12 Dec 2005
Feeding ourselves or driving our cars? – The Cautionary Tale of the Humble (F)Artichoke.
Part of preparing for oil peak and relocalisation is learning about plants that will grow in the gardens we should be starting to put in place now. One interesting and useful plant is the **Jerusalem Artichoke**. They have no connection to Jerusalem at all, actually originating in North America. The name is a corruption of ‘girasole’, from the Italian ‘sunroot’, due to their resemblance to sunflowers, to which they are related. They can be used to make sugar, and have been considered as a replacement for sugar beet. They are a very easy-to-grow garden vegetable, great for novice gardeners, but are also being researched as a source of biodiesel, to be grown on an industrial scale to fuel the nearly 30 million cars on the UK’s roads. And therein lies a dilemma.
