Help with Cleaning Artichokes?

Paul

Paul

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A friend of mine gave me a bunch of beautiful artichokes from his organic garden. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on (thoroughly) cleaning them?

I soaked them in cold water and took my sprayer to them using the water pressure to get inside the leaves and as I did so several different bugs came out (walked out on their own volition) including two spiders and an earwig. I then actually put them into very hot water and they soaked for a couple of minutes. I did this because I had the pot getting ready for them on the stove but then after putting them into the hot water it became apparent that the pot wasn't big enough. So I started over with a bigger pot. I drained them then put them into the bigger pot. So in effect they got washed twice.

Here's the problem. The artichokes themselves do not look to be bug damaged however after boiling them and opening them up to eat I noticed one of them had dead aphids on pretty much every leaf. I'm told the aphids attract the other bugs which like to eat them. A couple others had dead bugs inside but not as much.

It would be a shame to let these go to waste but I'm not interested in eating bugs and bug carcasses on my food is unappealing. Family that I'd serve them to would simply not eat them.

 
oh yuck :-0 I've never had that problem and the only thing I can think of

doing is quartering them and soaking in water with a lemon squeezed into it. I hope you are able to save the rest of them.

 
A tip I learned years ago....

and I wish I could remember from where, is to fill the sink or a large bowl with tap water, into which you pour a large handful (I open the box and dump) of salt. Plain old Morton's table salt is great for this!

The bugs die and float to the surface of the water. It also helps get sand and dirt off the veggies.

(Wish I had a friend who'd give me fresh artichokes!)

 
I've heard the salt trick for aphids too, but every artichoke I've ever grown has been so infested

that I just let them flower. They're very pretty.

 
Me too. Was so excited to finally grow my own artichokes organically but

when it came time to cook and eat them there were sooo darned many aphids. Soaking them in water prior to cooking did little good. And cooking them just proceeded to cook the aphids which stayed lodged deep between the artichoke leaves.

Tried buying boatloads of ladybugs and released among the artichoke plants but it helped very little. Sadly, I finally gave up growing the artichokes and used the garden space for less-buggy vegetables.

 
Makes you wonder.....what do the commercial growers do. Do I really want to know?

 
I tried growing them in my garden one year. They got so infested with bugs that I let them flower..

Now I let the valley farmers do the work. Now is the time to buy those big, beautiful crown artichokes from CA. Yum!

 
I had this happen with broccoli when I tried growing in years ago...

Never, ever grew broccoli again! Actually, the broccoli looked fine all but one little 'worm' so I soaked it in salt water. Oh, my gosh! You would not believe the bugs! Had I not seen that one - we would have eaten a ton. I pulled them and threw it all away. These were tiny little worms inside the tiny little clusters of broccoli! Ew...once was enough for this gal.

 
what you need is a lithuanian aphid hound, but...

then you have to deal with lithuanian aphid hound slobber. not a pretty sight.

and lithuanium batteries are so expensive...

 
Thank you

for the suggestions. I am going to try the salt bath idea and I also got a PM suggesting to cut the artichokes into quarters before cleaning. I'm going to try that as well.

 
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