Kitchen Garden Forum

I've had a patch with Globe artichokes for about 3 years and I decided it was time for a change. They never did that well.

I let them die and covered them in plastic over winter. This spring, I've been digging the spoil and have found some absolutely humungous roots left in the soil.

These seemed to go down around 2 feet and were gnarled and woody - a real challenge to remove.

It's a shame really that for something that seemed to struggle to thrive and give me lots of heads, they didn't half get themselves established.

Anyone else had this experience?

They are a strange old Veg. They put out massice roots but if the roots get waterloged they get the hump and dont produce crowns. I am on clay and have to dig woen as far as I can. then back fill with gravel to keep the roots dry.