• Compost,  Gardening adventures,  Perennial vegetables,  Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures,  Recipes,  Seeds,  Soil,  Vegetables,  Vegetarian

    Perennial Vegetables: Jerusalem Artichokes

    A knobby root of deliciousness.
    A knobby root of deliciousness.

    Jerusalem artichokes aren’t artichokes nor are they from Jerusalem.  They are also called sunchokes, which sounds something like an unfortunate cosmic event to me.  We grew them this  year and I have only great things to say about them.

    I ordered organic tubers from Peaceful Valley in California.  By the way, all of the strawberries and rhubarb that I had ordered from them were inexpensive and yet of prime quality.  The tubers grew into tall, sunflower-like plants that graced an area of the new kitchen garden that didn’t have the best soil in it.

    JAs have beautiful sunflower-like flowers that pollinators love.
    JAs have beautiful sunflower-like flowers that pollinators love.

    They flowered most of the summer and just this month – October – began to die off.  The plants had some difficulty with lace bugs, but with good soil fertility and some actively aerated compost tea foliar spray they rallied exceptionally.

    The Jerusalem  artichokes made a nice living wall.
    The Jerusalem artichokes made a nice living wall.

    Today, for our Halloween lunch, we thought some creepy-looking tubers would be appropriate.  They share a basket with Black Beauty zucchinis (caught them small!) and our first sweet potato of the year, Spanish Red Improved, which we also steamed and ate – heaven!

    Our Halloween harvest.
    Our Halloween harvest.

    The ‘chokes are supposed to sweeten up after a frost, but here in San Diego county that might take awhile.

    The chokes grow tubers all around the base of the plant, and also spread them underground.  They are very easy to harvest; the plant wants the tubers to make new plants so they break off easily.

    Cover green tubers back up so that they can continue growing.
    Cover green tubers back up so that they can continue growing.

     

    Although they are knotty, they wash off easily and the skin is thin and mostly easily removed with a vegetable peeler.  I didn’t scrape all of it off and it wasn’t bitter or unpleasant at all.  I roasted them after just washing them with a vegetable brush and the skins were a little firm and the insides very soft.  There wasn’t any unpleasant taste.

    Peeling them is kind of easy, but the skin doesn't taste bad.  Raw they are crisp.
    Peeling them is kind of easy, but the skin doesn’t taste bad. Raw they are crisp.

    Steamed, the JAs become very soft and – by gosh! – taste very similar to soft, buttery artichoke heart!  Wonderful!  My daughter and I ate them down with a little vegan butter .  So wonderfully good.  They can be easily mashed as well.  We also roasted them along with other vegetables.

    Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, beans, mushrooms, potatoes and squash are roasted with garlic, rosemary and olive oil.    Yum.
    Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, beans, mushrooms, potatoes and squash are roasted with garlic, rosemary and olive oil. Yum.

    I mix all the veggies in olive oil with dried rosemary, minced fresh garlic and pepper, spread out on a tray and roast at 425F for about an hour, depending upon the size and thickness of the veggies.  Roasting keeps them more solid yet tender, and sharpens their flavor a little.  Absolutely fantastic.

    I’m saving small tubers to plant ALL OVER THE YARD!  What a great perennial vegetable – perennial in that you leave some tubers in the ground and they keep coming up every year.  They are attractive, give shade to smaller plants, are great for attracting pollinators, create good mulch when the tops have died down, and have wonderful tubers.  The tubers may be eaten raw as well; they are crisp and mild.

    The foliage dies off in the Fall.  I'll cut the stalks at the ground level and lay them down on top of the bed to feed the soil.
    The foliage dies off in the Fall. I’ll cut the stalks at the ground level and lay them down on top of the bed to feed the soil.

    If you have a corner for some tall flowers, definitely try growing some organic Jerusalem artichokes. Yum.

  • Animals,  Bees,  Birding,  Building and Landscaping,  Chickens,  Compost,  Fungus and Mushrooms,  Gardening adventures,  Hugelkultur,  Microbes and Fungi,  Natives,  Natural cleaners,  Other Insects,  Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures,  Pets,  Ponds,  Predators,  Quail,  Rain Catching,  Reptiles and Amphibians,  Water Saving,  Worms

    Saving the Bees

    The ponds at Finch Frolic Garden are cleaned by fish and plants, with no chemicals, algaecide, artificial aeration or filtration.  Well-balanced water allows wildlife to thrive.
    The ponds at Finch Frolic Garden are cleaned by fish and plants, with no chemicals, algaecide, artificial aeration or filtration. Well-balanced water allows wildlife to thrive.

    I should have more accurately called this post, Saving All the Insects, or even Saving the Wildlife, because the answer to saving one is the answer to saving them all. We’ve been inundated for years – my whole lifetime, in fact, – with pleas to save our environment, stop whale slaughter, stop polluting, etc.  I remember winning a poster contest in fifth grade on the subject of curtailing littering.  Since Rachel Carson’s books woke people up to the hazards of DDT and how chemicals have many deadly side effects there has been a grassroots effort to stop the pollution.  Since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out the push for environmentally friendly lights, cars, LEED-certified buildings and many more positive anti-climate-change actions have grown furiously.  Too bad no one listened to him decades before.  A drop in the economy and the radical change in weather patterns have people exploring organics, making their own clothes and foods, changing their shopping habits and thinking about what they are bringing into their homes.  However, this week the World Wildlife Fund released the staggering results of a study that states that between the years 1970 and 2010, 52% of the world’s animal populations are  gone.  Over half.  Gone.  On our watch.  In my lifetime. I am stunned with shame.  So what about the next 40 years?  Over 97% of California wetlands are already gone.  There are only 3% left in Los Angeles.  The Colorado River hasn’t met the ocean for decades, except briefly last year due to major earthworks.  We are pumping all that  water overland, open to the sun for evaporation,  to treatment plants that fill it with chlorine and other chemicals, then sell it to us to spray over lawns and flush down the toilet or let run down the drain while the water heats up.  It is madness.  All  the wildlife that depended upon the Colorado River along that stretch are gone.  All the insects, the frogs, lizards, birds, mammals, etc. that need a clean drink of water no longer have  access  to it.  The only water they can drink is usually chlorinated domestic water in ponds and bird baths.  Too often this water is treated with algaecide, which claims it doesn’t hurt frogs but it does kill what the frogs feed upon.  We are killing our animals with poisoned domestic water.dry_colorado_new[1]

