Are yacons Alaska's next garden staple?

As a consequence, Alaska gardeners grow an awful lot of cabbages and other kohl family crops, snap peas, carrots, beets and, with a greenhouse, tomatoes. Oh sure, there are other things like the occasional pumpkin, zucchini or other squash, potatoes, garlic, leeks and onions. You don't need me to enumerate the list. It is short enough for most to be able to recite every plant on it. The point is, every gardener here knows choices are limited.

I know I am not the only one up here trying to find something new and different to grow. It is the nature of gardening in Alaska to push the limits. It is one of the things that make gardening under the Midnight Sun so exciting. In a state where you can get a few hundred television channels north of the Arctic Circle, the lie of our license plate motto comes through. The only last frontier up here is the garden, and we are always trying to expand it.

One new crop that has caught my attention and interest is a really easy to grow South American tuber known as "yacon" or "Bolivian sun root," scientifically, Polymnia soncifolia. I have been fooling around with these dahlia-size tubers for several years now, ever since my friends at Nichols Garden Nursery nicholsgardennursery.com suggested we try some in containers. I think it is time for others to try them as well, so I can see if I am just crazy or if this is a suitable new edible plant for our gardens and, especially, containers.

A single yacon tuber planted in a three-foot diameter container will produce a 3- or 4-foot tall plant with five or six huge, lovely, light green leaves. By the end of the growing season it might develop one-inch yellow/orange flowers. Knock it out of its pot, however, and you (hopefully) discover the plant has developed additional tubers, as does a dahlia. Yacons are not hardy plants here, but the crowns of the plant can be kept over from year to year indoors, either in the pot or in sawdust.

In South America, where yacons are a staple in markets, the tubers are sold along with fruits, probably because they are often eaten raw and have a sweet, juicy, crispy, nutty, melon-like flavor. They are great in salads, on cereals and can even be fried up. Tubers can be dried and eaten like candy or made into sugar- substitute syrups.

Yacon leaf teas have a demonstrated ability to lower blood sugar (diabetics need to discuss drinking any with their doctor, as amounts of other medicines might need adjustment). The leaves also have antibacterial and antifungal properties and have been shown to help protect and cleanse the liver.

In the past two years, I grew yacons as the main ornamentals in several containers festooned with lobelia and other plants. The large size of the yacon and its leaves makes it a real showy centerpiece plant, plus there are tubers at the end of the season. This year I hope to find a spot on the property where it is warm enough so I can try growing them in the ground, though our season is pretty short and they may not produce.

In addition to Nichols Garden Nursery, you can obtain tubers from Seeds of Change seedsofchange.com and through The Seed Savers Exchange seedsavers.org. They ship starting this month and, since you probably want to get a head start on them, you should order early and pot them up as soon as you can.

Gardeners are the last explorers of this wonderful state. Many of you have your own "new" exploratory plants. Why not let me know what these are so we can spread the word and expand the last Last Frontier.

Jeff Lowenfels is America's longest running garden columnist and author of "Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web." He can be reached at jeff@gardener.com