Growing Artichokes

They are, really, really easy to raise from seed. I grew both green and purple last year,  but it would seem that the quality of the plants raised from seed may vary. So it is said to be best to propagate from cuttings. If you have room to grow a few extra from seed,you can always select the best, but this would be quite a long term way to do it and require a lot of space, as you won't know until you get the flowers which are the best! I just selected and planted three.
I didn't do anything special at all to get them started, just in multipurpose compost on my kitchen window sill. I potted them on until they were a good size. I did find that the slugs were pretty keen at the lotty and they were seriously attacked! They don't seem to have bothered this year, so I think they must like the baby plants better. 

"Any suggestions/advice/tips on best source of seeds,method of growing,pest contro;,up keep  etc  please ?"

Just one really - wrap them up for the winter, with a pile of straw of similar on the crown. I grew 3 splendid plants from seed last year and lost 2 to the cold.

This was suggested on the growing advice I`d read, but having seen them around, I figured they were fairly hardy in our local climate.

Very easy to grow however

Will

How timely - I'm just in the process of planting them too - what's not to love? Difficult and expensive to buy in the shops, utterly delicious, and a perennial on top of that! I've gone for a mixture of the traditional Green Globe, a Purple one (supposed to have best flavour) and Travor, which is related to Green Globe but meant to be quite a lot hardier.

I'll be planting them along the southern edge of my plot to get as much sun as possible, and will chuck a bundle of straw over them for winter. In two years, I'll start making baby plants from them as, despite being perennial, they're only supposed to be at their best for 3 or 4 years. Easy to propagate from off-shoots, I'm told.

REALLY hope they work - I LOVE them!

I got mine from premier seeds on ebay.

My little seedlings from seed are coming along fine in 3 '' pots..They are a height of about 2 inches and each seedling has 2 to 4 leaves.When should I transfer them to ground ?Or should I let them grow a bit in bigger pots?

Thanks

It's often a leaf miner - if you can see or feel where it is, squash it with finger and thumb either side of leaf.

They don't really do much damage if you can't find it, though

Some give early globes, some produce later. Over time you can decide which are the best plants and get rid of the less productive. You can always increase the numbers of your best ones by dividing them and replanting the offsets, once the plants are well established.
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I wouldn't cut off any leaves, it weakens the plants.

I usually give mine a shovel of compost/manure in the spring and a handful of general fertiliser (eg BF&B/Growmore) a bit later in the year.