Yacón 2009

January 6, 2010 · Filed Under Featured Plant, Garden 

yacon_leaves

I grew two kinds of yacón this year.  The first you see on the right is an unnamed variety with brown roots, which seems to be the most common kind at the moment.  The other variety, on the left, is called yacón morado and has red roots.  You can see yacón morado also has reddish leaves.

The unnamed variety is significantly more productive, yielding around twice what the yacón morado does, or about 10Kg per plant.

yacon_morado_flower

Yacón morado has an abundance of small flowers throughout most of the summer.  While the unnamed variety can bloom from time to time, it usually only does so as a result of some kind of stress.

The flowers also attracted large numbers of bees, but for whatever reason every time I was ready with the camera all the bees went away.

yacon_roots

yacon_morado_roots

Here are the harvested roots.  Either something changed in the way it grew, or perhaps I was a little rushed during harvest, but it seems like the tubers broke off more readily this year during harvest.  Anyway, the one sure thing about yacón is the harvest is big, so even with a few pieces broken off there’s still lots left.  I’m not sure if the broken off pieces will rot before I have a chance to eat them or not.

I also haven’t had a chance to taste these two varieties side by side, so I’m not sure if the flavors are different.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Yacón 2009”

  1. Rhizowen on January 8th, 2010 1:27

    I’m just making some lactofermented pickles from yacon – I’ll let you know how they go. Perfect combination of prebiotic and probiotic – guaranteed immortality. The morado seems to have yellower flesh and a slightly different taste and texture. I think it was less sweet. I haven’t been able to harvest my plants yet, so am not expecting them to have survived, but who knows?

  2. Ottawa Gardener on January 16th, 2010 22:25

    I love the soft fuzzy look of yacon and of course, the harvest is pretty impressive looking too. Looking forward to your taste test.

  3. Rhizowen on January 17th, 2010 0:33

    Hi Ottawa Gardener

    Read all about it here:

    http://radix4roots.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-snack-on-yacon.html

    It’s really quite nice- I might try incorporating it into sauerkraut at a future date. next step – yacon syrup.

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