Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi..... I wonder if anyone can give me some advice please.

My Globe Artichoke plants are getting very congested...... They are a couple of years old and the original plants now have 6 or 7 other plants around the original stem.

I've managed to remove a couple of the best suckers from each plant and have planted these out...... But I don't want to plant out any more so am I right in thinking that I should remove some or all of the remaining suckers?

Whenever I've seen Artichokes growing in other gardens they seem to have only the one stem coming up from the ground....... I presume this would produce less artichokes but of better quality?

I've searched online but so far no advice about this "thinning out" process.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Mo

Hi Maureen, I have only just started growing these myself, I did find this link which looked quite informative.

http://www.gardenzone.info/crops/globeartichoke.php

Thank you for that link Nature's Babe..... It has come very useful information.

I think I will go with my gut instinct and remove most of the suckers..... The neighbour's hungry sheep in the field at the bottom of the garden seem to like them so they won't go to waste.

I will probably hang on for a few days though just in case the ones I've removed already and planted out don't take.... It has been very windy here and they are not looking as happy as I would wish!

I love these artichokes when they are quite small freshly picked from the plant, lightly cooked and with loads of butter.... Yummy....

Mo

Our plants died over winter - they were really old ones that we inherited when we took the plot and produced masses of flowers even though we did nothing to them

Would you like me to send you some of my suckers GL?

They should be safe in a sealed bag inside a jiffy.....

Let me know.

Mo

maureenc wrote:Would you like me to send you some of my suckers GL?

They should be safe in a sealed bag inside a jiffy.....

Let me know.

Mo

Thanks for the generous offer Mo but we have some cardoons that have similar flowers and to be honest we only left them growing as the bees loved browsing the flowers. The offer is much appreciated though!

Sue