All about Growing the Artichoke Plant
The artichoke plant is one of the healthiest cultivars that you can grow in your garden or buy from the store. Advocates of healthy living cannot say enough about the positive qualities of this great veggie. In addition, you can prepare a meal from an artichoke with the simplest of ingredients. For all these reasons, the artichoke is a popular choice for vegetable gardens across the continent.
Finding the Right Artichoke for your Garden
Traditionally the artichoke is a Mediterranean plant. In the United States, however, the artichoke plant has found its perfect environment in the mild California temperatures. Almost all artichokes in North America come from California.
What makes California ideal are the warm summers and mild winters. Artichoke doesn’t tend to do well in harsh winter conditions. However, growers have developed newer strains of the plant that are hardier and more able to withstand the winters that wipe out their weaker cousins. These newer varieties make it possible for you to grow your artichokes virtually anywhere. The most common version of this hardy type of artichoke is the “Imperial Star” variety that many industrial farms use.
Preparing your Seeds
Although newer varieties will allow your mature artichoke plant to survive even your harsh winter, the artichoke seed is still vulnerable to extreme temperatures on both ends of the scale. You should plant your seeds in pots indoors about 8 to 10 weeks before spring. When you believe you’ve left the cold nights well behind, you can then venture to transplant your artichoke to its new home in your garden.
If you want to avoid this first stage altogether, you can call around to your local nursery to find out when they expect their next artichoke plant shipment. Typically, this will be in the early spring. You can then jump right to the planting stage.
Planting your Artichoke
You should replant your artichoke to same depth it had in the pot or perhaps a little bit deeper. Cover the base with mulch to add more nutrients and then water well. Plant your artichokes about five feet apart. Remember that artichokes grow relatively tall (5 feet), so you want to be careful not to place plants that require direct sunlight right next to a row of artichokes since they may shade out the shorter growths.
Artichokes love the direct sunlight and lots of water. Be sure to water your artichokes well every other day, but also be sure there is adequate drainage so that standing pools do not aid in the spread of root rot.
If you got your artichokes from seed packets, you will find that a large percentage of your artichokes do not take on the shape or quality the packet indicates they will. For this reason, you are best off culling those that do not meet your standards, growing the ones that do, and then using your existing artichokes to plant more the following growing season.
Harvesting Artichokes
When, as summer comes on, your artichoke bud reaches about the size of a soft ball, you should start harvesting them. The ideal time is that sweet spot just before the bud opens up and the artichoke starts to become overly ripe. Timing can be difficult however. You also want to make sure you harvest them before your first frost, as the later stages of development are a particularly vulnerable period for artichokes.
Artichoke Recipes
You will find that your own, garden grown artichokes are far more flavorful than those store bought varieties. This is not just because you will have invested your own sweat and time in their cultivation, but also because you will have them fresh and with minimal chemical treatment. You can find various artichoke recipes on the internet, but the simplest classic recipes are still the best. Just dip the leaves in a bit of lemon juice, aioli, or even mayonnaise and you can have an entire meal just with artichoke.
Your heart will thank you as well!