Hi, I’m Mary Ann S., one of the faculty members in STEM, a member of the Schuylkill Sustainability, and an avid gardener (at least some years). Since campus is closed from the pandemic, I’m doing some interesting gardening projects at home and figured I would share. Maybe someone will get inspired to give gardening a try.
Though some of the garden is already underway, I thought I would start with the newest project in the garden, the Jerusalem artichoke. The Jerusalem Artichoke has interested me for years. I read about it in a seed catalog once and said, “Oh that might be really cool to grow.”
Now, you might be thinking, “Jerusalem artichoke, you’re planting foreign species – why? Aren’t they bad?” No, actually the Jerusalem artichoke, Helianthus tuberosus, is actually a member of the sunflower family and is actually native to much of the United States (USDA, 2020). In looking at a list of native plants from The Pennsylvania Flora Project of Morris Arboretum, the Jerusalem artichoke is actually native to Schuylkill County and my own, Lackawanna County. The Jerusalem artichoke is far from a foreign species, but maybe is an oddly named species.
When I first learned about it, I didn’t realize it was a member of the sunflower family and I never had the courage to plant it until now. I recently purchased some tubers, ready for planting from a seller online. They just arrived today. I opened the package and found a large bunch of healthy tubers. 
After deciding where to plant them in my container garden, I selected a few containers for planting and got to it. Since I have never grown the Jerusalem artichoke, I did look for some help online. Gardening Know How did a simple write about them (including some information on their history and uses, which is quite interesting). The tips there did help, but I also consulted a YouTube video on the subject. In this picture , you can see the tubers I purchased. For planting purposes, they act very much like potatoes. Make sure it has an eye and plant under a few inches of soil. Water. Repeat. It is a rather easy process and according to the literature, they tend to be a productive crop, which is hopeful.
As I noted, I chose to place mine in a container rather than the open garden. For me, there are multiple reasons: 1) I mainly use containers for gardening (even large plants) and 2) crops like the Jerusalem artichoke (and Horseradish as well, that’s the next major project) tend to leave little pieces in the soil during harvest and keep coming up for years to come. In some ways, they act more like a perennial rather than an annual. With the container method, I can keep the plants in a controlled, limited area.
So the plants are now in the ground, as they come up and grow into tall plants, I’ll post some updates.
Hopefully, we’ll get a bumper crop and some of the tubers can be shared via the Penn State Schuylkill Seed Bank & Library.
Happy Gardening.