cardoon

[HiDelight]

ok here you go ..my monstrosity!!!
see I am not kidding about the size huh?

this bud below looks just like an artichoke doesn't it?

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Heidi



I can't believe it...!!!!!! Half of my cardoon has tumbled over & broken off.

We have had 2 days of very high winds & the they were VERY tall & laden with heavy globes...............................but I am heart-broken!

I fed a lot of the leaves to the chickens -- mine have very sophisticated taste.Do yours like the leaves?

As there is now a yawning space (luckily on the side of the path) I shall be able to put in lots of new soil & compost. This winter I will tidy it up & try to take root cuttings. I will also sow some seeds of that other variety which is called The Hunchback of .........? (forgotten the name). The garden looks weird suddenly. I'll get used to it eventually & maybe turn it to my advantage. I was only saying the other day that it was too near the path & I would have to do something! Hmmm!?


The garden constantly surprises me..............


:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi there!

I have just found another delicious recipe for cardoons -- cooked with honey.........? Now I can't quite imagine this -- I have a limited imagination when I'm dealing with food. I suspect this recipe came via North Africa somehow -- in which case I will like it. Actually I'm coming round to the idea as I type this -- the honey will counteract the slight bitterness of the cardoon!

http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/wi...es/honeyed-cardoons-with-pine-nuts-and-thyme/

Please anyone who cooks report back -- I had a tragedy with my cardoon plant when a lot of it was smashed in high winds. I still have some left & I have ordered more seeds of a different variety.

Have a great weekend.

:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Reinbeau]

Mmmm, Hattie, that sounds delightful. I wonder if my cardoon will be large enough this September to try to blanch? I hope so!

 

[HiDelight]

all the cardoons that are huge a blooming beautifully now and the bees/butterflies just love them!

the cardoon I plan to blanch is about 3 ft hight now I wonder if that one is too big?

How big is yours? Reinbeau?

 

[Reinbeau]

Oh, mine is wee yet, only about 18" high or so. We'll see if I can harvest any. Maybe once the summer weather actually takes hold here (this is the last weekend in July, for Pete's sake!!) it'll put on some size.

 

[HiDelight]

I think that as long as it is the size of a celery it should be fine to harvest

are you going to try to blanch it? if so how?

I think I am going to just use a piece of plastic (I hate the stuff but have some odds and ends around that I keep recycling and cursing at) anyway it might be good for blanching the cardoons

I am trying to upload a picture of the one I want to blanch but am sure whatever I do in the way of cooking it it will have to be a long slow method it is probably tough because it is so big ..

I have babies all over so any that look like celery sized ones I will try those

Hattie all this sound ok???

 

[Reinbeau]

Hattie posted a link showing using a stake (oh, I should get that in now) and brown paper, so I was going to use paper bags.

 

[HiDelight]

I loved that idea ..but we have way too much rain in the fall to use brown paper I would use it if it stayed dry but I think it would just decompose here

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Hi ladies

HiDelight Definitely no plastic. It makes it sweat & rot! One of the sites said that! I have been thinking of several layers of That black landscaping cloth because it is permeable. Or maybe a long strong corrugated paper box. one of those strong ones fruit trees are shipped in. I've been racking my brains for solutions. I've even thought of using a huge pottery drainage pipe that I have. I use it as a collumn with a statue on top. It would work like those Victorian forcing pots for rhubarb or sea-kale. I have also got 4 old chimney pots, the clay ones. I can easily fix up a lid with a piece of wood or large flower-pot saucer.

Onwards with the Great Cardoon Experience.

I have 17 chokes on what's left of my poor plant & about 9 of them have opened in the last 2 days. I had to cut about5 off last week because they were covered in black-fly & sticky goo -- Urkkkk!! I didn't want it to spread.

Have a great weekend Friends of the Quest...!!

:rose Hattie :rose