Jerusalem Artichokes: aka Sunchokes

This year we experimented for the first time with sunchokes. We grew the tubers at St. Anne's and in the Third Grade garden at school. Both locations suited the plants. They grew taller than any of us, student or adult, and each stalk spawned at least 5 chokes. You can see a Third Grader digging for them here.

To harvest, one must wait until the yellow flower dies and the stalk goes brown. Some folks think the tuber is sweeter if you let it rest through the first frost, but we don't have a guaranteed frost, and so pulled them up as we needed them through the fall. We ate them raw (resembles jicama), and sauteed with garlic and olive oil. The children and residents both preferred the cooked variety. Sauteeing them brings out the pronounced sweetness. The tubers contain a high percentage of inulin, which over time converts to fructose, this imparts the sweetness to the choke.

Jerusalem artichokes are not related to Jerusalem (they are native to North America), nor to artichokes. Their taste does resemble artichokes, which is why "choke" is in their name. The word Jerusalem is thought to be a derivative of the name given to them by Italian settlers: girasole, or, sunflower. Another idea is that they were named by the pilgrims as they ate them here in the pilgrim's "New Jerusalem" - the American wilderness. Sunchokes have been cultivated for hundreds of years by the Native Americans.

Calling all Jack o' lanterns!

Every year after Halloween I ask school families to bring me their carved pumpkins. We collect several, and then over the next several days the children work at cutting them up and mixing them into our compost pile. What's amazing is when the children look into the pile a few weeks later, they can't find a single trace of the pumpkins! My how fast they change!

Honey Extraction

The Third Graders have done a lot of honey extraction. Thanks to the Kinney family, we have five bars of honeycomb to harvest this year from their hive near St. Anne's. We tried several methods to separate the honey from the wax comb: crushing with fingers or a spoon and then leaving the pile to drip through a cheesecloth for a couple days in a warm spot.







We also experimented with melting the full comb over low heat and then setting the liquid in a cool spot so the honey and wax would separate. This also worked well, but some people think heating honey, even slightly, takes away many of its intrinsic nutrients and beneficial enzymes. I noticed the heated honey did have a darker color than the crushed honey when we bottled it.

One further note- to the right of the bowl is a queen cell. It is built into the comb you see and is quite a large tunnel to hold the queen larva. These cells usually hang off to the side of a brood comb.

Magical Fairy Walk

The Third Grade Garden looked enchanting for Fairy Walk!

Third Grade Practical Activities

Every week the Third Grade breaks into four groups and enjoys a practical activity led by volunteer parents and me. I oversee the garden rotation of course, and several other parents are in charge of cooking, crafting, and building.

When the Farriers, Cobblers, Millers, or Blacksmiths are with me we usually go to St. Anne's to work in the garden and then pass out garden food to the residents at St. Anne's during their lunch time. However, occasionally we stay on campus to work on the third grade garden space and other campus projects.

Recently the Farriers used their knowledge of measuring and planted garlic at school and radish seeds. The carefully measured the same distance between each garlic clove or radish seed before they planted.

In addition to planting, we did quite a bit of harvesting our fall produce.We had a bumper parsnip crop, and in addition to harvesting the roots, we let several go to seed and now have enough seed to grow for an army. Our apple trees weren't as prodigious as usual, but we still got tasty apples over the September and October months. 

First Grade Fairy Homes

Every year the First Grade welcomes autumn with a celebration of her beauty. Specifically, the first graders build fairy homes for our garden friends. As soon as the First Graders turn their backs, the fairies move in. By the time the children return the following week, the homes have magically disappeared!

 The children use cuttings and found objects from the garden to decorate the homes. Many of them even include tiny furniture.

Kindergarten 3

As I've mentioned before, the wheelbarrow is always a hit. This (blurry) photo captures the excitement well.

Thanks to a K3 family, we were able to replace our recently retired wheelbarrow with a new one. Any readers out there with unwanted wheelbarrows lying around? We'll take them!