    One of the largest reasons we have extinctions in North America is mismanagement of rainwater in drylands (other than polluting the waters. Poaching, over-fishing, destruction of habitat and climate change are the main reasons).  We have cleared and flattened the ground, and channel rainwater off into the ocean.  Look around at your streets and houses.  Are they harvesting water or channeling it?  Any property that is slanted is channeling water away.  Any property that is level – like the bottom of swales – is harvesting water.  So many properties are inundated with annual rains because there is no water harvesting above them.  When you harvest water, it runs into rain catchment basins and swales instead of roaring down the hillside taking all the topsoil with it.  Water becomes passive and percolates down deeply into the soil.  That deep saturation draws tree roots down into the ground.  The roots break up hardpan, make oxygen and nutrient channels into the dirt and produce exudates  (sugars, carbohydrates and starches) through their roots to attract and feed the billions of microbes that turn your dirt into rain-holding soil.  That underground plume of rainwater then slowly passes through your soil, re-enervating subterranean waterways, refilling your wells and bringing long-dry streambeds back to life.  We must harvest rainwater to save our animals and plants, and consequently ourselves.  We must reestablish sources of clean, unpolluted chemical-free water for animals to eat and from which to drink.

    Healthy pond water is off-color due to tannins, and is filled with tiny creatures.  Some such as daphnia are visible, but just like soil microbes, many aquatic creatures are microscopic.  Fish and frogs feast from this level of the food chain, and these creatures make the water balanced.  They eat mosquito eggs.  They clean up algae.  They are as vitally important as soil microbes.  Oh, and 83% of the frogs are gone.

    I spoke with Quentin Alexander from  HiveSavers today; he performs humane bee rescue around the San Diego area and has been trying to re-queen Africanized hives with calmer European queens which will breed nicer behavior back into the bees rather  than having to kill the entire hive.  He has had no luck in the past two  years with European queens, even those bred in California.  With very little wetlands left, and those often sprayed with DEET by Vector Control, or polluted with chemical fertilizers and oils washed out of front yards, streets and driveways, these insects must resort to drinking from swimming pools and bird baths.  Again, these contain highly chlorinated water.  Animals are being forced to drink poison, or not drink at all.

    We MUST stop using chemicals on our properties, and we MUST harvest rainwater.  We MUST stop spraying well water into the air but irrigate with it in dripper form under mulch so that it is cycled back into the ground rather than evaporated.  One inch of rain on one acre in one hour is 27,154 gallons of water!  It is so easy to harvest rainwater – dig level-bottomed swales!  Dig small ones with a trowel.  Fire up the tractor and turn road ways into swales, or cross-cut vertical paths with swales that have dedicated overflows.  Dig rain catchment basins to catch a flow of water.  Catch water as high up on your property as you can.  If you have level soil, fantastic!  You have it so easy!  Make gentle swales, rain gardens, rain catchment areas and sunken gardens to catch and percolate the water.  Bury old wood perpendicular to water flow – its called hugelkultur

    Please watch this six-minute video by Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Design Institute of Australia.  You need to type in your name and email, but they don’t sell your information nor do they bug you with lots of emails.  Here  is the link.  The title is Finding An Oasis in the American Desert, and it is about the Roosevelt swales dug during the dust bowl in the desert.  If nothing that I say, nor anyone else says can convince you, then please watch this and see the effectiveness of rain harvesting.  We MUST do this, and now before the rains come is the time.  Catch all the water that falls on your property in the soil, and try to catch the water that runs into it.  If there are flood waters channeled through your property, see if you can talk to the people who own land above you about harvesting water up there.  It will reduce the flooding, save topsoil and benefit everyone’s property.  Work towards keeping rainwater in your soil, reducing your domestic water, and making what streambeds are left come back to life.  Keep our old trees from dying by watering deeply through rain catchment.  If you have a pond or swimming pool and treat it with harsh chemicals and algaecides, seek out a natural pond professional.  In the San Diego – Los Angeles region there is Bob Lloyd of PuraVida Aquatics, or Jacob Hatch of Hatch Aquatics.  Jacob builds natural ponds and maintains large natural waterways.  Bob maintains chemical-free backyard and display ponds that are full of wildlife.  He can convert your pool into a clean swimming pond where the water is filtered by plants and thus is lovely year-round, provides abundant habitat and doesn’t need chemical treatments.  No chlorine to burn your skin and eyes.  How great is that? He can also create a constructed wetland that cleans your greywater with plants.

    There are so many simple and inexpensive ways to harvest rainwater rather than allow it to flow into the salty ocean without penetrating the soil.  Please, please, please do them, and if you already have THANK YOU and gently encourage your neighbors to do the same.  We must stop the habitat destruction and start to rebuild what is gone.