Artichoke Capital Pulls Plug On Festival

Come September, there will be no Artichoke Ambassador, no Artichoke 10K run and no artichoke-eating contests in Castroville, the self-proclaimed Artichoke Capital of the World.

The annual Castroville Artichoke Festival has been canceled because the El Nino rains ruined much of the crop, which comes in March.

“Artichokes can stand a little water, but they can’t swim,” said Mary Comfort, manager of the California Artichoke Advisory Board.

Castroville, a coastal hamlet halfway between Monterey and Watsonville, supplies 80 percent of the nation’s artichokes. The thistle - first planted in California in the 1920s by Italian immigrants - hates the sun and thrives in the region’s foggy breezes.

But this year, pounding rains have left Monterey County’s official vegetable under water and destroyed 40 percent of the region’s $40 million crop.

“We ran out of artichokes,” Comfort said.