This is a bit ot, but I very much recommend keeping artichokes out of your main garden.
They spread like mad and are nearly impossible to get rid of.

I agree with feijoas - Do Not put them in your main garden. Even the smallest piece will come back to haunt you.

Is is slugs? bunnies? squirrels, birds? raccoons?

Based on paucity of info provided, could be anything.

What have you seen out there? What evidence do you have? The evidence you find will help you identify critter.

Dan

Eating jerusalem artichokes causes gas. Worse than beans. So I'm told.

Mine get cucumber beetles, aphids, and deer munching on them... The deer love them. I definitely will agree on keeping them out of the main garden - I didn't do my homework before planting them and they are managing to spread through my raised beds...

They are tasty tho. :-)

Cindy

Deer love them, so I suspect that rabbits and goundhogs do too.

I have mine in a small raised bed made from two half circle window wells to keep them from escaping. You need to dig them all up and then replant. Even then lots of little volunteers still come up.

The different people have different gas reactions. Some people are immune while others are in agony

Yup, deer, rabbits, and woodchucks eat the foliage. Voles can decimate the roots. Years ago, I had big clumps of them take over and eventually I decided to get rid of them and fought them for a couple of years before I won.

Two years ago, I decided to try them again, because they are an incredibly productive crop, given the world food crisis and all. This time, I've had a devil of a time keeping them going, the voles have been doing a real number on them. Who knew such a weedy crop could still be hard to grow under the right circumstances. I thought this stuff was kind of impossible to kill, like amaranth, but it's can be killed by a one ounce rodent.

DEER.
I have planted J.A./sunchokes for 3 years now, in two raised beds.Easy to harvest, the only problem other then deer, is that the skins are thin & they dry out.
So you should dig what you need & leave the rest in the soil.
I do not get gas from sunchokes, but I eat wild nuts & berries, poke salad,Chinese Artichokes.
Anyone hear of Bean-o?
When my J.A. Flower in the Fall, everyone wanted to know what kind of flower it was. I love saying "Flower??"
"Oh, that a vegetable, called Jerusalem Artichoke, no it is a wild plant of North America, not from the Middle East or far East. It is in the sunflower family & yes, you can have a flower, if you like.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Given the location, I'm thinking it as bunnies (I haven't seen any groundhogs yet (fingers crossed). So I'll be on the look out for gassy bunnies. )

I'm almost thinking, maybe I should plant the JA in the garden as a "trap crop" for the deer. Maybe they'll eat the JA and leave everything else alone (I know it's wishful thinking).

Not a bad idea about the trap crop. Mine are within the garden fence and when a deer gets in (happens at least once a season) the JA gets the most damage and tomatoes and peppers, although nibbled here and there, seem to be less damaged than in the past.

I started jerusalem artichokes this year. It costs $4.79 a pound at the one grocery store I found it, so i bought one small piece which I cut up. As the pieces sprouted I subdivided and wound up with 16 plants in a 3 X 12 raised bed.

So far nothing has eaten on them and a few have flowered already, which surprised me because I thought they only flower in the fall.

I've been looking for chinese artichokes (crosne) as well, but all I've got was a blank stare when I ask about them...

One a side note, can J.A roots be dehydrated or frozen to store them?

You can make flour out of them, so Yes on dehydrating.

You might want to post on the Harvest forum about this, but I'm sure you could preserve them any way you can a potato, using the same techniques. For the freezer, I would definitely process and blanch them first.

Just an FYI, though, aside from the voles eating them, they store great in-ground over the winter. Even in fairly northern areas, if you used the right protection scheme, like foamboard and thick mulch, you could probably just dig as needed all winter long (assuming voles don't eat them like they eat mine).

Do they need softer ground and full sun? I have a feeling my ground is too compacted for them and I only have a few places in full sun but I'd love to have them. Although my husband might not, he gets gas from everything, lettuce gives him gas!

I live in Louisiana... for some reason we can not keep caladiums in the ground from one season to the next..you gotta pull them and store them.

I was just out watering everything and thinking about how invasive people say these things are.... I was thinking 'you never hear of anybody complaining about potatoes being invasive and they leave behind tiny spuds..."

Then I looked about 5 and i2 feet in the air and understood the answer.. There are dozens of seeds in every one of those flowers. I'll bet like any weed, some lie dormant from year to year and then germinate.. Otherwise you could just pull a few plants from missed root parts and have them under control in a single season...

Mine only got full sun for a small part of the day... South side of the house with a big shade tree a few feet away to the south west. They get 10 feet tall, and in soft garden soil song wind will uproot them so you might think about some stakes and twine to cage them a bit.

Supposedly viable seed is very rare.

I posted this quote several years ago when a poster named "Slashie" (I think...) had a posting going on JAs.

The plants contain a substance called inulin, which cannot be broken down by the human digestive system, which can cause flatulence and, in some cases, gastric pain.

Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyer on Jerusalem artichokes:

"which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men."

Inulin is a carbohydrate which has to be broken down to fructose and then conversted to glucose. From some of the references I have seen (I'm not a medical professional...) this can be beneficial for diabetics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin

I bought some tubers one year from Gurney's and planted them in a cinderblock box so they couldn't escape and they have created a nice stand in the backyard near the alley. They are like tall, small sunflowers. Rather weedy looking though but I refuse to cut them down. I dug some up once and they spoiled quickly on the counter. Very thin skins. It is said not to boil them as they will become mush but rather to steam or bake them. I've never eaten them. Guess I should try them again.

Inulin causes alot of people severe gas. Dont beleive me? Google "fiber one bar gas pain". Inulin is used as a 'fiber' and a sweetener. It is in yogurts labeled "plus fiber!" in cereals, so - called fiber bars, weight loss drinks, yes, you stay feeling full because your insides are bloated. Ok, back on topic....

I only ate them once....but when I did, I fried in oil like potatoes. They fell apart a bit so had to saute gently, but they were tasty.

Been trying to kill them for over 30 years. The digestive effects are similar to eating a quart of half cooked beans.

I grew them last year and was thrilled with a productive harvest. I will attest to their spreading though...I thought I dug them all up but I had several new plants growing before I put in the new batch.

I never had any stomach issues, but I remember reading somewhere about how to lessen them. I will have to research.

I made them roasted, but my favorite way to eat them is in a soup. They make a great cream soup. Also, very thinly shaved RAW in salads. They are really nice and crunchy that way.

The taste kind of reminded me of water chestnuts. I want to try experimenting with them & wrap them in bacon and cook them in the oven like you would with water chestnuts. (ie: how to take a perfectly wholesome vegetable and make it edible :))

laughing at the bean comment. They ARE tasty. Wish I could eat them.

I don't think they care about either soft ground or full sun. I grew them years ago in heavy, heavy clay and they did great, in fact, that was the spot in my yard they took over and I fought them for a couple of seasons trying to kill them.

And, I believe they'll do ok in about half a day of sun. More is better, but half a day will work. The regular tall variety will just flop more in part shade (they flop anyway).

Be sure to wait until the plants die back after frost. I ate some in late summer after a wind uprooted some plants and the nasty aftertaste stayed with me for a long time. I still remembered it in the back of my mind when I ate them later in the year.

They store really well in the refrigerator in a plastic back wrapped in a damp paper towel.