jerusalem artichoke

Well, it's not from Jerusalem and it's not an artichoke.
It is from the sunflower family, but instead of a fibrous root system, it produces lumpy tubers that taste like a cross between a potato and a mushroom.  In some circles, it's been renamed "sunchoke".

The tubers can be harvested after the frost kills the tops, or they can be left in the ground all winter. They will still be as fresh and crisp in March as they are the previous November.

And the flowers are pretty, too.  They bloom quite late, after everything else is done.

It's November 22, just a few weeks later, and winter has hit PEI.  A heavy frost transformed those beautiful tall plants into dry sad sticks.

Last year, I waited too long to dig the tubers - the sticks had broken and blown away, and it was hard to know where to dig.  So this year, I decided to do the job while I could still see the sticks.  The first 6 inches of soil were frozen, but it was not too hard to dig through and find what I was looking for.

All in all, the 10 plants netted about 19 pounds of tubers.  Unlike my other root vegetables, there was no sign of wire worm damage or any other problems.  I think we need to make this unknown plant a whole lot more popular!