Grow Your Own Trellis Poles with Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes or Wild Sunflowers)

While there is nothing wrong with using bamboo for trellises and stakes in the garden, I’m a big believer in using what you have. Today I am harvesting the stalks from my sunchoke plants to use as a support for next year‘s crops.

Sunchokes reach somewhere between 10 to 12 feet tall, so I will be cutting off the top half of the stalk where the blossom, foliage, and skinnier/weaker stem portion reside. I am cutting the base of the stalk at the soil line above the tuber. Discarded plant material like the tops or stalks that are deemed too slender/weak to use can be composted. To store my sunchoke stalks, I will be keeping them inside of my barn throughout the winter. Though as an experiment I left a couple of stalks outdoors throughout last winter and—still—they did not rot, I recommend storing in a dry place for longevity.

ABOUT SUNCHOKES

• Sunchokes have edible tubers.
• Sunchokes grow tall and thickly. This makes them a great candidate for a privacy screen or windbreak. If you want to avoid density, be sure to harvest tubers for eating, selling, transplanting, or sharing.
• Sunchokes, also called wild sunflowers and Jerusalem artichokes, are native to the United States. This means they are already well adapted to many growing zones and climates across the country.
• Sunchokes require little more than well draining soil. They grow well on slopes, in clay soils, and can even produce well in partial shade.
• As a flowering native, sunchokes are an excellent food source for pollinators, both natives and honeybee alike.
• Sunchokes are perennials, which means no replanting from year to year. Their woody stem tissue also means the plant absorbs more carbon dioxide (than soft tissue crops) from the atmosphere throughout its growing process and stores it within these tissues.

If you are interested in growing your own sunchokes I have tubers available on my website.