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For success with these plants, get them started indoors in late
January or early February.
Click here for
seed starting ideas. This is also how you can grow
them, as annuals, in colder regions. Transplant into the garden
after all danger of frost has passed. This will ensure that your
plants will be well developed before the cold weather sets in.
Grown from seed, up to
25% of the plants will be useless. This is due to the genetic makeup of the
plants and not an inherent problem with our seed stock. Cull
sickly and albino plants at transplanting time. Eliminate
non-productive plants after the growing season is over.
From your select plants,
you will be able to save seed and divide the clumps to increase your
stands. Division is a good method for propagating additional
plants with known traits.
[Approximately 15 to 20 seeds]
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Green Globe
Artichoke
(Cynara scolymus)
Attractive, ornamental perennial
with edible flower buds. It can
be
grown as an annual if you sow the seeds indoors in mid to late
winter and set out after all danger of frost has passed.An
excellent delicacy when boiled until tender, served hot, and the inner
petal tips and the hearts are dipped in melted lemon-butter
(some of my family likes to dip in mayonnaise).
It
has been cultivated since at least the 1500s.
Thomas
Jefferson grew them in his gardens and documented them off and on
from 1770 until 1825.
A
native of southern Europe, the plant
will require winter protection if you live in a zone that
experiences severe freezing. Hardy in USDA zones eight
to ten.
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Cardoon
(Cynara cardunculus)-
'Tenderheart'
Cardoon is a clump
forming tender perennial
with pinnatifid (spiny) silver gray leaves that develop up to
twenty
inches long. Purple, two to three inch flower heads will develop
throughout the summer growing season.
They were first cultivated as a vegetable by the French and said
to have been brought to America in the 1790s by the Quakers.
A relative of the artichoke, the growing characteristics and
requirements are similar. However, instead of eating the
flower heads, like you do with an artichoke, the thick, fleshy
leaf bases, hearts and roots are eaten. Some people tie (see
image below right) and blanch by mounding with soil. They have a
slightly spicy, celery-like flavor.
Click Here for more information and
recipes.
They should be wrapped in in paper and have dirt mounded around them to
over winter in cooler climates.
Harvest is enjoyed beginning in late spring to early summer.
The plants
can grow over seven feet tall and make an interesting and attractive addition as an
edible ornamental in your beds and gardens. With a bit of care, the plants will remain productive for
five to seven years. USDA zones 8 to 10.
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Young Cardoon Plants
Mature
Cardoon Plant
Engraving
from "The Vegetable Garden", MM.
Vilmorin-Andrieux, 1885 |
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