Seed Saving for the Organic Gardener by Martin Anderson

Author:Martin Anderson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Organic, Gardening & Horticulture, Gardening & Landscape Design, Hobbies & Home, Crafts, By Technique, Techniques
ISBN: 1482096064
Published: 2013-01-27T07:00:00+00:00

Artichokes

By H. Zell (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Leave artichoke heads on the stalk until they dry up and turn brown. Once they're dry to the touch, cut the stalk off 4 to 5 inches below the head. Let the head sit out in a dark, dry place for a couple days after harvesting it.

You have to break the head open to get to the seeds. Be careful—the ends of the leaves have spikes on them that will poke you in the hand if you aren't careful. They're pointy and sharp enough to draw blood if they get you just right.

As you can see in the picture, the seeds are connected to a light, willowy material called pappas. This material is designed to float away in the wind, carrying the artichoke seeds to new fertile ground. Remove the pappas from the seeds you collect and set them out to dry for a few days.

Artichokes are strange in that some artichokes will grow large numbers of seeds, while others won't have any at all. You'll also get a number of bad seeds from every artichoke you harvest that has seeds. Some artichokes will only have 3 or 4 good seeds, while others may have 20 or more seeds that are ready to plant. It's a numbers game. The more artichokes you let go to seed, the more likely you are to get a few that have good numbers of seeds.

To check seed quality, squeeze each seed between your fingers. If it feels fairly solid, it's probably a good seed. If it's soft and easy to squeeze, it's a bad seed and needs to be discarded. Bad seeds will float in water, while good seeds will sink. Don't be frustrated if you come across an artichoke where almost every seed feels bad.

That's just the nature of the beast, especially if you live in a climate not conducive to seed growth. Some artichokes don't grow good seeds. You have to let enough go to seed so you can find some that have them.

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