Artichoke Harvest (by sarah)
I have been trying to get the artichokes harvested since the first frost but what with lots of pooing sillyness and illness and what not it obviously didnt happen as a result I got militant when I looked them up in one of our thousands of books and found that though we had missed the prime time for harvest (Nov, Dec, Jan) they can be harvested until early spring (half way through march).
I need them to a) make soup and b) to replenish the chutney stores as Alaric has seen fit to consume or give away most of our chutney and as they take several weeks to mature (about eight) I thought I'd best get started - my perants gave me a cool preserves and chutneys cookbook at christmas and it has a recipy for artichoke chutney!
So off we went on Saturday - this is our disgrace of a veggi plot though to be honest its not as bad as we were expecting.
First off we removed the rotting storks - this of course should have been done just after they turned brown in October as it increases the chance of fungi getting to the tubers (oh did I mention these are Jeruselum Artichokes rather than globe?)
Of course there was hollowing of some tubers (this is where things have eaten holes into them and eaten away some or all of the inside), my book says that this most lickly coursed by slugs - yep all the artichokes that had 'broken the surface' where covered in the little homeless molluscs. The book goes on to say that rarer is a soil dwelling catipillar which if found means oiking everything out and treating the soil.
Sigh - oh well looks like we'll have to dig the plot over and actually plant things than goiing for the self seeding technique. Some things are a blessing in disguise 😉
Not entirely sure what this feller is or weather I have to fret about him and his sisters, there was a bit of a disagrement over what a wire worm looks like so really not sure - suppose I should look it up!
Now I had got pictures of the HUGE amount of usable artichoke we got - put it this way it took me two days before I had washed them all! But unfortunatly its on the missing camera :'(
Thu 1st Mar 2007 10:22 am 
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