I had planned on dividing my artichokes in the fall, you know, like a real gardener would do. But between all the crap-tastically glorious repairs we had going on with the house, it fell completely off my list of to-do items.
So this is what I get. Artichokes run amok.
Amok, amok, amok, I tell you!
As you can see, they are in serious need of some fertilizer too. The bottom leaves get all kind of rotten and gross when it rains, but its the yellowing that concerns me, so I’ll be visiting our local nursery soon to score me some fertz (I got all garden-gangster on you there. )
Turns out, according to Texas A&M, they need a foliar application of liquid calcium and zinc every two weeks when they are actively growing. And boy are they actively growing! And I have given them nada! (TAMU has a great resource if you want a quick reference sheet on artichokes, or really any other vegetable – you should take some time to browse around their website.)
Since they are way too crowded, after they finish blooming, I think I’ll cut them to the ground to send them into dormancy (at least that’s what TAMU says it will do.) I think I may try to divide some of them then before they start sending up leaves in fall again.
It’s a jungle — I could lose that crazy little black dog in there.
All of these chokes are three years old (I can see you’re impressed with my crazy garden vocab.) I started them from seed indoors under my grow lights (these seeds were from Heirloom Seeds.)
I have two different kinds in that mess above.
Purple Italian Globe
Isn’t she pretty?!
Here’s another one hiding further down on another plant.
Green Globe Artichokes
I’m going make an extra big pot of butter for this beauty. Mmmmm….butter.
I also have lots of new friends that showed up and had babies all over these plants.
I just love ladybugs! And the fact that they had tons of babies? Bliss.
Okay, technically I guess they’re not babies, but larvae.
But babies sounds cute. Larvae sounds like worms. I’m going with babies.
Cute as a bug. 🙂
