Kitchen Garden Forum

My neighbour (at home) has what he calls a Cardoon in his garden. HUGE thing, grows every year and has lovely large globe thistle like purple flowers (doesn't eat it, just has it as a decorative plant).

Now, my allotment neighbour has something that I think looks exactly the same (and had the purple flowers on it) but she says that it's an Artichoke (again she doesn't eat any as she says doesn't like them but likes the plant. Just lets it go to 'seed' every year).

She gave me some seeds last year and now one is coming up. My home neighbour has also let me take a couple of his Cardoon 'pups' for the allotment this year.

Obviously with a Cardoon and an Artichoke you eat different parts of the plant. How can you tell which is which by just looking at it? I don't want to do myself any mischief by eating the wrong part of the wrong plant. Will it make me ill?

Here are some that flowered before I could pick them. As well as looking pretty, they had an incredible aroma (a cross between musk and Honey).





Sorry, but I can't tell you what a cardoon looks like (have you tried doing a Google on the name)?

Having said this, I dug up my artichokes last year, after spending 3 years with them. Although we had some tasty crops, they never produced that much considering the amount of space they took up (remember, like fruit or asparagus, they take up permanent residence and don't get fully going for a year or so). They also seemed to need fleece protection over winter.

There's one final point of note - see viewtopic.php?t=1013&highlight=

You can find bigger versions of these and other pictures at http://www.pbase.com/cmalsingh/garden

Here's an example of some artichokes at the normal time of harvesting:




That was one of my high points of 2004 (it went downhil after then!).

First one must assume we are talking about Globe Artichoke, not Jerusalem Artichoke which is grown for its tubers but will flower. Jerusalem is a corruption of gyro-solem which refers to the sunflower-like head i.e. it follows the sun around.
Globe Artichoke and Cardoon are related but whereas Globe Artichoke is noted for its partly edible flowers, Cardoon is grown as a large blanched leaf cluster. If you have Globe Artichoke don't ever leave the flower heads on or it may kill the plant. There are Green and Purple varieties and they may be grown from seeds or offshoots.
Allan

Hello,
The Cardoon has flowers similar but smaller than the Globe Artichoke.

The Cardoon produces a branching flower stem, 6ft+ tall, with a flower on the end of each branch rather than one big flower head on a single stem of the Artichoke.

Butterflies and the Bumble Buzzers love them.

All the best,
Clive.

Hello Diva
Here are a couple of photos that might help you. I've just taken the photo of the cardoon plant in my garden. At the moment its about 2 foot high but when its in flower later on it'll be well over 6 foot with nearly as much spread! They are majestic plants that need a LOT of room. You are supposed to blanch the young stems and leaves but I've never got round to doing this. The photo of the flower I pinched off the web. The flowers dry very well with a large fluffy head. Fresh or dry the flowers are much appreciated by some of our flower arranging friends.

John

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

I think that what my allotment neighbour has is also a cardoon and not an artichoke. I took a picture of it last year (when it had fallen over and was lying on the ground) and it does look like the cardoon flower not the artichoke.



The 'sides' of the flowers are a little more ruffled than the in the pictures of the artichoke. What does anyone else think?

I grow the ornamental veriety of cardoon, grown from seed (Chiltern Seeds), called 'Florist's Cardy' I think, and the leaves are less grey and spikey than those in the picture above, a softer green and more relaxed leaf. Still grow to 7' though, the birds love the fluffy seed heads for lining their nests this time of year, so I don't cut them back until late spring.

Diva wrote:The 'sides' of the flowers are a little more ruffled than the in the pictures of the artichoke. What does anyone else think?

Hi Diva, yes looking at your picture, the leaves at the side of the flowerhead all turn outwards slightly.

Generally most glove artichokes I've seen have these leaves curving inwards, following the contour of the head.

My cardoon is reqaching for the skies now - must be at least 15ft tall, just about to flower. I grew it from seed and just left it to do its own thing, about 5 years old now, like a tree Love it to bits, but never tasted it yet

If you look carefully at the flower heads, the artichokes have roundy overlapping scales on the calyx, the cardoons have spiky ones as GG says turning outwards. That's one way to tell. Cardoons will reach for the sky like Mrs L says, artichokes will grow to 4-5 ft.

I'm lucky enough to have a neighbour with a forest of artichokes, none of which he eats, and which I get to bag