I *really* like the idea of 3 core plants that mostly look after themselves. Unfortunately, deer seem to learn to eat things they shouldn't like in my region. (Comfrey for Exhibit 1.) I absolutely would have to protect kale, but they're less interested in Daikon leaves, so I need to try planting some of those "in the wild."
They rarely eat the onion greens from walking onion, but other plants seem to out-compete it if I give it absolutely no care. However, in my climate they are prolific enough, that I *really* should try introducing some to the big field and see how they respond. Has anyone tried them as an understory plant under bamboo? It might be too much shade.
I'm on Glacial till where it rains all winter and is a drought all summer. I have planted sunchokes twice, both times they survived a few years and then didn't sprout. In my climate, although they would very occasionally bloom, they never produced seed or spread.
My friend has had better luck, but also planted hers in better soil. However, "deer resistant" doesn't mean "deer won't decide they like it when it's the only food around." My friend thinks that the deer munching down her plants was enough in our climate to prevent them from producing many tubers.
I think that to realistically attempt this, I need someone to turn back the clock 20 years and teach a younger me about living fences. A well designed living fence in an amoeba shape (Ie -stealthy - only humans do straight lines... well, nurse logs sometimes do also) that's bushy enough that the deer can't destroy it, to surround a patch of land large enough to house an Automatic food pump, and improve the soil inside the area just enough to give the plants a fighting chance, and then the only big concern would be that it would start a lot of baby fir/maple/cedar trees, so it would need "weeding" a couple times a year to prevent reversion to forest.
