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Post by 12540dumont on May 11, 2011 20:25:53 GMT -5
Okay, someone out there must be growing artichokes. My artichokes are now 6 feet tall. The problem is that I can dozens of mini chokes. What's the trick to getting them to be plate size?
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Post by steev on May 11, 2011 20:39:27 GMT -5
You don't note how old the plants are, nor how long the buds have been forming, but I would suggest that if the plants are well-established and the buds are pretty new, you might want to thin the buds to 2-4 per stalk before they get more mature. Like any plant, there is a tendency to produce x weight of fruit, so 16 one-ounce or one 16-ounce, as it were. Good luck!
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bertiefox
gardener
There's always tomorrow!
Posts: 236
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Post by bertiefox on May 12, 2011 9:19:28 GMT -5
Are you sure you have a globe artichoke and not a cardoon? It's just that artichokes rarely grow to that size while cardoons do and can grow even taller! Cardoon heads (which are edible with care) have spiky bits on their heads. Well established artichokes, which ideally should be replaced every three years or so by replanting offsets, can be made to produce large heads by removing all the offshoots (twist them out rather than cut them) and having no more than three main 'plants' in your clump. Also remove all the small heads that grow from the side shoots as the main shoots form.
Alternatively, just enjoy the small heads by picking them really young and steaming them whole, in which case almost everything is edible.
Variety is also important as only certain strains produce the really large heads.
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Post by 12540dumont on May 16, 2011 14:41:38 GMT -5
I have both Globe and Violetto. The plants are about 3 years old. I have never cut them to the ground....After we're done harvesting, I usually let a few go to seed for the hummingbirds. They love those flowers. I'll trying harvesting the babies and see if the others plump up. Thank you! Attachments:
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 17, 2011 9:24:43 GMT -5
Do tell!?!? You never cut them? I sure do like the sound of that. I've been wanting to get artichokes going and that just might be the answer to a conundrum about how to manage the soil behind the shed.
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Post by steev on May 17, 2011 11:20:28 GMT -5
Not knowing where you are, I'm somewhat surprised your plants don't die to the ground in winter; it must not freeze there.
The globe is your best bet; violetto is generally not as large. Occasionally re-planting to separate the off-sets, amending the soil well, should also encourage larger buds.
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Post by 12540dumont on May 17, 2011 12:46:55 GMT -5
You know I was thinking that it might be the Violettas, I was trying to get Alan Kapuler's artichoke selection, but it wasn't in the Peace Seeds Catalog this year. We have a killing freeze every couple of years, but the artichokes are near the chicken coop, so they have never frozen to the ground. To replace them, I have to start new ones in flats, make gopher baskets, because yes, gophers love artichokes, and transplant. Sigh, this is one of those cautionary tales about listening to the glitter generalities in seed catalogs. Thanks everyone. Attachments:
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Post by steev on May 17, 2011 13:36:09 GMT -5
I'm surprised you don't get offsets coming up around the plants that have flowered, frozen or not. Mine tend to get crowded regardless.
Yes, gophers like them, so do voles, as do I, although I don't like either gophers or voles. That's not really fair, since I've never tried them; artichoke-fed, they may be delicious.
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Post by 12540dumont on May 23, 2011 11:41:21 GMT -5
Well, you're welcome to come over to my place and whop up a batch. I
Delmar O'Donnell: Care for some gopher?
Ulysses Everett McGill: No thank you, Delmar. One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down.
Delmar O'Donnell: Oh, you can have the whole thing. Me and Pete already had one apiece. We ran across a whole... gopher village.
I wish you'd all come to my place and have a gopher feast. This year I've made 40 gopher baskets. That's just for squash and melons. I made another 40 that's just for beans and peas. Still 45 more to make.
One of the little bastards has been going overland and chewing on my peas, right in the baskets. Ooo, I'm going to fry me a gopher if I catch him.
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 23, 2011 12:28:48 GMT -5
You sound a touch peeved Dumont. I can understand. I'm not of a mind to eat rabbit, but if I could lay my hands on the ones that eat my onions, I do believe I could turn it into a lovely stew!
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Post by 12540dumont on May 23, 2011 13:46:52 GMT -5
Stands on soapbox: Expletive. Gets off soapbox Attachments:
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Post by 12540dumont on May 23, 2011 13:49:44 GMT -5
This is what the peas looked like the day before. I don't even want to look at the broccoli row. Why? because the darn thing has only 10 plants left. From 180 to 10. Bring your own skewer. Let's have BBQ gopher. I'll provide the libation. You know the only thing I have found that does a good job of eliminate gophers is a 12 year old with a new BB Gun. Holly Attachments:
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 23, 2011 14:28:56 GMT -5
Squash bugs. Beautiful, huge, fruit laden vines today. Dead, diseased, garbage tomorrow. GRRRRRRR
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Post by blueadzuki on May 23, 2011 16:34:25 GMT -5
Sound like me and Mr./Mrs. Gluttony aka "He (or she) who destroyed my experiment".
Amongst my plantings of this year, I was running another soybean experiment. Specifically I saved up and planted all the soybeans I had collected that arrived to me severely wrinkled, but without other signs of damage in one enormous pot. I was trying to find out if this was a transmitable trait, that is if soybeans posessed the same wrinkled seed gene as peas do (they posses the gene for green insides, so why not) It was my hope that this might be a useful discovery (since the wrinked seed gene is associated with higher levels of untransformed sugars, It was my theory that such a gene could result in sweeter tastier edamame.). Well a week or two passed and the soybeans came up. then one day, I went out only to discover that each and every one had been decapitated and the tops were missing. Orinally I blamed the birds and thr squirrels. However a few days later while taking a trip to the bathroom I looked out the window (that pot is in a place where it can be seen from the rear of the house.) and saw the culprit, a very fat chipmunk, moreover that chipmunk has come back again and again as fresh sprouts have come up (it doesnt bother to dig up the ungermianted seed, it literally waits till the seedlings break the ground and then pulls them up and eats the tops. That one chipmunk has literally eaten EVERY SINGLE SMEGGING beansprout (and there were well over 200 of them). And living where I am I can't do anything about it (my community does not allow the shooting, trapping, poisoning or otherwise harming of chipmunks, squirrels or any other pest animal reagrded by some as "cute".) Still there may be a little proof of my theory, on the grounds that the pot is only about 15 feet away from one of the mulch piles (which is COVERED with soybean plants) which it never so much as touched (or maybe it did but there are so many it could not keep up) so maybe those ones in the pot were sweeter.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 23, 2011 17:33:51 GMT -5
Sound like me and Mr./Mrs. Gluttony aka "He (or she) who destroyed my experiment". Oh my gosh!!!! The very young grandkids came to live with me this winter. I never saw so much destruction in a garden in my life. Want to trade chipmunks for grandkids? |
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