I have yet to ever harvest an artichoke or a cardoon. As members of the thistle family, I've always fallen madly in love with watching the bees go crazy when they flower...but here is one before the sun opens it up to the pollinators, one of two I planted in the 'wet feet' area of our side garden, and amazingly left fairly untouched by ants (unlike the other one which was inhaled to put it mildly by the creepy crawlies). This variety produces in the first year but was pretty high maintenance in this high clay soil environment - a LOT of water to keep it going when it first started in spring (which was fairly dry for us), and of course the ants. Never had such a massive number of ants on my thistles, so I'll be researching ways to prevent this in a sustainable fashion next year...
..and who knows, maybe we'll eventually eat some...
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