Allotment or Garden? Globe Artichokes

Why? Well if you grow them from seed, artichoke plants tend to be variable with only 60-70% of the plants producing big edible chokes – almost all plants will produce small ones though. So on the allotment, grown from seed, there can be quite a disappointment if nearly half your plants don’t produce a good crop, however, in the garden, tucked in among other plants, the globe artichoke looks great even if it doesn’t ‘choke up’.

The answer is probably to grow both!

It’s a fussy old thing, insisting on good soil, regular watering and feeding, and frost protection in winter, but the reward is delicious. On top of all that cosseting, it doesn’t last forever – canny allotment holders will plant rooted suckers each spring so that mature specimens can be disposed of after a few years.

Use offsets (rooted suckers) that are about 9 inches tall – they must have roots attached or nothing will happen. Raising plants from seed is possible, but often considered too much trouble for the reason given above. Assuming you do grow seed stock (I do) look for the American variety Imperial Star, which is much more uniform in choke production from seed than previous varieties. For purple globe artichoke, relatively tolerant of both heat and cold and good when grown from seed, seek out Purple Sicilian.

Seed sowing technique: Sow thinly in one inch deep drills mid March to April – the drills should be a foot apart. Thin to nine inches between plants, protect over the winter, and plant out in ‘permanent’ positions in the following spring.

Labels: allotment-artichoke, allotment-crops-from-seed, globe-artichoke

Growing up gorgeous – artichokes again!

Loads of comments suddenly appeared on the last globe artichoke article, so I thought I’d pick up the threads before I move onto one of the great joys of this time of year, the leaf beets.

So, Barrie wants a photo of the globe artichoke when it’s been put to bed for the winter and I will certainly provide that when the time comes, and Merenda wonders why she can’t harvest globe artichokes in their first year from seed or offset, and I’ve explained all that in detail as a response to her comment, so you’ll have to go and hunt it down in the archives if you’ve been wondering why your globe artichokes seem to be carved out of balsa wood!

But back to the plot, in both senses of the word. Just about now, we’re getting organised for a rare treat that we’ll enjoy in a few weeks – artichoke stems. Here’s how to get a second crop from your plants.

1 – when the flower buds cease to appear, cut down the foliage of the plants, taking off about two foot from the top of the plant and quite a few leaves. Between now and the end of the month you should start to see some new shoots appearing at ground level.

2 -When they are about a foot to eighteen inches tall, bundle them together (we normally have four clumps around the base of a plant) and surround them with brown paper, corrugated cardboard or drainpipe – the first two you have to tie loosely around the stems with string, the last one you slide over the top of the clump.

3 – After five weeks or so, take off the blanching material and you should find you have some pale, rather bendy stems. Cut them and cook them like celery; we braise ours with finely chopped onion, some celery seed and good vegetable stock with a dash of sherry added.

If you’ve had woody artichokes this year, you can still get a decent blanched shoot crop by following these instructions … but keep a couple of those offshoots out of the blanching, pot them up in November and use them for next year’s plants and DON’T FORGET to pinch out every flowering bud or you’ll have rock-hard artichokes again.

Labels: allotment-crops, allotment-recipes, allotment-secrets, globe-artichoke

Growing up Gorgeous, the Globe Artichoke

What are you going to grow? Why not the gorgeous Globe Artichoke?

Proper name: Cynara scolymus

Description: this useful plant is a perennial but bear in mind it’s not full frost hardy across the UK. Usually it is grown for the flower-buds which are deliciously edible, but canny gardeners know that you can blanch the leaf shoots too, which gives a second crop that can be cooked like celery.

Soil and site: Globe artichokes need a good fertile soil that is well drained but not so porous it dries out too quickly (here's a tip, just put some soil in a flat tray with drainage holes, saturate it and leave it to dry. If it forms a crust, it’s probably too porous). Because the plants stay in place for up to four years, make sure you manure the ground in advance to give all the nutrients they need over their lifetime. This is a big bushy plant, taking up an area of around three to four feet across and five tall. So you must make sure that not only does it have ample space in itself, but it doesn’t shade out or encroach on other crops. It tends to prefer sunshine to shade.

Cultivation: Plant offsets in April, making sure they have plenty of space, or grow from seed in March in a heated greenhouse, moving outside in May. Keep well watered and give a sprinkle of nitrogen based fertilizer in spring. Much with compost or some other organic matter in summer and support taller growing varieties with stakes. Do not allow the plants to flower in their first year – prevent this by pinching out all the flower buds! When the plants mature in year two, restrict the number of main buds (called king heads) to five or six. Cut these king heads when they are about for inches across, snipping through the stem about six inches below the bud, this means smaller buds will develop giving you second crop. Once the flower has expanded though, the head is inedible. In autumn, cut down the foliage - and on exposed sites, earth up the crowns and cover them lightly with bark or newspaper, ensuring there is enough air circulation for them not to rot. Remove in early spring.

Next time I’ll talk about how to get that second crop from the stems and the – fortunately - rare problems experienced by this wonderful crop.

Labels: allotment-crops, globe-artichoke, growing-vegetables