Gardening Life Archives - Page 9 of 15

Bzzzz June 24th, 2010

Every since I heard that my local friend Kirsti has successfully grown and harvested as many as 12 artichokes a season in her small garden, I’ve been having serious artichoke envy.

For several years in my younger days I lived in California not so far from Castroville, a major hub of artichoke activity. Before I moved from east to west I had never before even tasted an artichoke. But in California you can’t go to a party or a restaurant without being offered some sort of appetizer, soup, entree or dip whose main ingredient is artichoke.

Faced with a steamed artichoke for the first time I was confused and a bit intimidated. How are you supposed to eat this baby?

The natives and seasoned immigrants quickly showed me how to peel off the outer leaves, dip them into a proffered sauce and gently nibble away or scrape the tender bottom part of the leaf with my bottom teeth. Once you’ve eaten all the leaves and remove the hairy, choke-y innards (if they’re still there) you remove the heart at the bottom, slice it up and eat that too. Oh heaven.

The only thing better is to have all that work done for you and mixed into a dip or soup or some such deliciousness that undoubtedly has unspeakable numbers of calories and a high percentage of fat. Oh, those were the days when those thoughts never even crossed my mind. *sigh*

Well, earlier this spring my artichoke envy was reaching frantic heights when I couldn’t locate any starters and was thinking I would have to start the whole process—a bit late—from seed.

Isn’t it appropriate that my friend Mary Ann from Gardens of the Wild Wild West, oh roper of cattle and wearer of cowboy boots, should come riding to my rescue? She sent me seven wonderful little plants all the way from Boise, Idaho, to plant in my garden.

I treasure these plants and fret over them. I can’t let Mary Ann (some of us call her Ida) down!

Here’s my first baby artichoke. I don’t know what’s going on with the other six plants, but one little artichoke plant has decided to encourage my efforts by pushing out a little globe about the size of a large marble.

Artichoke envy satisfied. Almost.

Posted In: Gardening, Gardening Life

Tags: artichoke

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Bzzzz June 16th, 2010

This may look like just another sunflower photo to you.

To me though, there are two very interesting things about this image.

First, I didn’t plant this sunflower. I have planted sunflowers, but not this one. The sunflower I planted are ‘Titan’ and they aren’t quite blooming yet. This sunflower was planted by a bird, probably, with seed from the birdfeeders. This would happen quite a lot if I allowed all the little seedlings around the birdfeeders grow instead of mowing them down. It also happened once before in an oddly pretty and serendipidous container arrangement that also included some hearty pansies that over-wintered.

So that’s the first thing I find interesting about this photo.

The second thing is all the bees. Bees are naturally attracted to flowers, so that’s not what I find interesting. What’s interesting, to me, is that there are so many bees. Not just here but all over my yard.

I named my garden Bumblebee Garden when I began gardening here about nine years ago because of all the bees. But in the past couple of years there have been relatively few bees by comparison. There has been the odd and lazy carpenter bee, but not so many other bees. I don’t know why. We don’t spray chemicals on the lawn. The farmer who tends the small hayfield doesn’t spray anything. I had sort of attributed it to the overall colony collapse disorder I’ve been reading so much about. But really, I don’t know.

But this year, whoa doggie. We have bees! We have little patches of clover in the lawn covered by bees. Bees are all over our flower boxes. Bees are everywhere! They are mostly what I just call bumblebees—fat, slow and lazy little bees that are not aggressive. When I am working near the flowers and the bees, I don’t hesitate to just bump them out of the way if I need to work on one of their flowers. They don’t care.

I love the bees.

So you see, for me, this photo isn’t just a sunflower. It’s a volunteer and an image of the return of the bees.

I rather like this photo for those reasons alone.

Posted In: Flowers, Gardening, Gardening Life