Saint Jerusalem Artichoke Tubers

Resistant to Deer Browse, Rebounds Quickly from Vole Damage, Fast and Tall Growing Selection to 12 Feet Height-Low Culinary Selection

Selected seedling artichoke variety with dense compound roots with bumpy nodes. Although completely edible, Saint is not considered a culinary selection only because of its dense and hard to clean roots. In terms of an artichoke, it is saintly in its ability to cluster tubers in huge volumes despite voles as well as getting hammered by deer. The strong growth with no side branching plants can grow upwards to 12 feet tall passing the browse line quickly. Flowers in October. This was a seedling from Saint Charles which was a very good wild selection. This one has the same vigor but has a much better chance of surviving the wrath animals that also love the sunchoke. 

Saint is one of the best of the last remaining plants at my farm. To give you an idea of delectibility of the sunchoke, I partially removed the plastic on my last polyhouse this summer. In the middle of one of the houses to my surprise without any irrigation was a sunchoke growing in one of the old poly bags. It only took a week and the deer stepped over the plastic into the polyhouse and consumed the foliage. This leads to why you might find sunchokes right next to a roadway and very few other places. 

Sunchokes are a welcome addition to a landscape and Saint might be the last chance to be saved and purified by its presence alone. It might also prove difficult to get rid of. I hope so. 

Tubers are shipped from March 15 to April 15 only in dormant condition. Refrigerate upon receiving if you are not able to plant right away. Normally refrigeration slows sprouting but it does not stop it and refrigeration is not ideal for sunchoke storage.