Know your cardoons from your artichokes
culinary experience. Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is edible and quite healthy for you. I did try it once and I hope I will never get hungry enough to want to eat it again. I will start again with new artichoke seed next year. energy for a plant to do this and if it puts too much into production, it can overstress and get sick later on. A plant not only needs constant water (think of water to a plant like blood to a human) but nutrients for both its own health and to put into production. And the more nutrients it has, the more nutrients its produce will contain when you consume it.
Compost and seaweed are my two favourites. Both contain a wide range of goodies in a complex mix that the soil life and thus the plant can utilise at their leisure. Whether mulched around the base or applied in compost tea, make sure your food plants are getting plenty of food – little and often.
While a large dose of fertiliser may seem like a good idea at the time, it can actually be detrimental. Known as fertiliser burn, too much fertiliser literally clogs the cells of your plant. Fertiliser is an instant kick – a bit like drinking a caffeine energy drink.
I prefer to give my plants a constant supply of compost and a regular watering of seaweed compost tea. It’s a long-term strategy that feeds the soil life, which feeds the plant, which feeds me. stopped running, you can prune unwanted tree growth. Full pruning should be done after fruiting, but the sooner unwanted growth is removed the more energy is diverted into wanted growth and production, so low offshoots should be nipped off now. The same goes for unwanted water shoots, which are usually a sign of bad pruning last year. Decide if you are going to keep any and remove the rest. Anything below the graft line is the rootstock growing and should be removed ASAP. Any small low branches that I definitely don’t want are snipped off – turn your secateurs so the flat blade is next to the trunk and cut neat and close without damaging the trunk bark.