Topic: anyone growing yacon??

[orflo]

I have been growing yacon for years now, and I am thrilled about it.  A wonderful plant, huge production of sweet tasting tubers, good storage abilities.  The picture below is the 'morado ' version, which is quite rare (I didn't upload pics of the more common and more productive other variety I have).
Frank

[star]

Embarassingly I havent even heard of it....... :-[

It looks interesting, where does it originate from?

[Biscombe]

Me too Star!! I'm intrigued now! come on who else grows this, and more importantly what does it taste like?

[silverbirch]

I'm with teh other two.  Do tell, what is it?

[debster]

nope cos never heard of it sorry but it looks like something out of doctor who lol ;D

[caroline7758]

Are you in the UK, orflo?

[BAK]

from a quick google it appears to be similar to Jerusalem Artichoke but sweeter.

Question is where can you purchase it?

Orflo appears to be in Belgium.

[Amazin]

Orflo, do you have any plans to supply it to Real Seeds any time soon, like the Oca?

[orflo]

I'm  from Belgium, I'll try and persuade Ben from realseeds to try them, but I think he did do so.  If you search with google, try the latin name:smallanthus sonchifolia or polymnia sonchifolia.  I have lots of links, but I didn't figur e out how to place them all in one post on this forum.  Yacon is originally from South America, but is rapidly gaining interest, New Zealand was one of the first countries where the crop was grown, Japan and South Korea followed, and now it's spreading.  I got my original tubers from a (late but great) UK firm:Future foods, I got the morado from a Norwegian plant collector,
Frank

[Florain]

http://www.seedsofchange.com/enewsletter/issue_40/yacon.asp

This is an article about yakon. It seems they are related to dahiahs and the only real pest problem they have noted is gophers attacking the tubers from below!!!

[Eristic]

and slugs

[saddad]

I'm going to have to grow some of that Eristic.. even if the slugs like it!
 ;D

[Eristic]

I don't have any, I just assumed that being a Dahlia relative, they would be a slug magnet. I still want some as well.

[Manfred]

Hello orflo,

I am from the north of Bavaria, Germany (The reason for my weak English) and am growing Yakon since last year.
I got the plants from a friend in austria last spring.

Are yours really sweet? Mine are tasting almost like nothing. Only if cooked like turnip cabbage they are getting a bit of sweet taste.

According to my enquiry there are differences in the sweetness of the cultivars.
The length of the vegetation period my also have some influence.
In Mexico there seem to be cultivars that are so sweet that they are used for sweet softdrinks etc.

Is it perhaps possible to get samples of your cultivares? I would very much like to test them here.

Best regards,

Manfred

[GrannieAnnie]

It is new to us also. Do you cook it like baking a sweet potato?

[mat]

You can get it from Edulis in Berkshire  I bought some unusual plants from them 2 years ago at a potato day

POLYMNIA sonchifolia 'Yacon' A tall leafy architectural yellow daisy with large
dahlia-like tubers. These can eaten raw or cooked and taste like a pear with a hint
of ginger. Great stir-fried. Grown like dahlias

http://www.edulis.co.uk/
http://www.edulis.co.uk/img/EDULIS.05.listings.pdf

They don't seem to have updated their website for their 2008 events (only 2007 listed)
I believe they are mainly mail order but do open occasionally for visitors

Hope this helps
mat

[Manfred]

It is new to us also. Do you cook it like baking a sweet potato?

I haven`t tried this yet. By now I only used it raw and tried out turnip recipes. (Not everyone likes the sweet taste of cooked yacon in this combiantion.) I have only some tubers left. Might be a good idea to try the sweet potato thing with them.

[mrf94]

I emailed edulis and got this reply

HiWe will have yacon available at end of April. £12 each plus £5.50 Postage &packing Checks made payable to Paul Barney Regards