Harvesting Sunchokes in Spring?

Question

I have raised beds, and I noticed sunchokes beginning to grow this spring. I cut down (and thought I had ripped out) the single sunchoke I planted last spring sometime around Christmas last year thinking that was the end of it (didn't even try it after my friends told me horror stories about "severe gastrointestinal distress" they had experienced). I went to dig them up and ended up harvesting over 3lbs of sunchoke tubers (yeah, I weighed them, 3lbs 4.3oz). I'm feeling more adventurous now, and am curious if anyone has experience eating them after such a late harvest (they were sprouting new plants and were about 6 inches tall above the soil, and some of the tubers were over a foot deep. I really dug these things up).

Are they worth cooking, or should I just toss them?

Answer 1

Before they sprouted I'd have said they were in ideal condition to eat, having been frozen in the ground (which is the time to eat them and not suffer "SGID" not to mention the soapy taste of them unfrozen.) Having sprouted, probably not. One of the roles they filled for us was something that could be harvested from the garden over the winter and into early spring when nothing was growing.

As for being done with them, uh, good luck with that. It IS possible to get rid of them; but it's going to be a long process where you cut off every stem you see every week, or more often than that. They are a persistent weed once you decide that they are a weed rather than a crop. If you plant them in a lawn area rather than a garden bed you can mow them to contain the bed, and mow the whole bed (repeatedly) if you decide that you are done with them. That's harder in a garden bed.