It has been windy. No, not gentle spring breezes … or even the howling, early morning katabatic Spring gales we get in this usually sheltered valley, as the cold air of the table lands roars down from Majors Creek then stops abruptly about 10 minutes after the sun hits us. I am referring to the wind associated with Jerusalem artichokes.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A decade ago Jerusalem artichokes' ability to provoketh the wind (somehow it seems politer to say this in mock olde English) was rarely a problem in our household. Yes, Jerusalem artichokes do provide a massive crop for home gardeners. Yes, they look delightful, each two-metre high plant a mass of yellow blooms from late summer through till autumn, like small sunflowers, which in fact they are.
Yes, they were, and are, extraordinarily good to eat, being not just sweet, soft and nutty when baked, but possessing the kind of starch that passes through you without adding to the easily deposited fat reserves that served my ancestors well, allowing them to get through Ice Age winters, but are now decidedly redundant. They even – possibly, probably – help add to a healthy mix of gut flora.
Their drawback was that each tuber was long, knobbly, twisted, creviced, and needed half an hour's scrubbing to get rid of the grit before you baked them and, even then, there were usually crunchy bits that were not crisp skin.
Some time in the last decade or so new varieties came onto the market, not just rounder, but larger. This year's crop were as large and smooth as potatoes, needing just washing and rubbing with a small amount of olive oil before baking in their skins till the skin was crusty and the insides soft, potato-like but sweeter, and not nearly as calorie rich.
In other words: irresistible Jerusalem artichoke temptation.
Luckily I work alone in a study well separated from our living room. Out of doors the wombats and wallabies find all scents interesting, even those of second-hand Jerusalem artichokes. For those who work in offices, indulge in the joys of Jerusalem artichokes only on Friday or Saturday nights, preferably when your beloved will be away at a conference or so fascinated by the football cheers on TV they won't notice more discreet noises from your digestive system. Or their's either.
The best way to eat Jerusalem artichokes is to simply bake them. If you can resist scoffing the lot, they can be peeled and the pulp added to cakes, scones, bread as you would cooked pumpkin, for extra sweetness and moisture with less fat. You can even substitute them for the pumpkin in pumpkin pie, though the result will be a dingy, off-white colour instead of rich orange. But with those too, the wind will follow you.
The best time to plant them is now while you still find the tubers in garden catalogues or in good fruit and veg stores. Plant them about 20 cm deep and feed and water well for a superb crop. Ignore them, and you'll still harvest a reasonable crop. They will endure drought, bushfire or hungry wallaby invasion and they will probably recover and still give you a small crop, or at least enough to grow again and multiply next year.
I give this advice reluctantly. Modern Jerusalem artichokes are seductive. A discreet one or two is fine but they are so easily grown, so easily cooked and it is so easy to add another six or seven to the tray when the oven is on, which is what I am going to do as soon as I stop writing this, that it is easy to find yourself in a state of constant windiness.
But tonight I am going to eat only one artichoke. The rest can be munched cold, over the week.
Possibly.
This week:
- The wombats have discovered lemon grass! I have been waiting for them to find its succulent scented stems for 40 years. Once they did it was whoosh, no lemon grass, overnight. Hopefully it will regrow – this time, in the vegie gardens fenced out from wombats.
- Daffodils! Enough of them to pick large bunches. And jonquils and the exquisite muted and marbled reds and pinks and purples of the newish varieties of single and double hellebores, that are not only richly coloured but hold their heads up higher above the foliage so they look gorgeous from a distance, not just if you peer down at them with your glasses on.
- And rose leaves sprouting, and bare fruit tree branches turning that rich colour that means leaves and blossom are on their way.
- The currawongs are stealing the coconut fibre mulch to give structural integrity to their nests and I am trying not to mind as the hanging baskets are destroyed.
- I am realising how starved of things to plant I've been the last few months. A few more fruit trees don't count. It's not yet time to plant carrots, or even silver beet (it will just go to seed in a month or three if you do). But I am counting the days until I can.
