We hope to complete on our house sale soon which means I am harvesting vegetables in the Telford garden sooner than I would normally do.
On Thursday it was the turn of the yacon. I broke off the edible tubers – the long pointy ones in the picture below – and then set about taking apart the growing shoots for next year’s plants. Because I am harvesting early these roots are quite small for yacon, but you can actually see the growing points which are harder to show on larger roots.
I usually use a knife to cut them up as they are quite hard, but I did find when I got to the last plant that it is possible to break them apart. I had hesitated to do that before now as I thought I might break off the actual growing tip if I had to wrench too hard. However breaking seemed to work better than the knife. I have planted the cut and broken parts in nearly dry compost and will find a cool but not cold place to over winter them in the dry.
As I was trying to find enough pots for the yacon pieces I thought of putting some of the pieces back into the garden. I knew they would not be able to grow, but choosing not to take everything (and not just through a lack of pots) would be indicative of my thankfulness to the garden, to nature, for what I had been able to make use of in the first place.
It was at that point when I saw, for the first time, some point to the practice of some religions to make offerings of food and drink to their gods. I have always been keen to maximise the yields I get from the garden, to harvest as much as I can to eat and to save as many seeds and other parts to grow for the following year; not doing so would have just seemed like waste. Now I can see such offerings as a tangible way of saying thank you, to give back something I could use, but choose not to. I guess it takes to learn earth style wisdom – that natural abundance is more than adequate for human needs and by holding back from taking everything is a recognition of this and a way of demonstrating actual trust in it.
How many seeds might there be on this lovely cardoon head? Far more than I could ever use that’s for sure.
gardens of delight 
I have a custom of giving the first fruit back to nature. Even if I’m out picking wild blackberries, the first handful I get I give back. It is, as you mentioned, a sign that I trust more will be provided, and an acknowledgement that what I am harvesting is nature’s, whether I grew it or not.
I appreciate you pointing that out.
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