Jamanda
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Jerusalem artichokesJust noticed they've got some rather pretty yellow flowers on them. Is this to be encouraged or should I take them off?
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Rob R
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I've never taken them off and they've always grown more than I need...
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Jamanda
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I'll leave them then. How soon are they ready to dig up?
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Ian33568
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If they get too tall you can cut them down and they will re-grow and re-flower - we have done this twice now. As for when ready - for us another month yet - I would leave them as long as possible and as far as I am aware they can be over-wintered in the ground - we always dig them up and store in buckets in sandy soil.
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Rob R
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I don't know really, never had them before November but I'll be trying some earlier this year, before Ixy sets the pigs on them.
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gil
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I tend not to harvest till December onwards up here.
Dug some up by accident when lifting spuds a week or so ago, and they were still very small indeed.
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cab
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Cut 'em off. You waste energy producing the flowers, it reduces the harvest by anything up to 10%, or so I'm told. Although if you've got enough plants such that this won't matter then you may as well have the flowers.
Dug some up at the start of September, weren't fully fattened, they tend to be at their best from the middle of October. They'll stay in the ground till you need them, but get them out by Spring. Re-plant some straight away as you dig them out in, say, February.
They get more flatulent as the season progresses.
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Marts
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Mine have just started flowering too. I'll have trouble reaching them to remove though as they are going on nine feet tall now.
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Rob R
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I've never re-planted them either, they just get on with it by themselves 
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Gervase
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They don't need much encouraging. I planted a small patch as a speriment in 1985. I last looked at the place where the patch had been in about 2004 - and the artichokes were still growing.
After someone goes whoops and switches on the instant sunshine, all that will be left is cockroaches and jerusalem artichokes. Imagine that - a world inherited by farting arthropods. Scary.
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cab
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Sure, you can grow them on the same patch year after year, but you get a better harvest if you split them up and rotate them. Follow them the next year with spuds, weed out any that try to grow through the canopy of potato leaves, and they're usually gone by the end of the season. I do better re-planting than I do with leaving them in the same spot.
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