Artichokes and Amaranth

[Rena]

Both are more for looks I guess. Anyone have any tips please post

[Earl]

Artichokes need lots of room, about 4 foot between plants.

[Tania]

Originally Posted by Earl

Artichokes need lots of room, about 4 foot between plants.

Agree with Earl - mine grew last year into a 5' monster plant

[Suze]

Rena, I agree with Unca Earl and Tania -- artichoke plants get enormous. You're gonna need to move some things around a bit. See--

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/914/index.html

Pretty plants, though. I love the structure and form. In addition to occasionally growing chokes, I used to grow cardoon (closely related, but a bit more decorative) as a sort of annual shrub in my ornamental beds. Both can get close to 5' tall and almost as wide.

On the amaranth, if the soil is good, it can get huge too. Looks like you might have 'Love Lies Bleeding'. Expect it to get at least 3-4 feet tall, maybe even taller in a southern clime.

[Spatzbear]

Globe artichokes are definitely space hoggers!

Mine look like that in late Spring. On the ground you can see a tray of harvested artichokes and broad beans.

[Rena]

oh no I messed up I will pull some plants

[natasha]

Originally Posted by Spatzbear

Globe artichokes are definitely space hoggers!

Oh my God, I never thought they could grow as big as yours!
What do you feed them with? I WANT MINE TO BE LIKE THAT!

Seriously, one of mine started developing yellow leaves, it is unhappy about something, but I don't know how to help.

[dcarch]

I have seen tiny chokes about the size of ping pong ball in the market.

What size plants are they from?

dcarch

[Spatzbear]

Natasha, they are the easiest things to grow around here. I cut them back to the ground in the middle of summer, when they have stopped flowering (I always leave some chokes on the plants as the flowers are absolutely stunning). By now (beginning of autumn) you can see them growing again.

They like slightly less acidic soil than I have, so when I planted them 5 years ago I fed them some lime, good compost and mulch. Now I just leave them be. No food, no water. They thrive on neglect. They are of the thistle family, so that would explain it. I might divide them this year, as they multiply like mad. 1 plant will produce 5 plants or so in the first year. There are pretty big clumps now.

Yellow leaves? Wet feet? End of season? If it's just one or two leaves on a big plant I wouldn't worry about it. Mine get about the same size as I am (height-wise).

dcarch, the tiny chokes are just harvested as soon as they form on the plant. The smaller, the tenderer. I tend to pick them pretty small, too. If they are that tiny, you can slice them thinly and eat raw.

[natasha]

Spatzbear, thank you very much for the growing advice, I started mine from seed in October, so they are about the same size as on the photo from IMISSCOLO, now I'm moving them outside and the ones outside look healthier than the ones which are still in the green house. So I guess I might overwatered the ones in the green house and nature puts it right outside. The problem is that the moving process is a bit slow, we are developing land which was overgrown for a long long time and now we cleared it and I want to put a thick layer of carbord first and mulch on top, to stop the weeds growing at least for a bit. We've done such thing in a different part of the allotment and it seems to work.