@meadow Do they taste good? I've always been curious about their flavour, and I've never met anyone whose actually eaten them!
Haven't eaten Jerusalem artichokes for so long (about 20 years) that I no longer remember how they tasted. But this is actually one of the best times to dig them...
(going into tree line with a shovel)...
In their prime (which is Fall after the tops have died, but before the ground freezes) the taste is somewhat like a cross between carrot & potato raw, but crunchy as a nut. Pleasant, but IMO not worth the trouble of digging & cleaning them here, especially as stunted as they are in their present location. Mine were planted in an area that was far from ideal - a heavily-shaded wet corner of the lot where not much else could grow - and neglected. I had obtained them because JA are touted as being good for DW's diabetes, but she never took a liking to them. She did fence them in though, otherwise the resident deer would have mowed them until they died. Deer really like the foliage, they are probably one of the few things which could kill them.
My patch (of the variety "Clearwater") is basically just for preservation. If I had sandy well-drained soil here (which I don't) and a sunny location far from anything else, I might grow some JAs for food. When I lived in San Jose California, I had an ideal location... sandy soil on the bank of a creek. All I had to do for harvest was to wait. In late Winter, the creek would eventually overflow; when there was 6-8" of water covering the soil, I could walk out there with waders, and gently oscillate the dead stalks up & down. Gradually the whole root ball (including the tubers) would come up as a clump, with the tubers mostly clean. The weight of some of those clusters was impressive, wish I'd taken a few photos.
Once dug, the tubers don't store well at all. They should be dug just before use (best) or kept refrigerated in plastic bags. Peeling the small tubers would not leave much, so I just scrub off the skin with a steel pot scrubber or an abrasive pad. There are named varieties with less knobby tubers ("Clearwater" is one of those) and SSE carries a lot of heirlooms.
Apparently there was a Russian breeding program for JAs, someone in SSE lists "Skorospelka" which was allegedly developed there - and is described as developing tubers close to the stem. Hmmm... I might plant that in the abandoned part of the rural garden next year, where spreading would not be an issue, just to see how it performs.
Edit: In the past, I've described these as carrot-like, and JAs are recommended - cooked - as a potato substitute. But I now think of these tubers more as large nuts than small potatoes. Good for snacking.
