First harvest

A bucket full of 'chokes

Jerusalem artichokes, or sunchokes, are the first crop I can harvest in any year. I went out last weekend (March 26) and found that the ground was snow-free and ready to dig anywhere the 'chokes are in the earth.

I'm going to dig around with my hands here.

Sunchokes are in the sunflower family. They are the easiest things IN THE WORLD to grow. You basically dig a little hole, maybe double the depth of the tuber, throw the tuber in and cover it with dirt. I say dirt, because it really doesn't have to be soil, per se. They'd probably like to get some water now and again, but even that seems to be optional.

Really, that's all there is to it.

Stalks shoot up from the tubers and grow to around 7 or 8 feet high. They will be covered with little, 2 inch yellow flowers later in the summer. The deer will prune any that stick out from the fence.

I only put them in areas where they won't compete with anything else, and I ALWAYS dig the tubers every spring. One tuber creates quite a mass of offspring, so I don't know what would happen if I left all of them in the ground.

Slice 'em and eat 'em.

After soaking five minutes in water.

I read that the starches convert to sugar underground over the winter, and they do seem quite sweet, crunchy and slightly nutty. You could probably dig them in the late fall/early winter too, but sometimes the ground is frozen by then.

The gardener as gambler

It's gambling season for Methow Valley gardeners.   The garden thermometer has read 32 degrees Fahrenheit on a couple of mornings, however my garden has not yet sustained a killing frost.  I honestly don't know why the tender plants haven't yet turned black, but I'll take my luck as long as it holds.

We've enjoyed lovely, warm days for the last week or so, and that's been enough to keep the tomatoes ripening, the zucchinis setting fruit (thanks to winged pollinators), and the pole beans blooming.  I've been watering the still-producing sections of the garden, too, which has kept those plants strong enough to withstand chilly nights.

purple pole beans

So, in what ways do I gamble in the garden?  Well, I didn't feel like gambling at all with the chiles when two weeks ago I harvested all peppers of an edible size.  Last year we had a killing freeze on September 21st which turned the peppers to mush, so this year I was more cautious.  I did, however, leave some smallish ones on the plants, and lo how they've grown in the last couple weeks!  That was a gamble that paid off.  Don't pull the plants if there's still hope for an Indian summer.

Every day I go out and assess the situation.  Do I pick all the baby beans, or wait another day?  Will these baby zucchinis get any bigger, or will they freeze tonight?  Shall I give the just-coloring-up Roma tomatoes another afternoon in the sunshine, or play it safe and harvest them all?  Our old-fashioned apple varieties actually benefit from a bit of frost, so I'll definitely wait for them to develop optimal flavor.

ripening Roma and Stupice tomatoes