#sunchokes

[losech]

Three and 2/3rds quarts of pickled sunchokes.

I kinda forgot about these and they ended up keeping really well over the winter in a bucket filled with dry potting mix. They were going to start growing soon though, so I pickled what was left after planting some in the garden.

[quinnfrankephotography]

Nice walk this morning. It rained yesterday and after being really dry everything was well watered. A little warm and humid but really nice to have some rain.

19C 10km.

[tag-along-photography]

Leftover from summer flowers. Missing the colors already.

[the-habitat-ring]

My sunchokes (Helianthus tuberosus) are up and ready to go. Unsure if I should’ve dug out more than I did but oh well, too late now. Can you tell where one is slightly under the corner of the garage roof?

Here’s some flowers from last year with some sort of bee fly (Bombyliidae ???). Gotta love it when a keystone species is tasty for critters and humans

[kihaku-gato]

In spite of the annoyance of them falling over on windy days, I am glad I decided to container-grow the sunchoke (Helianthus tuberosus) tubers I was gifted this spring;

Their vigor is fairly frightening! With autumn here I hope I can see them bloom before frost.

[morethansalad]

Steamed Vegetables with Sunchoke Sauce (Vegan)

[farmobileo3]

Harvesting sun chokes.

[jensownzoo]

Tired and moving slow today but I still got all the garden tasks done today that I was planning on with nearly an hour left in the day to spare.

Soaked the nasturtium seed overnight. Got a 12 pack and a window box planted with the red nasturtium seeds I picked up at the seed swap. Got a six pack planted with a nasturtium mix that I bought in bulk a year or two ago. Then I ran around the garden poking random holes with a finger and dropping the rest of the seed into them. They're one of my favorites so they can never be too many places.

Got all the sweet potato slips that were showing signs of roots potted up to continue rooting in soil. Eight of them are now in pots I nabbed from the recycling bin twoish years ago...perfect because they're deeper but not too wide. There are at least ten more cuttings in the jar of water and the sweet potatoes themselves are still pumping out sprouts.

Otherwise I watered the stuff in the cold frame, scrubbed out all the dirty pots from transplanting and scavenging, and pulled up all the earth staples (made from wire coathangers) from the raised bed where I had trellis lines for the tomatoes. I found out you can diy those tomahooks for trellising tomatoes out of wire coathangers so i'm going to make some of those this year for the raised bed tomatoes. That way I can lower the plant down once it hits the top of the wire enclosure.

Peppermint came back in the two earthboxes, vigorously enough that I may have to do the first harvest in a week or so. Tomorrow I'll get these off the ground and onto the supports made from cinder blocks and metal beams. My back hurts too much today especially with how waterlogged thet are from this weekend's rain.

Patch of sunchokes at the end of one of the raised beds coming back from last year's transplantation. I didn't harvest it last year, but it looks like I'll be able to this year.

Bonus spring flower:

First spiderwort flower of the season. I've got four big clumps of it (this one is slowly being surrounded by bee balm). I tried digging it up to divide the clumps this past fall, but they're all too tied up with the roots of a maple tree just behind them. I didn't have the energy to fight with it. Maybe this year I can pry some loose with a hand trowel or something.