiar plant, but, once you understand the plant, it is a pure joy to grow, to eat, and easy to control.
So, never use a disc or any other type of harrow on them, as it will only break them in pieces and double or triple your population. You will never kill them by digging them, as they only come back better than ever from the lack of their own competition and the aeration of their soil! Anywhere that the brace roots break off the end of the tuber, another plant will come up, no tubers are necessary to have a productive population.
Only pigs can smell, dig and eat every piece of root large enough to germinate. You will never see such healthy pigs, or taste such delicious pork, as those fed on Sunroot. Chickens can kill them, by continually eating the tops, right after their emergence from the soil. So, let chickens forage in Sunroot only after they are taller than the chickens, so they only work on the lower sun leaves, rather than the new cotelydons.
This also gives your free-range chickens spectacular cover against raptor predation! The cattle will prefer the Sunroot, and eat them right down to the ground, when they are at this weakest stage, they will not grow back.
It is usually best to follow Sunroot a short-season grass, like corn, instead of any bean, which may also be susceptible to sclerotinia white mold.
Larry M. Aden, lma amass. Great comment, Larry. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. One of my favorite parts of blogging is meeting people with more experience than I have that I can learn from.
Thank you I came here by accident as I wanted to know more about tubers I planted over 15 years ago. Never saw them til last year and now…well I will take it one year at a time Lemon Balm I love the aroma, holistic value but …I am going to try your suggestion and move towards road as I did some Sunners and let them enjoy themselves… Have great week Thanks for all the feedback. Let me guess, you have no background in farming. Well, I grew up in a farming family so I have some first hand experience on the subject.
My father was also an agronomist technician for a major university and conducted experiments with herbicides including glyphosates. I currently have many friends and family in agriculture.
Now, where do I begin with what is wrong on that page…. Any time you plant the same crop in the same location year after year, you have an increased risk of fungal infection whether you use herbicide or not.
It prevents carry over of plant diseases. The key omission here is that under the given conditions, an increase in fungal infection would happen even without the use of glyphosate. The research mentioned completely fails to acknowledge this as a potential factor. And irrigating the soil may allow the fungus to survive longer even if you plant something resistant to the fungus before replanting with the previous crop.
Basically, summer fallow and tillage to eliminate weeds used to give the fungus time to die off before the farmer re-planted, but the rise in no-till farming has led to the eliminated those steps. The impact on animals is definitely a potential problem, however, if you read his comments carefully, you will see he makes no mention of the toxicity of glyphosate itself on the animals. These toxins have been known to cause these effects in animals for centuries and such toxicity occurred long before glyphosate existed.
Another convenient omission on his part and he was very careful to mislead you as to the cause. The potential accumulation of glyphosate in the soil and damage to future cops is important.
Glyphosate bonds with calcium and other minerals in the soil. If those are not replaced along with the repeated use, they eventually become depleted and some glyphosate could remain active in the soil to damage future crops, or crops could be depleted of nutrients.
DH appears to ignore the fact that when farmers add calcium, manganese and other minerals back to the soil with their fertilizer, the residual and accumulative impact on soil and potential health effects depleting minerals can cause, do not exist.
One of the most basic rules of farming is what you take out of the soil, you have to replace. The research also fails to mention that wheat, corn, and many other plants planted in the same ground repeatedly will deplete the nutrients all by themselves anyway even without glyphosate use.
That compounds the problems caused by not rotating crops. DH never addresses whether the farmers in question had their soil analyzed and replaced minerals as they were depleted. Soil analysis and proper fertilization has been around longer that I have.
The fact that DH fails to mention any of this is beyond me… unless he has some reason not omit the information. If he finds glyphosate safe, there is no need to conduct more research. Odds are he made even more than that by listing himself as a full time head researcher on multiple grants during that period of time. After what I witnessed in college I will never trust one of these researchers again, especially one that makes omissions and misleads people into making assumptions that are not true.
