I have had a self seeded artichoke type plant come up on the Lottie. I grow Globe Artichokes but quite a way from where this has appeared but previously had a neighbour who had all sorts of stuff left to their own devices including both. It is about 2 ft each way at present so is there any way of telling them apart or do I have to wait for it to flower? If it is a globe, although a bit inconvenient where it is I will continue as love them but haven't tried Cardoon and unless they are also great eating without much faffing around I will sacrifice it as throwing shade on a bed - or can it be transplanted?
Dear Westi, i think they are quite difficult to tell apart especially without seeing them together.
And as for the using of Cardoon, i remember seeing it grown on the Victorian Kitchen garden series. They spent ages tending it, makig straw swags to blanch it with, then carefully harvesting it and taking it to a top London resturant, only to have the chef keep cutting and chucking lumps away until he ended up with little matchstick sized pieces that he added to a salad.
But i think it can be used for soups and stews as well.
Top London restaurant. Pah! A chef who really knew his onions would have cooked the whole cardoon in a long kettle, like the Spanish do, stewed in stock. It's Jane Grigson's favourite vegetable, and that's how she cooks it. It's really very easy to grow, but does demand a lot of nutriment. It only needs tying together right at the end of the season, to blanch the interior to make it particularly succulent and tasty, but it's not essential to do so.
But telling them apart: that's tricky. The jury's still out about their taxonomy, whether artichokes are a different species from cardoon or not. Most references classify artichoke as Cynara scolymus, and cardoon as Cynara cardunuculus, but they're probably variations on a single wild ancestor. What you do need to be wary of, though, is that artichokes have particularly coarse leaves and do not make good cardoons, and cardoons produce rather mean artichokes which are spiny. Further, there is the florist's cardoon, which grows to a grandiose height and has particularly feathery foliage, divided many more times than edible cardoon, which is shorter and has a simpler, softer leaf. Florist's cardoons are hopeless eating but make a sensational border plant. Artichokes grown from seed are extremely variable from seed and are usually disappointing. It's always better to propagate named clones, such as Vert de Laon, like the French do.
We have both cardoons and globe artichokes on our plot and eat neither. We just grow them for their decorative quality and the fact that the bees just love the flowers. The cardoons in particular though are huge and tend to be battered by the winds.
