Sunchokes - a great survival food

Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem Artichokes, are a handy plant to have in your garden. The small knobby tuber/root is the edible part and is delicious raw in salads or steamed. The yellow flower grows on a single stem around 5-8 tall and resembles a small sunflower. The flowers have a wonderful honey scent.

They are so easy to grow. If you have a specialty market in your area, you can probably find them there, otherwise order them from a seed catalog. Unlike seed potatoes, which need the eye to grow a new plant, you can cut a sunchoke into as many pieces as you want and each one will grow a new plant. Plant in the spring and requires no special maintenance. The roots can be harvested in the fall, or let them overwinter in the soil and pick them in the spring, when they've become sweeter. Each plant will yield several tubers. You may have to do some digging to make sure you get them all. Any left in the ground will grow next year and after a few years you'll have to do some thinning because they can get out of hand.

You can plant sunchokes in waste places or in a flower garden where they will appear to just be ornamental flowers or wildflowers to the uninitiated. If you're of a survival mindset, you will have food hiding in plain sight in a SHTF situation. Or plant them all around your neighborhood and community as "security" to provide food for unprepared people in an emergency situation.

Sunchokes are a good source of potassium, iron and copper. They can be a challenge when it comes to cleaning the dirt off that gets lodged between the nodules; I use an old toothbrush when rinsing them off. In salads, they have a crisp bite like a jicama. I also add them to winter vegetable stews where they have a soft buttery texture. You can either peel the outer skin or leave it on. If you haven't experimented with sunchokes in your garden, why not give them a try this year?