Topic: Jerusalem Artichoke companions

[Mouseski]

I am expecting my JAs to arrive soon and have  a bed ready for them - away from everything else in case they get invasive!

Question is what can I put in with them to stop annual weeds frolicking over the bed? I'm considering a few lettuces or maybe sweet peas. Is there anything like the three sisters planting with sweetcorn that anybody knows about. I know I need to take into account harvest and planting times and my brain is now as numb as my nettle stung hands!

 Any ideas folks? ???

[saddad]

I have self sown Borage and Snapdragons among mine.... not planned but very pretty!
 ;D

[artichoke]

The RHS mag "The Garden" had runner beans growing up their JAs in an allotment article last year. I haven't tried it because I  keep mine trimmed to a hedge. I suppose you could let squashes wander about their ankles.

[plimsoll plot2]

[rutters]

I've just received some JA tubers which I'm growing for the first time. Could anyone tell me how and where to plant them and also when to harvest?

cheers

[artichoke]

Plant them now, maybe six inches apart and two inches deep (two inches above the top of the tuber). It doesn't matter much what you do, they will grow anyway. My grandsons secretly scratched little holes here and there across my allotment when they were 3 and 5, burying tubers, and it took me years to clear them all out, because every little tiny piece grows into a great big plant. It's best to plant them in a confined space - I grow them as a hedge in front of my compost heap.

They grow all summer, die back in late autumn, and you dig them up over the winter as and when you need them, as they are best stored in the ground.

That's the short version. The late and much missed Super Sprout sent me about 5 closely typed pages on their cultivation, as she had over the years bred ever fatter and smoother artichokes, and sent me three to prove it. I planted them towards the end of January.

[Trixiebelle]

I do miss Supersprout  :( I've got so many questions I need to ask her  :-[

[rutters]

thanks for the excellent reply..next question would be 'How do you use them' Also do you keep tubers for the next year?

cheers

[Mouseski]

Thats good advice Artichoke, many thanks. Now getting back to my original question.

Question is what can I put in with them to stop annual weeds frolicking over the bed? I'm considering a few lettuces or maybe sweet peas. Is there anything like the three sisters planting with sweetcorn that anybody knows about. I know I need to take into account harvest and planting times and my brain is now as numb as my nettle stung hands!

 Any ideas folks? ???

[OllieC]

I planted some leeks (Tropita) in front of some, Sweetcorn in front of some others and Celeriac in front of another lot. The plants closest to the JA's really struggled - I assumed this was lack of water but it could be something else (root competition?). The JA's were on the North side so it wasn't light.

I even watered the celeriac most days - but they were a disaster. Interestingly the JA's from behind the celeriac had the greatest yield (further supporting the competing for water theory).

This year I might try some water melons or something else that likes to climb, but put the plant a bit of a distance away & send it up the JA's when it gets there. Otherwise I'd look for something that's not too thirsty for a chum.

Interstingly, they did an excellent job of stopping the brambles & nettles behind them from encroaching onto my plot. I had to give them a helping hand at the start (cutting back the weeds with some shears), but after that they took care of themselves.

[Mouseski]

Its a shame about your Celeriac OllieC, but i supose that you a right about the water thing as given the grown rate, the JA's must be thirsty buggers. I'm in yorkshire on heavy clay so not getting enough water is not a major problem. My chosen area is south facing and bordered by many brambles, so if they slow their encroachment then even better.

I'm not too worried about  putting vegies around them as i like flowers and am now thinking along the lines of sweetpeas to climb amongst them, and do the root nitrogen thing, and nasturtiums to sprall at the base, supress weeks and hover up all of the blackfly.

[Emagggie]

I do miss Supersprout  :( I've got so many questions I need to ask her  :-[

Me too trixie. :'(

[cornykev]

I planted mine out of a bed near my back fence hoping they will grow up blocking on lookers to my plot, secluded so they don't strangle other plants and as its my first batch (cheers Jen and yes she did buy her car to match the colour of her handbag) I'm looking forward to what they taste like.   ;D ;D ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

They'll certainly block the view once they've grown up; that's how I used to use them.

[jennym]

Mouseski, I grow ja's through poached egg plant Limnanthes douglasii. It suppresses the weeds well until it starts to die back in June/July. Have found that not much grows successfully within around a metre of the area in which the ja's are growing. Some self seeded Nigella grows near them too, but that's about it.
KevB, couldn't have been a grottier colour though, could it?

[artichoke]

I grow mine next to a regularly mown grass path to stop them spreading out of control. Behind their row is the compost heap, so if they spread that way they've had it. In other words, I confine them cruelly and do not put other plants near them. No problem with weeds.

[MrsKP]

Here are two pms from Supersprout when she sent me my JAs.

1) Well I learned the lessons of my life with JAs this year. Hurl JAs into a rubbish pit, ignore them for a year, and they will reward you with small, lumpy, tasteless, invasive tubers.

Pop your best smooth tasty tubers into a byee-oo-tiful 1m wide bed at 1m wide intervals in the centre, mulch with manure and compost throughout the year and you will get this:



followed by huge, smooth, well-flavoured, sweet tubers that are easy to dig out, and a bed ready for the fussiest of roots just after they're all harvested  :D

You can plant them any time of year, just cover with a thick layer of straw whilst the frosts last, six-nine inches deep in the middle of 1m2 growing space. They will come up eventually, everyone was panicking at the start of last year cos the Globes weren't coming up because it was cold. I think they eventually showed sprouts in May!

Sow hurl by all means, IMO you HAVE to disguise the scary patches, but IMO JAs will just make the scary corners scarier. I have planted globe artichokes in my scary patch, after Cleo's advice that they were thugs, mulched well with  manure and straw, they are beautifying it and getting rid of the weeds at the same time. And they'll be easy to take up/transplant weeds etc.

Squash family did brilliantly growing on/hiding scary spaces, would recommend thos too.

2)I've never found that flowering and cutting down in Summer makes a jot of difference to JAs, although I haven't done a thorough test  ::) IMO what prevents JA tubers from growing big and fat:

Wind Rock - plant deeply (min 6" and stake)
Poor soil - mulch heavily with nurrishing stuff in Spring and Autumn
Close spacing - plant 1m apart so leaves have plenty of room to catch the sunlight.

I miss SS too.   :-[

[Mouseski]

So many options I shall rummage through the seed packets in the tin and see what I can come up with :)
Many thanks fo passing on the wise words of SS. Before I was brave enough to write on the forum I was very grateful to the sound practical advice I read from her on these forum pages in my first year at the lottie. I shall follow the instructions carefully :)

[Tinkie_Bear]

The first year I grew JA's I grew runners up them - this worked well to start with but the runners grew faster then the JA's so it all got a bit messy.

My patch is such a thicket I don't think there would be enough light to grow anything around their feet.

Helen