Globe Artichokes

[Gillykat]

My Globe Artichoke has gone crazy this year! I got it as a root cutting from Homebase in 2017 and potted it up until it started to grow on well. It was then put in a corner of a sunny bed and left to do it's own thing. I got a single flower bud that first year but it came to nothing and didn't even open before the frost got it.

Last year it grew very slowly - nothing to write home about and no flower buds at all.

Then - just after that crazy spell of hot weather in late February this year - it started to grow and grow and now it's around 6.5ft tall!!! At the beginning of June it was about eyebrow-height to me (I'm 5ft 5in) but when THIS photo was taken on Saturday 22nd June it was taller than Neil who is 6ft! *apologies for the nakedness - he'd been working on dismantling stuff and it was a hot muggy day!*

It's now sending up 7 flower spikes which, at first, I thought I would just leave for the bees. But now my curiosity has the better of me and I think I'll actually try eating one! If it tastes yuck I'll just leave the rest for the pollinators....I wouldn't let them starve.

How big should the buds be before I pick them to eat - golf-ball-sized...hand size? I'm popping back up there today so will get a photo of the main centre one with my hand as a comparison. I found an idiot-proof video on how to cook them and eat them too.....god bless google - it certainly helps hopeless cooks like myself produce edible food!

Excuse the weediness - the plot has gone all to pot at the mo as Neil is pulling things down and moving stuff around so I've just given up any thoughts of growing stuff outside (still got tomatoes, cucumber & watermelon in greenhouse) and instead am concentrating on getting the work done ASAP and then getting beds dug and hopefully a chicken run built ready for the spring!

[Nicos]

Wow!...that is absolutely amazing!
Well done!
We buy them here all the time. They do vary in size from double fist size upwards.
I suppose it depends on the variety and how much water it's been getting?
Do you recall the variety?
We steam the one a we buy-takes about half an hour and you can tell when you tug on a leaf and it easily come slow out.
Dipping in home made vinegrette is amazing
Eaten hot or cold!

[Gillykat]

Slightly rubbish pic.....didn't realise the sun would give me such a contrast.....and short-ar*ed me DID have to stretch up to reach

[Gillykat]

Not 100% sure of the variety as it WAS two years ago but I think it might have been Green Globe. I'll have a look in the store over the weekend as they sometimes keep these bagged up roots all year round.

[veggiechicken]

Wot a whopper (and I don't mean Neil )
Have you decided where your chicken run is going to go - because you don't need to weed that, the chooks will do it for you.

[Gillykat]

Have you decided where your chicken run is going to go - because you don't need to weed that, the chooks will do it for you.

I was going to put it in the middle section area and keep the top area for vegetables but His Lordship said no, let's put the chickens at the top He's driving me DEMENTED with interfering and constantly wanting to change things around!!!! I want to just sit down and say right - veg here, chickens there, new shed there and polytunnel there! I like to know what's what....at least then I could get on with clearing and planting stuff

If I was working and had cash coming in I'd be tempted just to get the wood to make the coop myself and then put a run up (already got a 90ft roll of twilweld in shed) and just go and get my chickens myself rather than waiting for him to do it That may still happen...me building the chicken hoose, that is!

[Nicos]

I checked online and green globe is what they are selling at the moment.
This is what I found out about that variety.....
https://bonnieplants.com/product/green-globe-artichoke/

It says bulb size 2-5"

I've never grown them so I wouldn't like to say if they have finished growing yet or not.

[ameno]

Slightly rubbish pic.....didn't realise the sun would give me such a contrast.....and short-ar*ed me DID have to stretch up to reach

I hate to say it, but that doesn't look too much like an artichoke to me.
The bracts on the bud are too spikey and point outwards too much.

It looks far more like a cardoon (they're actually the same species as artichokes, but cardoons are the "wild" version, whereas artichokes have been selectively bred to produce bigger, more edible flower buds). I suspect the root you bought may have been mislabelled.

[Gillykat]

I hate to say it, but that doesn't look too much like an artichoke to me.
The bracts on the bud are too spikey and point outwards too much.

It looks far more like a cardoon (they're actually the same species as artichokes, but cardoons are the "wild" version, whereas artichokes have been selectively bred to produce bigger, more edible flower buds). I suspect the root you bought may have been mislabelled.

Oh wow!!!! I'm going to SUE Homebase!!!! Selling me 'dodgy' plants!!!

Seriously though....cardoon WAS a plant I wanted to grow on the allotment just for the bees anyway so it's not a disaster really I'll get myself some proper genuine certified artichoke seeds or rootstock from a proper nursery instead. Any excuse to go plant shopping and browse the plant catalogues, eh?

[Gillykat]

Done a bit of further googling and I think it IS a Cardoon after all! Green Globe Artichokes are about 4-5ft tall whereas cardoons are 8ft+ I also read that cardoons will start to produce a mass of blueish-green strongly serrated leaves from February onwards....which ties in with exactly what my plant has done this year!

Never mind....the bees will be happy!