[Pil-pc-oceania] Jerusalem artichokes underneath fruit and nuttrees

[permaculture at apollobay.org.au]

Hi Jedd
How u going?  I'm gonna be journeying up your way in July

Dan is in South Gippsland, so similar climate and latitude to me here in
the Otways... so cold & wet... especially at the moment.  I don't think the
sunchokes (JA) are as invasive down here as they are up north, but it might
just be the varieties that I've planted.

Graeme & Hannah, have you noticed differences in the varieties of
sunchokes?  Are some less invasive than others?

I'm a bit wary about planting the sunchokes at the moment... how wet are
the swales, Dan?  

Sunchokes are delicious when baked... and they have never made my
intestinal bacteria work overtime.  If they're pig food, then I'm a pig!

cheers
Fern

PS.  Horseradish works well down here as a kikuyu suppressor, but I much
prefer sunchokes to horseradish.  Borage also battles through and
suppresses the kikuyu/couch grass, although it does die back and then the
grass takes over again.
If I was you Dan, I'd start planting some lovely indigenous grasses along
with the barley/ oats cover crop.  Some are edible too, but mostly they're
beautiful! (blue devils are gorgeous).  When densely planted, they can
prevent kikuyu / couch from edging in.
Nick Romanowski has written some great books on grasses. 
 

Original Message:
-----------------
From: jedd jedd at progsoc.org


 Hi Dan,

 JA's spread by tuber.  Two consequences - you need to dig them
 up to harvest them (disturbing any other plant's roots in the
 vicinity) and they will slowly encroach on any neighbours.  They're
 notoriously hard things to find every last one of, particularly
 when planted en masse.

 Like sunflowers, they're allelotrophic (sp?) so can suppress their
 neighbours.  This may, as you've observed, work with couch and
 other grasses but for their frost sensitivity.  If the goal is to find
 a perennial border that will suppress grasses, you'd need to be
 a bit more forthcoming on your climate.

 Also note that it's quite easy to have too many JA's, all the
 more so if you're prone to windy reactions to some foods.  I think
 the polite way they refer to this as a foodstuff is 'introduce it
 slowly into the diet'.  Good pig food, though, apparently .. with
 added benefit that they'll happily root around and find every
 last piece in the ground, albeit ripping up the roots of your fruit
 trees (and probably de-barking them) at the same time.


 Jedd.


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