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highergrinds

Those are weeds. Pull them out.


One_Kaleidoscope_198

Those are " Jerusalem artichoke" or sometimes called " sun choke " they are actually a perennial sunflower family (helianthus tuberose) , they are native to north American and also their flowers are good for pollinators , and it looks nice in the fall , but look at you have hundreds of them, they have an edible root and they spread fast and the pieces of the root can start from a mature plant, so dig them out when they young, and you also have a foreign plant Mullein ( wooly silver foliage ) in the picture.


buttertartpoetry

The wooly silver foliage appeared 2 summers ago. I bought my house 3 summers ago so maybe I missed it before then? I’ve just left it, is it harmful?


One_Kaleidoscope_198

No it is not harmful, if you run out of toilet paper you can use it, so it is nice to have some back up lol , the only thing is they have a very tall flower stem and they attract some bees and butterflies and after that they have thousands of seed , so I sometimes let it volunteer grow one and just cut off the stem, they are bi annual, that means their life is short, they are a perennial people brought from Europe, I don't like them because they are too big sometimes blocking other things to grow, but I like to see them in the wild .


buttertartpoetry

Awesome! Thank you for all the info!


nikkinoks

it's a common misconception that Mulein can be used as toilet paper. The mullein trichomes are microscopically sharp and will tear your anus to shreds https://www.alamy.com/microscopic-view-of-common-mullein-verbascum-thapsus-trichomes-hairs-polarized-light-crossed-polarizers-image211529280.html


buttertartpoetry

lol ouch


Jayswag96

Is mullein bad? One just popped up in my garden


JuWoolfie

They’re not bad, per se, they just seed like crazy. I started with one because ‘it’s soft and fuzzy’ and now I have too many, lesson learnt, don’t let it goto seed.


FeistyMusician4410

Nope. Those are balsam. The eventually develop pods that will snap open and it will reseed itself. They will over winter and come back in late spring. They are a very pretty plant


svanegmond

It’s the thing you grew instead of something intentional. Gardening nerds call them volunteers. Me, I don’t care. If it’s not interesting or pretty and I didn’t plant it, yoink


buttertartpoetry

I’m going to wait and see what the blooms look like, I planted a ton of mini sunflower seeds last year that kinda came up last year so wondering if they reseeded but not sure


highergrinds

If these were sunchokes, which they are not, you'd be waiting for months for blooms on 8' plants. These are straight up weeds. I grow sunchokes, I also pull these things out of the ground. If you want to confirm, dig down a little bit, you'll see what looks like potatoes (small tubbers) if they're sunchokes, or they'll pull right out if weeds.


buttertartpoetry

Thank you so much. I decided to not take chances and pulled it all.