Thursday, July 2, 2009

Artichokes

Last year I harvested about 30 artichokes, small but delicious. I processed them for the freezer and twice in the dead of winter I made hot artichoke and spinach dip as an appy. I don't know if you noticed but in Canada canned artichokes are very expensive so I was thrilled to have them in the freezer and I was looking forward to more of the same this year. Well...maybe not.



Of my 6 artichoke plants I have two small artichokes. So what's the problem? A fellow gardener I just met a few weeks ago told me that artichokes don't last very long, maybe five years and to extend their life I should separate them or sever the babies from the mother plant by a deep cut with a long shovel. I have not been able to confirm this method but I'll try it on one plant.



I noticed my next door neighbour's plants were in worst shape than mine and they are literally 20 feet apart, so I think it might have been our colder than usual winter.


1 comment:

Scrappy quilter said...

I'm thinking the weather played havoc on many gardens this year. My apples are looking pretty sad on my apple tree. My beets are hardly growing and even my Swiss chard is doing poorly. It's been a pretty crazy year so far.

How is everything else doing?