I’m going to write a post a week in honor of one of the plants in my garden, as a way to get to know them better. This week: Artichokes!
Aren’t they beautiful? They are essentially these giant, prehistoric-looking, edible flowers. I’ve planted them in my front garden, where I have flowers and decorative perennials. Because they are all three of those things!
The first year I planted artichokes, they didn’t survive the winter. Artichokes prefer mild winters, and I didn’t mulch them enough to get through the harsher winter we had. These artichokes were planted last year, from 4 plant starts I bought. All are globe artichokes. This last winter I mulched them heavily with leaves, and we had a milder winter.
Each artichoke plant will have multiple buds, which are what we eat. If you leave the bud alone on the plant, it will flower and be like a giant purple thistle. It’s quite pretty, actually. According to this website, it is related to thistles, which makes sense from the way it looks.
But if you want to eat it, you should clip it off at the bud stage. And they are delicious, especially when fresh, so please do eat them! My mother-in-law likes to grill them after a steam, but I just boil them in water until soft (checked by stabbing a fork up from the stem into the flower and if it’s soft and yielding, it’s done).
Then you peel off leaf by leaf and scrape the lower soft parts off with your teeth. Dipping sauce is good. When I was a kid my parents did melted butter with some lemon juice in it. Now I prefer just mayonnaise. It’s a bit of work to go leaf by leaf, but I find it to be worth it. Then you get all the way to the heart, with some thistle hairs that need to be scraped off because they aren’t edible. After the hairs are scraped off, the hearts are the best part!
Funny thing, when I was a kid my dad would take the heart for himself, and told me it wasn’t good. It wasn’t until I was dating my now-husband that I learned to eat them. We were having artichokes with his folks, and I got to the heart and set it aside. He asked me what I was doing and I said I never ate those … and he laughed and filled me in on the joke! Eat them! They are the best part.
That’s what I have to say about artichokes. They are a great thing to grow in your garden – both ornamental and edible. And delicious!
My Purple House 