Description
Tavor Artichoke Seeds
Grow a Mediterranean Delicacy in Your Own Backyard.
Artichokes look exotic.
Tavor makes growing them surprisingly achievable.
Tavor is an early, productive artichoke bred to produce beautiful green buds in its first growing season, making it an excellent choice for gardeners in climates where traditional perennial artichokes struggle.
The plants themselves are spectacular, with enormous silvery-green foliage that looks almost prehistoric. Then come the prize: large, tender flower buds ready to steam, roast, grill, stuff, or dip in melted butter.
And if you leave one unharvested?
It opens into an extraordinary purple flower covered in pollinators.
Why Grow Tavor Artichokes?
🌱 First-year production.
Tavor is bred for annual production, allowing gardeners to harvest artichokes without waiting years for established perennial plants.
🌎 Excellent for northern gardens.
Gardeners outside traditional artichoke-growing regions can still experience the satisfaction of harvesting their own fresh artichokes.
🍽️ A gourmet crop at home.
Freshly harvested buds can be steamed, grilled, roasted, stuffed, baked, or used for their tender hearts.
🌿 Absolutely spectacular plants.
Huge, deeply divided silver-green leaves make artichokes dramatic enough to grow purely as ornamentals.
🐝 Incredible flowers.
Leave a bud on the plant and it eventually opens into an enormous electric-purple, thistle-like flower that attracts bees and other pollinators.
What Exactly Is an Artichoke?
Here’s the fun part:
The artichoke you eat is an unopened flower bud.
Those overlapping “leaves” are actually modified structures called bracts protecting the developing flower.
At the base of each bract is tender edible tissue, while deeper inside you’ll find the prized artichoke heart.
If you don’t harvest the bud, it continues developing and eventually explodes into a spectacular purple bloom.
Growing Information
Sun: Full sun
Soil: Deep, fertile, rich, well-drained soil
Planting Depth: Approximately ¼ inch
Spacing: 24–36 inches apart
Germination: Approximately 7–14 days under warm conditions
Water: Water deeply and consistently for vigorous growth and large buds
Height: Approximately 3–4 feet
Harvest: Approximately 85–100 days from transplanting, depending on conditions
Life Cycle: Tender perennial commonly grown as an annual in colder climates
Growing Tip
For northern gardeners, start Tavor indoors early—roughly 8–10 weeks before your last spring frost.
Artichokes can benefit from a period of cool temperatures while young, which helps trigger first-year flowering. Harden seedlings off carefully and transplant them outside once conditions are appropriate.
Give plants plenty of space.
What starts as a modest seedling can become an enormous architectural plant by midsummer.
How to Harvest
✂️ Watch the Buds
Harvest while buds are still tight and compact, before the bracts begin spreading open.
🌿 Cut With Some Stem
Cut the bud with several inches of stem attached.
🍽️ Eat the Bracts
Cook the artichoke and pull off the outer bracts, scraping the tender flesh from their bases.
❤️ Find the Heart
Remove the fuzzy choke to reveal the tender artichoke heart beneath.
🌸 Or Don’t Harvest One
Leave a bud on the plant and watch it transform into one of the most spectacular flowers in the vegetable garden.
Perfect For
- Kitchen gardens
- Raised beds
- Edible landscapes
- Ornamental vegetable gardens
- Northern gardens
- Mediterranean-inspired gardens
- Pollinator gardens
- Adventurous gardeners
Did You Know?
🌸 An artichoke is a flower you eat before it blooms. Once it opens, the familiar vegetable transforms into an enormous purple flower.
🌿 Artichokes are members of the thistle family. Their wild relatives help explain those dramatic leaves and spectacular flowers.
🐝 Bees absolutely love the blooms. If you can spare one bud from the kitchen, allowing it to flower can create a remarkable pollinator feeding station.
❤️ The heart isn’t a separate part of the plant. It’s the fleshy base of the immature flower bud underneath the fuzzy choke.
🌱 Tavor was developed with annual production in mind. That makes homegrown artichokes much more realistic for gardeners in regions with cold winters.
Grow the Vegetable That Becomes a Flower.
Tavor Artichoke is one of those plants that makes a garden more interesting.
The foliage is enormous.
The harvest feels exotic.
The flavor is incredible.
And the flower—if you can resist eating every bud—is unforgettable.
Plant Tavor Artichoke—and grow one of the world’s most extraordinary vegetables right in your own backyard.