Allotments 4 All

I have grown some of these from seed this year. They are about 10 inches high now, and doing well outdoors. Will I get anything off them this year?

Thanks

cj :)

I have just bought some seeds and on the packet it says to remove any flowers this year.  Sorry! :(

 :(

Ah well. Will make them even more exciting next year. Thanks

cj :)

Artichokes I sowed last spring are doing very well now and each plant have produced 4 buds so far. It is very exciting to harvest them especially when they are grown from seeds. :)
Yes, I agree you need to remove any bud this year.

What about ones which have been grown from off-cuts rather than from seed? Does one cut the flower heads off those and wait till next year for the first crop?

Plants grown from offcuts may be strong enough to support a few globes depending on when they were rooted. The reason for removal of buds on young plants is to save the plants resources. Buds on first-year seedlings do not grow large enough to eat but stop the plant from growing to its full potential.

Even with an off shoot I would give them a season without letting them produce mature heads

OK, thanks for that.  We'll have to resist, lust like we did for the asparagus  :P :P :P :P

I grew mine from seed last year and couldn't bear to chop off all the heads (I even let some of them flower  :-[ ). This year most of the plants have split (had 5 to start with) and I counted over 20 heads last weekend

OMG!  We've got 9 plants!  Good thing we all love them.  When I lived in Italy I used to eat them several times a week.  Something you can do if you live alone. 

We've cut the heads off ours.  We missed some of them as they'd gone to far and were opening up :(   Will they come back with more buds later in the year?

There are loads on our allotment site, and they are massive!!

I have not got any on my plot as i dont like them.

But will be planting cardoons as an arcitectual plant :-)