If you're an adventurous gardener, cook, or gastronome, then you'll want to grow cardoons. Besides bringing a dramatic statement in your flower border. it will bring to you a flavour that is truly unique in the vegetable world, you'll have the pleasure of harvesting this unusual vegetable in December and throughout the winter in mild areas.
Chosen by the Royal Horticultural Society as one of the top plants of the last 200 years, Cardoons are aristocrats in both the ornamental and the vegetable world.

As an ornamental plant it is valued for its striking foliage. With its long, arching, deeply toothed, soft grey-green foliage, Cardoon makes a dramatic statement in the flower border.
In summer, tall flower stems are topped by fat thistle buds which open into large blue-violet or purple blooms which are highly attractive to bees. The dead flower-heads can be left on the plants and provide an attractive feature over the winter months.

Gourmet gardeners ought to include cardoons in their repertoire; it is a close relative of the globe artichoke and just as much of a delicacy. It is difficult, if not impossible, to find them at a greengrocer's. In France, Italy, Spain, and other European countries where the cardoon still thrives, you are likely to find many different dishes. Recipes are everywhere on the Internet.

The tasty stems have an artichoke-like flavour and look like large celery stalks. They are blanched and are delicious steamed or braised. They may be stewed, used in soups, or eaten raw in salads or in a vinaigrette dressing. I am told that the flowers too can be cut and cooked or be dried to use as a substitute for rennet in those dishes requiring curdled milk.

Awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit.

Sowing:
Sow early April onwards for planting outdoors from the end of May onwards
Sow seed into 7cm (3in) pots and place under glass or in a cold frame (without heat) six to eight weeks before planting in the garden.
The plants will grow quickly. Transplant into the garden once all danger of frost has passed.

For Culinary Use:
If planting for edible use, prepare trenches at the same time as planting seeds: The best trenches, they say, will have been dug a month earlier, not less than 45cm (18in) deep with the bottom third being a rich mixture of well-decayed manure and soil.
The earlier sowing should provide plants to put out at about the end of May.

Cultivation:
The plants may require copious amounts of water during the summer, preferably soft water and a liquid feed which will encourage stem growth without flowers as this is the aim in producing plants for the cooking pot.
Blanch when the plant is about 90cm (36in) tall, four to six weeks before harvesting. Tie the leaves together in a bunch and wrap paper or burlap around the stems, or form a hill of soil around the stem in much the same way as for celery.

Harvesting:
Harvest the plants four to six weeks after blanching. Cut them off at ground level and trim off the outer leaves.
They can be left in the ground but in the event of severe weather it is advisable to lift them for storage. They should then be wrapped in brown paper or black polythene in a box of sand or peat to retain moisture.
To prepare cardoons for cooking, remove any bruised or ragged outer stems. Remove the leaves from their ribs. Then, using a sharp paring knife, thinly pare the backs of the ribs, removing the tough fibres that run along them. Cut the ribs into two- to three-inch sections and drop them into acidulated water as you work, as cardoon oxidizes only slightly less quickly than artichoke.