Me 1: moles nil

At last, I've done it. I've dug up the first two of sixteen Jerusalem artichoke plants that I've been nervously, impatiently, intriguedly watching over since mid-January 2011 when I planted some purchased tubers.

It didn't take long after planting for the first mole hills to appear in and around the bed, so I thought then that I'd probably never see any young plants, let alone new tubers. S-l-o-w-l-y, little green shoots started pushing up in all the places where I put a tuber, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

What impressive plants! Despite a hot summer, some torrential downpours, some very strong winds etc., they remained upright and got easily to eight feet tall. Multitudes of flower buds appeared later on and the yellow flowers that resulted were very cheerful; the bees rather enjoyed them too. Having got that far, I was again hopeful of getting a crop and I was itching for the first frost to arrive and the foliage to die back. And then the mole hills returned. Lots of them.

That was long ago and I've since been sidetracked, but I've got the fork out a couple of times now and have ended up with these beauties.

No sign of teeth marks either, or any empty voids (as with my carrots, grrrr). The skin looked so thin that I didn't peel these (plus I'm lazy! Judging by the knobbles I'd be there for ages). I've tried a Turkish recipe with rice – yummy. The skin wasn't unpleasant at all, just required a bit of chewing and, after all, fibre's good for us. My second 'recipe' was mashed Jerusalem artichoke and potato with a bit of yoghurt added and that was very enjoyable too. I'm really looking forward to eating the tubers from the other plants, minus a few good ones with a lot of eyes for next year's patch. I just hope the moles stay away…