You are spraying directly on the plants and not on the surrounding soil as you would in commercial agriculture. You will remove the plants once they are dead instead of working them into the ground, unlike commercial agriculture. Any trace amounts of glyphosate that get on the soil or in the soil through the roots should easily become inert without depleting the soil by a measurable amount.
I was raised on a dairy farm in northeast Wisconsin. A small farm, to be sure, but a healthy one. The cows were on pasture during warm weather, and we raised most of their food and our food. My brother and I spent many long hours in the the fields and ponds, catching frogs. It used to be one of our favorite pastimes. As for Dr. RoundUp and other chemical inputs, from my perspective, encourage the use of poor land stewardship, because rather than addressing underlying nutrient deficiencies in the soil with long term solutions, the farmer is encouraged to simply treat the plant with chemical XYZ.
My sunchokes are a nuisance, not something I feel I need to eliminate at any cost. Monsanto et al have a lot of money backing up their interests. BTW, I was in college, too, even managed to get a couple fancy pieces of paper to prove it. Quite well aware of the games that are played to keep grant money flowing in the door.
Wow, James is a pretentious chap, eh? Thanks for the info on sunchokes. To the farmers market I go! One can disagree without being disagreeable, but some people ignore that courtesy. I noticed that you use frogs in pest control…I do too.
I even quit eating frog legs because of my high respect for their abilities…I mean they give me countless hours to do anything I want.. Well I will have to go back to the drawing board on that one. Even the lizards left…. I am a diabetic and also a chemical free gardener. Sunchokes are on my list for next summer. There might be some concern about use of fructose for diabetics. It came in a familiar white granulated form, was very sweet, and offered some hope of sweetness to those who had cut sugar from their diets.
It baked the same as sugar in recipes, too. But… It turned out fructose is a Problem for diabetics, on multiple concerns [turns to fat at greater rate; further messes with metabolism; can increase need for more drugs to mitigate it being in the system, etc. HIGH fructose is a problem for everyone.
Agave has more fructose than High Fructose Corn Syrup! Yes, Fructose acts slow in the body…. This metabolic imbalance can cause the fructose to be stored as more fat, instead of being slowly burned as fuel.
You can get stink big traps that may help keep them under control. Have there been any other changes in your environment lately? Usually if frogs are scarce, something has changed to drive them away. Great rebuttal. If the plant is useful… as you advised , USE it. I came upon it via google after buying some of the tubers at a grocer. As Larry Alden points out, the plant can be quite the boom in managed properly. It turns out the berries are super high in lycopene, basically making them a superfruit.
The Wild Wisdom of Weeds talks about 13 wild plants that are found almost everywhere that are useful for food, medicine and healing the earth.
There was an extensive article using ractopamine sp? The researcher was actively promoting the product to farmers while on university payroll and writing articles about it without disclosure. We lost about 1 billion Monarchs in past 4 years due to round up etc. We thought we won battles but Monsanto and others got bored poisoning other Nations…started lobbying since Bush. If it can kill that many Butterflies it can harm all life.
Creators gave us herbs for a reason. Italian Arum! The previous owners planted it in the flower beds and it is unstoppable! It grows everywhere. It has teeny, tiny bulbs and you can never find all of them. My husband is done playing nice. There is one main area that it is spreading out from. We are considering covering it over with a tarp for several months. We have eaten them fried like potatoes and made into a pureed soup again, like potatoes ; husband and I liked them both ways and plan to try other ways.
As for gas, it did cause some, but nothing painful like you described. In a spot where they were in their own area, they might be okay. Very bad combination. Roasted in the oven! Just add a bit of oil and salt, Yum! Interesting idea. I will no longer go to them! Thanks for the information! Orange Trumpet Vine! I planted it in front of a wall with a pretty wrought-iron trellis in a small planting area near my front door.
