A Tale of Two Sunchokes
At the farmers’ market last month, I was really excited to come across sunchokes. Usually they don’t appear until Autumn, and I love their flavor so I jumped at the chance to grab a bag.
I get so excited at farmers’ markets. There are just so many fresh goodies to try out, especially ones that you don’t see at the grocery store, so I often carry my uncle’s advice with me: have a plan for it. Like if you decide to plant mint in your garden. Have a plan for how you want to use it because you’re about to have a wild abundance of it. (Don’t plant mint in your garden) Shopping at the farmers’ market is not dis-similar. Have a plan for those fresh goodies you pick up because otherwise you’re about to have a wild abundance of rotting produce in your fridge.
I didn’t have a plan for the sunchokes. Not immediately, but I was sure inspiration or my hungry belly would strike.
Sunchokes turn brown and soft in the fridge surprisingly fast, so I opted instead for leaving them in their plastic bag on the kitchen counter so they’d last longer. A day went by, then two days, and I still didn’t have a plan. They hadn’t gone bad yet, though, so it seemed my temporary plan was working. Then they dissolved into the background of my kitchen, another fixture on the counter top.
Until one day when I noticed a bright green color inside the bag. The color of new life caught my eye, and I remembered I still hadn’t come up with a plan for those sunchokes. The sunchokes, however, had a plan for themselves and decided the plastic bag and limited sunlight were the perfect environment to sprout. Little tiny plant stems and new thin roots had begun growing from nearly every bulb in the bag.
Well, the only thing better than finding sunchokes at the farmers’ market in Spring is a chance to grow more of them yourself for free, so I took them to a pot on my back porch that is the perfect size for growing root veggies.
Unsure if I should plant the green shoots under the soil or above it, I decided to plant two of the sprouting bulbs to see what happened. One I dug a little deeper to cover it entirely, the other more shallow so the shoots poked above ground. Both next to each other so they would get the same amount of sun.
(I only took a photo of the one with the shoots left above the soil)
5 days later, a green shoot broke through the soil where I’d planted the fully submerged sunchoke!
One week after that a second shoot poked through next to the first, now almost 6” tall, and a third shoot from the sunchoke I planted above ground peeked its green pointed tip through the soil line. They both were growing!!
I noticed, however, that one of the shoots planted above ground was starting to turn brown. That’s ok, I thought. Nature throws spaghetti at the wall all the time. Sometimes sprouts die as the plant learns how to navigate its new life, so maybe that one just wasn’t gonna make it.
Three weeks after planting, the shoots that had broken through the soil were getting taller - the fist nearly a foot tall - and growing more leaves. The ones I’d planted above ground remained the same size they’d been, and the one that started to turn brown was now dying back. The third shoot from that bulb was nowhere to be seen.
My philosopher brain that always has to correlate a life lesson to things in nature began to spin. The relationship between resistance and growth had already been brewing in my mind since the beginning of Spring, and this seemed to be yet another example of resistance making life stronger. I bought the sunchokes at the same time. They had reached the same level of growth and health when I planted them next to each other in the same pot, and they even got the same amount of sun and water. There wasn’t any other reason for one to succeed and the other not, unless it was the act of having to resist the soil above it that made the one stronger. Much like chicks and butterflies when cracking out of their shells and cocoons. They need the resistance of pushing through that barrier in order to strengthen the flow of blood to their bodies and wings. If they receive too much help, they won’t be strong enough to live in the wild, wide world, and they die. This must be what happened with the sunchokes.
And because we’re all made from the same table of elements and the same energy, because the laws of Nature apply pretty equally from species to species, the same can be said of humans. Resistance and challenges make us stronger. Learning how to fight and stand up for ourselves gives us resilience. Not getting what we want forces us to be creative and think of another way. It all helps us build stamina to make it through difficult times.
Except for those times when a rock is placed directly over the bed we’re growing in, but we’re told to keep growing anyway. “What’s wrong with you? You have the same soil and sunlight as everyone else. You have the same number of hours in a day.” Yes, but not everyone has that rock, blocking access to sunlight and rain, directly preventing growth. That is purposeful. That is oppression. That is not playing by the rules of Nature. Regardless, those seedlings still manage to resist and grow where they can, becoming stronger than those who grew without so many rocks in our beds.
Conversely, some seeds grow indoors under grow lights, in a perfectly temperature-controlled environment, with exactly the kind of fertilizer they need. No wind to blow against. No harsh, dry days that teach the little seedlings to conserve their water. No UV rays making their cell walls thicker. Their stems tend to grow thinner than their outdoor counterparts. The wrong kind of water on the wrong day makes them faint. If they’re suddenly moved outside without acclimatizing, they could easily wither and die. They never learned how to resist, to fight, to struggle and succeed.
I think we all could spend a little more time outside, strengthening our cell walls. Maybe we can help remove some of the rocks blocking growth in other gardens, especially if our own appear to be more rock-free. Resistance, to a certain extent, is good for us.
Nearly 10 days after the last sunchoke check-in, the sprouts planted above ground have all died back. The tallest stem, however, has grown almost another 6” with more new leaves on the way. I can’t wait to see how it continues to grow. Life with its willingness and enthusiasm never ceases to amaze me.