The flowers looked like sunchokes.
But that just couldn’t be.
After harvesting last year, I left a few small nodes in the pile to regrow. When I say small, I mean tiny. No bigger than my pinky nail.
So it surprised me how many grew back this year. I didn’t think I’d missed any. I’d dug up the dirt pile pretty thoroughly.
Then, I started to notice that they were growing in other areas.
Behind the shed.
In with the sunflowers.
In the middle of the squash beds.
Odd.
We only planted them in one spot. As tubers, they cluster and spread, but not that quickly and not that far away. Right?
Then it hit me.
The pile of dirt that they grew in last year was the same pile of dirt we dumped a load of mulch on this year.
The mulch we used in just about every garden on our property.
The mulch we used to cover our woody beds.
The mulch we used to define the paths in our kitchen garden.
Uh oh.
Invasive? Oh no!
They’ve spread all over the place
Sunchokes everywhere
a pinch of homestead 