It grew like MAD attaching itself to my siding and even slipping up under it. I had to cut it back all the time and the darn thing never flowered ONCE. I finally pulled it out after a couple of years and planted some climbing roses. The darn thing keeps growing back! It even traveled under a concrete sidewalk to a larger planting bed. I should have planted a rose bush, not climbers! Friends or ours had trumpet vine, and that thing spread everywhere! Like you said, under the sidewalk, up the house — not an easy to manage plant.
You may be able to place a trellis next to the house and train plants onto that instead to protect the house. We have a trumpet vine, planted by the previous owner which only grew in a heavily shaded area in the back yard. I have noticed a plant growing for at least 10yrs about feet from it which a friend recently identified as trumpet vine. I would just dig it up and throw it in the trash. I had no idea it could sprout so far.
I did plant a passion flower vine and have seen it cropping up in several places, and have started to be concerned about its capability to be invasive. I harvest the flowers and leaves for a bedtime tea,so I have just dug up the shoots and tossed them. I just do some extra pulling when they get too crazy. I love all kinds of tea and tisanes. Eat the leaves, enjoy the flowers on the fence. The Maximillians have an accomplice — Creeping St Johnswort. As for my other least favorite invasives, pennyroyal was a huge mistake to plant.
It turned out not to be a good medicinal herb and it was worse than mint at taking over a large area. The problem was made worse because it looks like oregano — you need to crush and smell to tell it apart before yanking it out in handfuls. It was apparently made of foxtail barley with a few oat stems for show— it took us almost 10 years to eradicate it from out yard.
Several expensive vet bills added to the misery. Poor dog! Good to know about the sunchokes, and I read this at just the right time. So I was actually considering a patch — until I read your post. Thank you! Avoid Pampas Grass. Great to find your site. Sunchokes would be perfect for a family of eleven. I think under the right conditions they are okay where they can be mowed around, and will be eaten in quantity — I just would never plant them in a standard garden bed. I posted earlier about planting chuffa.
Just wanted to let you know how they turned out. We harvested them and washed them repeatedly and are snacking on them through thhis winter. They taste kind of like fresh coconut. Just a touch sweet and a bit nutty. Will plant again. Love that place! Your boys might like harvesting them. But plant them in good soil and in containers! On a new note, do you think sunchockes would do ok in fifty gallon barrels cut in half?
A friend gave me some and I do like them. But we have LOTS of winds where we live. I have a lot to learn and have learned a lot from your site. Thanks for the great work you do. I know it takes a lot of your time to share with us all that you do. Thanks for the article and the link for where to purchase. My husband and I have a small farm in Olympia, Washington. We have zero farming background though so I rely a lot on great posts like this!
Do you know, when should I put this plant in? There seems to be a lot of information about harvesting but not so much about when to plant? Would appreciate your thoughts! Thank you again! I planted mine in spring, but I threw discards into the weeds in early spring, summer and fall, without planting — and those all grew new plants.
At the time we planted them, someone told me not to because they were a native wild plant and would grow like crazy. Pulling them out of the ground in fall makes no difference!
And reasonably nutritious. Lived in New Mexico quite awhile… had lots of morning glories. They can be nasty… pretty, but nasty!!
I cringe when I see a yard with Morning Glories. They are pretty, but they are the devil to get out of your yard. At least someone warned you. I know to pull it away from any shrub or plant I want to live. Last year the small lamp in front of our house was fully smothered, which was interesting. This year it claimed a chair, which was likewise interesting. At Halloween we yanked the tangle up to hang in dry clumps off our denuded crabapple tree, overhanging the front sidewalk, which added a creepy element to our seasonal decor.
Making the best of it! How do I start? Do I just plant the tubers that I can buy at the farm market? I am sorry if this is a silly question but I cannot find any place on the web to buy seeds or seedlings for sunchokes.
That should work just fine. I started mine from purchased tubers, but since then I have had them spring up in the overgrown areas where I have tossed roots haphazardly.
