I've never grown them, I buy them. I have noticed that there seems to be two kinds-one is quite large, fully round with short rounded leaves, and it's the one with no heart.
The other is the smaller one with pointed thorny- tipped leaves, and has a big heart.
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TheWaterbug
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Is there a recommended way to prune the plants to maximize edible flower production? I'm thinking of planting some of these, too, and I'm not really concerned about their ornamental value (although they are lovely). I just want more 'chokes to eatgumbo2176 wrote:The ones I now have are getting pretty big and the plants are robust but no sign of a choke. If they do like the last time I planted them, I'll not see a choke until sometime next year about this time of the season after over-wintering.
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TheWaterbug
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On a semi-related note, everyone thinks of California as "avocado country," as though we've been raised from birth knowing how to eat avocados.Inailum wrote:A funny little story, I moved to a small town in Virginia for about 10 years and nobody there even knew what an artichoke was, nor did they know what a pomegranate was. lol About a year before I moved back to California I was in the grocery store there and I saw pomegranates!! Right next to them was an instruction booklet on "how to eat a pomegranate" I got a good little chuckle out of it. I guess on the west coast you get spoiled with all the wonderful fruits that can be grown here.
A few years ago we were going through my Mom's decades-high stack of old Sunset magazines, and I found a full-page ad in a 1970s-vintage issue introducing the "alligator pear" to California as a novelty food. Hmmm. That name didn't stick for very long.
[quote="TheWaterbug"
Is there a recommended way to prune the plants to maximize edible flower production? I'm thinking of planting some of these, too, and I'm not really concerned about their ornamental value (although they are lovely). I just want more 'chokes to eat[/quote]
You can divide the plant once it sets out new growth from the ground in the form of new shoots with their own root system to start a new plant. Similar to what a Bromiliad (sp) does when it sets out pups.
I know of no way to increase choke production other than keep them fairly moist, especially when hot, dry conditions occur and the occasional side dressing of compost or other preferred fertilizer.
Is there a recommended way to prune the plants to maximize edible flower production? I'm thinking of planting some of these, too, and I'm not really concerned about their ornamental value (although they are lovely). I just want more 'chokes to eat
[/quote]You can divide the plant once it sets out new growth from the ground in the form of new shoots with their own root system to start a new plant. Similar to what a Bromiliad (sp) does when it sets out pups.
I know of no way to increase choke production other than keep them fairly moist, especially when hot, dry conditions occur and the occasional side dressing of compost or other preferred fertilizer.