Growing New Things... Artichokes

Our family is always open to growing new things! In 2023 one of our newbies was purple artichokes. They have been a family favourite for decades and we typically only ended up having them twice a year during their peak season and never had them locally grown or chemical free before.

Planted up a couple of the transplants later in our growing season to try avoid any early frosts but they ended up taking the colder fall months like a champ to our surprise. This year we plan on getting them out earlier with the hope of more harvests and expanding our knowledge on the best ways to grow and maintain this large thorny plant. Did you know they are a member of the thistle family? Seems fitting that we would add this to our garden yearly. Hopefully one day we can offer seasonal artichokes to our customers.

Artichokes from the store will never be the same! Moving away from relying on large grocery store that ship our heavily sprayed international produce is a decision that we are easily making and hope you are too! Better for our health, wealth and conscious to know the full cycle of the food we consume on a daily basis. Plus it makes cooking that much more exciting when you wait months for the first harvest.

The dish in the reel is an oven roasted purple artichoke with garlic, parmesan and capers. We served it with a veggie medley rice made with a colourful mirepoix (carrot, onion and celery) and Lebanese beef kafta’s. Garnished with lemon juice, fresh dill herb and julienned purple radish. Nothing beats simple delicious home grown and raised food.