NOTE: These are tubers, not seeds.
Phlomoides tuberosa
Origin: Eurasia
Improvement status: Unknown
Tubers per order: 5
BOTANICAL SAMPLE - NOT GERMINATION TESTED
Life cycle: Perennial
Tuberous Jerusalem Sage, also called "sage-leaf mullein", is a lovely Eurasian perennial vegetable with highly textured leaves and tall racemes featuring lavender-colored flowers bursting out of round whorls clustered along the stalk. It flowers continuously as the stalks grow, thus the large mint-like flowers persist for a long time and attract many insects. The plant reaches waist-height and spreads its branches to a width of two and half feet or more. Underground, it produces dense clusters of chickpea to golf-ball-sized tubers which are extremely easy to harvest. Starting in the fall of their second year, they can yield nearly as much as potatoes. To harvest, simply just use a shovel to lift up and tip over the plant and then pluck the tubers like grabbing eggs out of a nest. You can then tip the plant right back into its hole and pack some of the loose soil back around the crown.
Though we have yet to taste it ourselves, the plant is widely reported to be edible and has a long history of being eaten by the indigenous people of its native range. Kalmyk people of Central Asia call the plant "bodmon sok" and are known to have cooked and eaten the starchy tubers. The plant also contains loads of bioactive chemical compounds that have no doubt contributed to its long history of use as a medicinal plant (against tuberculosis and other pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular problems, diarrhoea, eye disease, and rheumatoid arthritis, and as a sedative), so please use caution and do your own research before consuming the tubers or using the leaves medicinally.
Our source for these tubers is our friend Michael Billington of Montana.
GROWING TIPS: Plant golf-ball-sized tubers a couple inches underground and smaller tubers closer to the surface. Phlomis tuberosa will easily burst up through mulch. Space the plants 18 inches from each other. They are able to grow in dry or moist conditions but will become more abundant and vibrant if given plenty of water.
