Over the winter months yacon has been appearing on the shelves of the Paataka Kai. Yacon could be mistaken for kumara and both crops do originate from South America. Yacon is a tuber that grows in the soil beneath a tall leafy sunflower plant. This sunflower is only the size of a two dollar coin and it flowers in winter.
Yacon can be peeled and eaten raw as a snack food or as part of a salad. It can also be roasted along with other winter vegetables. One of our gardeners, who is very committed to preserving the harvest, owns a home kitchen dehydrator and made dried yacon pieces. She brought them to the garden for us to try. They would make a very tasty snack for the lunch box snack or a great dried fruit to be added to the Christmas cake.
One of the purposes of the Community Garden is to provide new ideas for people to have their own garden spaces to grow food to supplement their supermarket spends. Yacon is easy to grow and is also available to eat in winter when other foods are slow growing. To get your plot growing you must collect a clump of green shoots from an established yacon plot and transfer it to your own garden. Thereafter, tall leafy stems grow up while beneath the soul the tubers are growing. When the flowers appear it is time to dig the yacon up.
A striking sight on the front fence of the garden at the moment is the tree dahlia. This is a very tall growing bushy plant with the mass of white flowers. Both the yacon and tree dahlia are welcome plants in a garden. Then when they have finished growing for the year, the stems and foliage are cut down and chopped up to compost and add bulk to the depth of the souls. The roots of the plants remain under the soil and reproduce next year.
