This Crop Is Way Better Than Potatoes (And No-One Grows It!)

Everyone loves potatoes, but did you know there’s a vegetable that’s even easier to grow, tastes delicious, and needs almost no care? Jerusalem artichoke (a.k.a. sunchoke) is an all-round garden star, as we’re about to find out!

A Super Prolific, Super Reliable Perennial Vegetable

My artichoke patch doesn’t look like much at this time of year, but slumbering deep in the soil are untold riches, planted last year, and ready to dig up right now.

Jerusalem artichoke is one of the most prolific crops you can possibly grow. And it’s one of the easiest because the tubers can just sit in the ground all winter to lift and enjoy at your leisure – no special storage required.

This impressively hardy plant can be grown in zones 3-9, it’s not affected by any serious disease problems, and it rarely suffers from pests – it’s pretty much bombproof! Plant it towards the end of winter and watch it romp away. It’ll put on rapid growth over the summer, then the top growth will die back and those tempting tubers will sit patiently through the winter ready for you to harvest whenever you need them. If your soil tends to freeze solid over winter, gather up your tubers before this happens then store them in buckets of damp potting mix or sand til you’re ready to enjoy them.

When it comes to yield for the space it takes up, Jerusalem artichoke is way, way up there with the most productive plants. In fact it’s often touted as the one crop to grow in case of the apocalypse!

What’s in a Name?

Jerusalem artichokes aren’t actually from Jerusalem, and bear no relation to globe artichoke, which is a type of thistle. They are, in fact, closely related to sunflowers, which makes sense when you look at their lofty growth and cheery yellow flowers – and that explains their alternative name of ‘sunchokes’ too. Jerusalem artichokes can grow to 10ft (3m) or more, and they’ll flower profusely throughout the second half of summer, making this a stunning plant in its own right.

The name Jerusalem artichoke is likely a corruption of the Italian word for sunflower – girasole – which translates to ‘turning to the sun’, and the ‘artichoke’ part is almost certainly because of its uncanny similarity in taste to globe artichokes. Either way, these humble, knobbly-looking tubers pack a seriously nutritious punch along with a beautifully rich, slightly nutty, slighty sweet, umami taste. Why they’re not more popular I don’t know!

How to Plant Jerusalem Artichoke Tubers

Once you’ve got a patch of Jerusalem artichokes established, you can keep them going in the same spot year after year simply by replanting a portion of your harvest. In this way they act very much like a perennial crop, returning again and again with just the merest effort from you. Ever-obliging, they’ll cope well in a fairly shady spot though, like many vegetables, they’ll grow best in full sun.

Late winter is the perfect time to plant them. I’m going to relocate my artichokes to a new area because last year I found that they grew just a bit too tall, flopping over and getting in the way of other beds. For this reason, you might like to consider growing them in their own bed or even in very large containers in a spot where they won’t flail and collapse onto surrounding plants.

I’ve got a spot that’s a little bit shaded but still gets plenty of sunshine for at least some of the day. The soil there is fairly well-draining, and I’ve improved it with a few barrowloads of well-rotted manure to beef it up. Jerusalem artichokes will grow even in poorer soils though.

Lay them out about 18in (45cm) apart in both directions. You could go a bit closer than this, or even plant a bit further apart if you’ve got a bigger area to cover – say a couple of feet (60cm) apart. Dig a hole for each tuber about 6in (15cm) deep, pop them in and cover them over with soil. If replanting part of your harvest, hold back some healthy sections of tuber that are a reasonable size, with buds on them.

If your soil is especially sandy or not very nutrient-rich, you could add a handful of garden compost and perhaps a sprinkling of a slow-release fertilizer such as chicken manure pellets into each hole to give them a boost.

Growing Jerusalem Artichokes

Between now and next winter your Jerusalem artichokes will get growing and need very little intervention or fuss. While the plants are as cold-hardy as anything, the foliage can get frosted, but don’t worry – new shoots will emerge in their own time once the soil warms up. They’ll push through timidly at first and then grow with a speed and keenness I’ve honestly never witnessed in any other plant – they grow even faster than corn!

As the plants begin their thrust ever skywards, apply a mulch of organic matter such as grass clippings around the shoots to help lock in soil moisture and, if the weather is very dry, water from time to time to help power all that vertiginous growth. The artichokes’ lofty height makes them really useful as a temporary screen or windbreak for summer crops.

I like to grow a living mulch of nasturtiums at the base of Jerusalem artichokes. Nasturtiums are shallow-rooted so won’t interfere with the artichokes or compete for resources, and they add a lovely understory of stunning color and peppery-tasting leaves.

The flowers are just stunning! Like their close relation, sunflowers, they’re a boon for bees and make really top-notch cut flowers. There’s no harm in cutting a few of the flowers to bring indoors – it won’t set back the developing tubers below ground.

Towards the end of the season, once the foliage has died back, cut the stems down close to ground level, leaving little stumps so you can tell where each plant is. Remove all that growth to the compost heap, then dig up the tubers as needed.

How to Eat Jerusalem Artichokes

I suppose one of the reasons Jerusalem artichokes aren’t as popular as perhaps they should be is their reputation for making us a tad windy if you eat a lot of them – hence their unfortunate nickname of ‘fartichoke’! This is due to the inulin, a type of dietary fiber, in the tubers. But while it can make some people windy, it’s incredibly good for the gut biome and can actually improve digestive health. In short, it’s terribly good for us!

Harvesting the tubers after a few good, hard frosts will lessen its side effects. I love to eat them roasted or – my absolute favorite – used in a soup for its rich depth of taste. You can even eat it raw, grated or cubed into salads.

To reduce its wind-inducing impact still further, try fermenting it. Cut up clean tubers into thin slices then rub with salt and stack into a fermenting jar to mature just like a sauerkraut or kimchi. You could also try layering it with salad onions, maybe some chilies, and perhaps a little ginger and garlic. Add a little purified water to cover the slices, shake to settle, and top up again if needed. Leave it at room temperature, in the dark, until bubbles stop appearing at the sides, at which point the jar can be moved to the fridge where it should keep just fine for the next few months.

You can add Jerusalem artichokes to any plan in the Garden Planner, and it will automatically calculate how many tubers you’ll need to plant in the space you have. It will also show you key planting and harvesting dates in your Plant List.