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Polyculture members

Having played with sunchoke-groundnut-Chinese artichoke polycultures for many years, and grown hog peanut in many combinations, I think this one gets an "A". Both produce better with annual digging. Both are extremely competitive, but can handle each other just fine because they occupy distinct layers. Hog peanut handles the shade just fine.

When digging sunchoke, the hog peanuts are easy to find, though they are often not worth digging for when intermingled with shrubs.

If this is an analog to the three sisters of corn beans and squash, the sunchoke is the corn and the hog peanuts are the beans and the squash.

We have trialed three sunchoke polycultures: sunchoke-groundnut-Chinese artichoke, sunchoke-woolly bean, sunchoke-hog peanut. This one gives by far the best results.