I have tried several times to get Jerusalem artichokes to grow here, and they just don't survive the winter. Our growing season is generally too short to allow them to flower, but wife has a few perennial sunflowers that are similar to Jerusalem artichokes that survive but often don't bloom at our location. Mowing is a good way to keep things in their beds....
For us it’s the flowers but for others it’s a combination of the tuber and the flower. As @Mary Stetler wrote, the tubers are edible. We’ve never tried storing them in the fridge to make them sweeter as she indicated but it is said that they can be treated like a potato in many ways. Perhaps you might plant some again and then dig up the tubers before winter hits. They should produce the tuber even if they do not flower and it’s supposed to be a healthy choice.
When we dug them there were little tubers that didn't amount to much. It was early in our career in large-scale gardening in Alaska, so perhaps we should try again. They contain inulin instead of starch, so the tubers are sometimes recommended for diabetics as an almost undigestible source of potato-like food.
The inulin is what makes them a good PRE biotic. feeding all the good little gut bugs. But the tubers do not like to be frozen. Probably why they don't like Alaska. Maybe Juneau? You would have to put them deep in an insulating dirt like peat, I would think.
Help! This is kind of like foraging. My kid just brought home a fish. It looks like a crappy, has red eyes and a BIG mouth. I need to impress her and tell her what I know it is. (haven't a clue.)
Some breeds of bass have red eyes and so does crappy. If it looks kinda like a crappy but if you’re not sure then call it a “sun fish”. There’s a bunch of breeds of those so your chances of being wrong are slim. How big? Slender and long or short and fat?
Here is a website that i get news from in my email, and today, they have a list of fairly common wild flowers and plants that are edible, and also a brief description of how they can be used. This website has a book that they sell, but I just subscribe to their newsletter and get interesting information that way. If you are interested in foraging, this might be a website you would like. https://thelostherbs.com/20-plants-you-never-would-have-guessed-are-edible/?
Thanks for that, @Yvonne Smith. I found their newsletter page but there was no place to sign up. I dropped them a line and will post the info here, unless you have it handy. I am definitely signing up.
You should see a page with a place to sign up for the newsletter, but if it is not showing up for you, try writing to support@thelostherbs.com , which is the email listed on the page I get.
This is what I see in Firefox: I opened that page in another browser and saw the same thing, then 5 seconds later the Sign Up box appeared. As an FYI to others who may experience the same thing: no matter what I disable in Firefox (Tracking Protection, AdBlock), I cannot get that box to appear. I'm falling out of love with my browser.