My neighbor and I have gotten to be friends, bonding over our love of chickens. George is an avid gardener and I have been trading him eggs for various plants. The most recent is this Peruvian tuber, called a Yacón (or Yacun). 
As you can see (using the spoon for scale), the tubers grow very large. When you peel and slice a piece, it’s like a sweeter, juicier jicama. It’s great in fruit salads, taking on the flavor of the fruit, in regular salads, or in stews. I like it so much I got some rhizomes from George to plant my own.
George said gophers were extraordinarily fond of the tubers, so I dug a bed and lined it with chicken wire before I planted them.
You can buy a syrup made of yacón to use as an alternative sweetener, and the tuber is supposed to contain many beneficial micronutrients. The Inca used the yacón in religious ceremonies as food for the dead and created ceramic representations of them. I planted five of the rhizomes, and await a delicious crop. Meanwhile, we took advantage of a federally-sponsored program and signed up for solar, which is finally being installed today. There are footsteps on the roof as I write.
Greener and greener…
Yeah for the humongus among us, the deceptively delicious decidedly homely yacon!
Those Yacon sculptures for the dead are very interesting. What do you think that
handle looking appendage is for? Perhaps an arm to help with the firing?
Maybe it was a hollow vessel, and some ritual liquid was inside it.
I’m curious to see the leaf and flower. Vine?
There are many pictures online, but apparently it could be two or three years before I have tubers of my own.
Check http://yacon.biz/online.html for Yacon Syrup which has standardized sc-FOS and translucent golden in color.
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