This topic contains 11 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by John 7 years, 6 months ago.
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Usual thing is to leave them in the ground until you want to eat them, flavour can sweeten in cold weather. They do not damage in frost, I have harvested after -11C.
However slugs and mice like them too. No idea how well they digest them…If you like Don, there is no actual need to unless they risk blowing over
They naturally die back anyway. When they do, cut the stems down leaving a stub so you know where they are. They can then be lifted and used as and when. Be warned as I have done exactly what you have in the past, and that is to lift every tuber, or they will gradually spread like mad and take over.
Am I the only one juvenile enough to snigger at the idea of using them as a ‘windbreak’?
As said they do spread like wildfire. I pulled mine up as I decided I did not like the taste, or the bloated bowels. I was pulling up sprouts for months, they are very determined. But if you want them to form a permanent seasonal windbreak, then surely you can just leave the tubers in the ground. You might want to pull up any sprouts that appear outside of the area where you want them to grow, once they appear in the spring.
But if you do pull them up, many people like them and colleagues at work were happy to have them.
A small word of warning – if left in situ they form a very dense clump as a farmer friend discovered when he tried to put a plough through a 5 year established clump and said it was like trying to plough concrete!
Hi Don
They are commonly known as fartichokes!
John
PS The name is well deserved until late Spring when, in my experience and that of eight guests at a dinner party, all was sweetness and light.
Don: Yes, they cause wind, hence ‘windbreak’ is not the best description of them, unless you reverse the two words.
John: Surely that is when they are sprouting? Presumably you mean round May time?
Hi Lief
My ‘late Spring’ should really have read ‘mid Spring’ as the dinner was on April 21st but Spring comes early in sunny Exmouth!
I had lifted them much earlier but had stored them in sand. A few weeks later they were rooting into the sand and had started to sprout. I guess that March-April is the best time to eat them if you want to have artichokes rather than fartichokes.
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