Not just your Average Thistle: Globe Artichokes

First picking of Green Globe

This awful spring has produced one big surprise harvest in the garden.  Artichokes.

But, it has taken four years to get to this point.  In the first year we were in France, the lone surviving plant from the initial handful grown from seed produced a single aphid and ant infested head which we shared.  It was small and not worth the bother.  The plant promptly succumbed to the cold or the damp or both over the winter and never re-appeared.


So I sowed seeds again.  I know the best artichokes come from off-sets of existing plants known to be good, that growing from seed was no guarantee of quality, but as I could buy two packets of seed and produce a field of plants for the price of a single off-set, it was a no-brainer.

The plan was to keep the plants that were excellent, that produced large and tasty globes, and chuck the duffers.  Not that I have the will power to compost healthy happy plants.  I'd then take off-sets from the choice plants and over time increase our colony of quality plants.  So I sowed and nurtured and in late spring planted out ten each of Green Globe and Violet de Provence.  I was good, cutting off the developing flower heads to allow the plant to grow strong and healthy without the stress of trying to flower.

That winter was wet and exceptionally cold, with a week at minus ten, and we lost the lot once more!

Violet de Provence

Next spring - last year - I tried for the final time with the last of the seed.  Ten more of each were sown again, but the seed was getting old and obviously less viable.  I only managed to germinate three Green Globe and four Violet.  This time they were planted out in a different bed, more sunny and on more of a slope so, despite still being mostly in horrid clay they might at least not rot over winter.  They were so miserable they didn't even try and produce flower heads.

Second flush of Green Globe

Despite a phenomenally wet late winter and spring, and cold with it, every single plant has made it through and given us a harvest.  Alas, I failed to make a note of where each head came from, so have no idea which of the plants I should be taking off-sets from.  Maybe next year.

But I do know that the Violet de Provence, as well as winning the beauty contest by a country mile, is also a far superior tasting artichoke.  Although perhaps the test wasn't fair.  The Green Globe, having much bigger heads, were eaten the classic way - boiled and then the leaves pulled off one by one and dipped in Hollandaise, until the bottoms were reached, which, choke removed, were eaten whole with the last of the sauce.  It's fun to eat something with your fingers every now and then, but got a bit boring not to mention cold, after a while. The flavour was average, at best.

First harvest of Violet de Provence with a load of broad beans

The Violets, with their much smaller heads, were prepped and cut into eights before being fried gently along with onion, garlic and lardons before wheat was added to make a type of risotto.  The combination of a glass of red wine and letting the onions and lardons catch on the base of the pan made a nice rich brown liquor for cooking the wheat and neatly disguised the inevitable blackening of the artichoke slices.  I chucked a load of cooked broad beans and a handful of fresh parsley in at the end to green it all up.  Jolly good it was too and the individual bits of artichoke had enough flavour to stand out over the rest of the dish.  We'd scoffed the lot before I thought to take a photo!

Very elongated Violet de Provence

There is one plant from which we haven't yet eaten the main central flower head, and it greatly illustrates the point about the vagaries of growing these plants from seed.  It is a Violet de Provence, but the head is considerably elongated and each leaf has the most vicious thorn at the tip.

We may just let this one flower and enjoy those qualities instead.