Skirret is an old word for sugar-root.  The white roots are very sweet and have a bit of carrot flavor, which is no surprise because skirret is in the same family.  The roots are perennial, but the green tops die back each year.  They appreciate a little shade and moisture in our hot, dry summers.  This is not a drought-tolerant plant.  Skirret produces white umbels of tiny flowers in the summer and parsley-like seeds in the fall.  We’ve had success propagating both by seed and by roots.

Skirret is a sturdy perennial that will grow more and more roots in the same cluster each year.  We dig up the whole plant in fall to harvest, rinse of the best roots for the kitchen, and then plant the smaller roots back in the ground to make next year’s crop.  Although they are nice raw, if you mix them in to a root bake with carrots, potatoes, golden beets, and leeks, everyone thinks there are sweet potatoes in the mix.  Yum!