Our first harvest... Jerusalem Artichokes

We haven't had our garden parcel for very long, but last night we dug up a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes - which we've inherited from whoever abandoned the parcel over a year ago. It's a nice way to start out the gardening experience - with produce!

I think I had heard the name of this root vegetable before, but I had never tried Jerusalem Artichokes before coming to Norway. It turns out that they are native here, and considered an invasive species in much of the world, but making a bit of a comeback as a food staple. Jerusalem Artichokes were what Norwegians lived off of before the potato - which is pretty incredible to think that the potato is not native here when plays such a big role in the local diet.

I am a big fan of these guys - they're tastier and somewhat healthier than potatoes, and it turns out that they basically grow on their own. No worries about pests or watering or wintering here. We brought this small pile home with us to cook up as home-fries this morning, planted at least as many and gave another pile to a garden neighbor. And that isn't the end of them - we actually haven't gotten down much finesse with the harvesting procedure so are certain to have missed a ton of them which I'm sure will pop up erratically through the year, outside of the neat rows we attempted to lay.

When digging, they are completely covered and hidden by the soil, so our method was to 'harvest' all the ones that the shovel happened to slice through - because then you notice the bright white interior. These have survived at least one winter in the earth and didn't rot.. It will be interesting to see how many we get next year!