They are quite durable. Ok I bought some sunchoke tubers. Now with being the middle of June in central Delaware do you think I should plant them now? I have read where they should be planted in the spring or winter. If I plant them now I am not sure I will be able to harvest. I purchased the red fuseau variety and I hear they take days until harvest which would be the middle of October. Any thoughts or advice is appreciated. By the way I love your site. There is so much good information for gardening!
Thank You. My money would be on putting them in the dirt now rather than trying to hold them in the fridge. They sweeten up after light frost. Yes our Octobers can be mild with no frost until November usually. I know what I am doing this weekend. Thank you again for the help! Great info. I have a similar, but not as bad, with white calla lilies.
I spent 3 years trying to get a nice fat bed of these first the voles struck. I just got them started again. My senile father in law went threw my whole garden weeding only it was not weeds. You know when you reach that point where your suspicions that your loved one is not quite right anymore are no longer just a feeling.
Yea Bull in a China shop……. I would love some sunchokes…apparently I missed ordering them 2 yrs in a row from some company that decided they were not shipping to arizona anyway!!
I thought I might hurt some poor lil bug walking along minding his own business so I gave that idea up pretty quickly.
I have 6 acres of goatheads! A woman here in West Texas has invented a device called a Sticker Picker that looks promising. I am picking one up tomorrow. I just dug an enormous crop of sunchokes — they just kept appearing deeper and deeper in my raised bed.
What a funny and informative article you have written on sunchokes! One grew in my garden last year. I was puzzled by the knobby growth at the root of a very tall sunflower and found out that it is Jerusalem Artichoke!
This year, the one plant has expanded into at least Thank you for the explicit photos and description of trying to eradicate this stubborn plant. Mine also grew in a vacant corner of the yard. Thanks for your article and all the reader comments. My daughter has chickens, pigs and sheep… maybe this is a good supplement feed for them! Ducks are the answer to problem sunchokes or at least were for us. It takes all season, but they will root out the shallow ones and eat the sprouts off of the deeper ones until they give out.
Ours are now surrounded by poultry run, which keeps them from spreading. I planted sunchokes in the very back center of my fenced garden this year and even with groundhog incursions, they produced well as I just harvested them here in Ohio. They loved to eat the green shoots with only carrot tops, broccoli, spinach and kale being more sought after.
I could even loan you a few groundhogs if necessary take my groundhogs, please. If eating the ground hogs make sure to get out the glands by their legs. OF course when my cousin cooked up one, he soaked it over night in salt water and then seasoned and fried it and simmered it. Nice, tender, juicy, dark meat. Thanks for the tip. Good to know. Laurie, you never disappoint — thanks for this warning. They are evil. Pure, delicious evil! The key to eating sunchokes and any food high in inulin is to enjoy in moderation.
Smaller portions do not launch an evil takeover of your intestinal tract. I miss blackberries! Every once in a blue moon I try purchasing some in the store, and they always disappoint.
Nothing like fighting the vicious canes for sweet, perfectly ripe berries! Read somewhere that sunchokes are best with a bit of protein—maybe that helps lower any effect of whatever the toxin is in them that some advise against? Since sunchokes are largely inulin, which helps grow gut biotas, maybe it would be better to consume daily probiotics [fermented foods, broad-spectrum probiotics, etc.
That gives them good cultures to enhance, instead of encouraging whatever badly unbalanced, deficient biotics so many these days, have. I recently cooked a 2-qt. Maybe those reduce gas-forming? Probably will have more return, due to leftover root bits.
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Thank you! Start Shopping Now ». Search Item Number or Keyword. Live Help x. Account Hello! Sign In. Close Shopping Cart. Shopping Cart 0 items in cart. Welcome to Gurneys! Click here X. Knobby tubers have a crisp texture, much like that of water chestnuts. Slice raw into salad or cook—delicious boiled, baked or fried, with a flavor similar to potatoes.
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