I have posted about Jerusalem artichokes in the past. I have them taking over a concrete block box so they can't take over my tiny backyard. They are a stately looking, tall plant. It also cracks me up about their flatulent nature. Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyear 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." The culprit as someone mentioned is inulin to which some people have a high sensitivity and they are not able to digest. Inulin is a polysaccharide (grouping of simple sugars). I wonder if Beano would be helpful or cooking it with epazote? Epazote helps reduce the noxious flatulent effects beans have on some people. Plants that use inulin do not store starches so as someone mentioned this is most helpful to diabetics. I can relate to the flatulence problems. I can eat beans with gusto and have very few if any major side effects. My mother would get cramps if she ate too many beans. Some folks get horrible gas from cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. It just depends upon how one's system digests foods. The same method someone mentioned about double boiling JAs works with beans too. If you soak the dry beans over night and then pour the water off, cook in new water and pour that water off, the complex starches which are on the bean coating will be greatly diminished which results in less gas problems. I just thought I'd throw that in. I swear I'm going to eat these JAs in my backyard some day but like someone else pointed out, if you dig them up and leave them out on the counter for more than a day, they shrivel up and go bad. I enjoyed this thread on JAs. I'll need to pay more attention to the jungle of them I have in my backyard.

I have 2 varieties of sunchokes with no difference in taste, merely the size of the flowers. I grow them together so any trade is a mixed bag, so to speak... I would like more information such as specific names of okra, which flower seeds, etc. I am looking for the gourd that only grows to 2" at maturity and often stops before that...my grandmother used to call it Teaspoon Gourd. Thanks.

So I planted my knobby store-bought ones in a large pot that a tree came in. They got plenty tall and were beautiful and disease free, but they did get eaten about 3 feet shorter at one point by my nemesis, the deer. I'm attributing their lousy production to that and the fact that I didn't water them much. The soil was really dry a lot of the time. They didn't flower. They did multiply, but not anything impressive for an invasive plant. However, I am believing you guys and have NOT dumped the dirt out. I'm sure it will grow plenty of artichokes next year. Seems like they like more water. I misunderstood the talk about them tasting better after hard frosts, though, and left them pulled up and exposed. They got soft in our hard frosts. I stuck some back under the soil and brought some in the house to see what happens over the winter.

If you would like a recipe that uses Jerusalem artichokes as one of the ingredients instead of the central ingredient, there is a roast chicken with Jerusalem artichoke recipe in the cookbook "Jerusalem" by Otto Lenghi. In fact he has a number of recipe using this tuber. I've not made the dish, but this cookbook and Lenghi's other cookbooks are remarkable, no recipe therein has ever disappointed me. So you've inspired me to go looking for Jerusalem artichokes and make this dish myself. Here is a blog with the recipe, and an inspiring photo - kind of chatty but you can just skip to the end for the info. https://vikalinka.com/roast-chicken-with-jerusalem-artichokes-and-lemons/ Here is a Guardian article with plenty of information and more recipes. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/15/seasonal-food-jerusalem-artichokes