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Artichoke Harvest

They grow up so fast. It seems only last week we were headed out of town and wondering if the artichoke plant would even survive a week without us. Apparently there was no need for concern. We got home from a quick trip to Oceanside and Sequoia NP to find our burly artichoke plant was getting ready to bloom. We decided to harvest a few artichokes before they turned into huge purple flowers, but I have to admit I’m curious to know what they would look like if we did let one or two go all the way. There are still plenty more on the monster plant, so maybe we’ll do that towards summer. But right now it’s time to eat some organic artichokes from our garden.

Burly Artichoke

We have had several setbacks this year, but the artichoke plant weathers them all and has turned into a burly plant. The base of the stock is now more than 6 inches across. It’s almost 5 feet tall and 8 feet wide. It’s a monster. But it doesn’t stay that way on its own; I have to hose the bugs off every couple of days or they eat right through an entire branch. The main culprits have been earwigs and slugs. Despite all that, the plant is growing well now and has a few good looking artichokes starting. I’m excited to see how they will turn out.

Artichoke Weather

We didn’t wind up with many nights where it dropped below freezing, but it was enough to kill most of the remaining plants. We disconnected the hoses and turned off the sprinklers and haven’t turned them back on yet. The herbs that survived the frost seem happy, and the artichoke is in heaven. I guess it really likes the cool weather. Maybe we’ll get a few artichokes this year?

Artichoke
Artichoke

New Year’s Freeze

It’s not supposed to freeze here. Isn’t that the whole point of living (somewhat) close to the coast in California? I thought so. That’s what I signed up for. But apparently, I was wrong. While we were in San Diego over Christmas and New Year’s, our garden froze. It wasn’t a slight dip below 32 degrees. No, it went way down into the mid-twenties two nights in a row, instantly killing just about everything.

I thought about taking a picture of the tomato plants before we headed out. They hadn’t been flowering much, but the had grown like weeds. I figured by spring they’d be monsters ready to produce a massive harvest. Now they won’t produce anything.

We picked about 15 big eggplants before the trip, and left another 10 or so on the plant (it was already a monster). The 10 we left in San Jose didn’t like being freeze-dried.

There were only a few peppers and tomatoes ready when we left, and we picked all but one or two of each. Like the eggplants, they didn’t make it through the arctic blast.

But the artichoke plant is loving life. Who knew? And all the herbs in the front yard seem pretty happy too. So it’s not a total loss.

Freeze-Dried
Freeze-Dried

Artichoke
Artichoke

Tomato eatin’ varmints

We took a few weeks to visit Peru and when we got back the garden was in pretty bad shape. There were ants herding aphids around to almost every leaf of the zucchini plant, which also seems to be suffering from some kind of powdery mildew. Tomatoes had been picked, half eaten by squirrels or raccoons, laying to the side of the plants being devoured by swarms of ants. The leaves of some tomato plants were turning black. Others had half-eaten tomatoes still on the plant. There were even some bell peppers that had been sampled by some varmints. I wasn’t sure if the sampling was done by squirrels (we have tons of them, but they haven’t ever eaten anything before) or raccoons (I have seen one or two in the yard earlier in the year) or possums or rats or something combination of those or something else completely. But I was sure about one thing… it wasn’t pretty.

The good news is that the jalapeno peppers are looking great. They looked so great that I picked a bunch of them. They have some good color to them now, which means they have some sweetness and vitamin C now. They also have a lot of stress marks and striations, which usually means they’ve picked up some good heat. I can hardly wait for Charmaine to put these into her famous jalapeno cheddar bread. Mmmm!

The poblano pepper plant is also doing well. It’s almost exactly six feet tall now, which is so amazing, but it’s also starting to produce actual peppers. That’s what I’m really happy about. I just hope they have enough time to mature before it starts to get cold. Does it get cold in San Jose? I guess we’ll find out as time goes on.

The other good news is that there are still a ton of un-touched tomatoes. I picked about 20 that looked ripe. Despite the issues with aphids and leaf mildew, the zucchini plant is still cranking them out. I picked two huge zucchinis today. And the eggplant is still going like mad. It’s about 5 feet tall and has 5 or 6 good eggplants growing. I’m so impressed!

I’m heading to San Diego for the long weekend, so I’m not sure what to do with all the produce I picked today. Maybe the neighbors are hungry?