Artichoke update

Alright, now that I'm all backed up on updating you on the lil' plants that we were following closely when I started this blog.

When I last showed you how the artichoke was looking, things were going great. Not long after those photos were taken,  even more exciting stuff happened!

Looky here:

Holy crap! That's 2, count 'em, TWO little artichoke globes. What luck! My plot neighbor said he's had huge artichoke plants for years and they've never produced actual 'chokes to eat. And this was a plant that I totally salvaged from the weed patch that was Plot 24.

Well, nature giveth and nature taketh away. Was it something I did? No. It was a GOPHER.

A while back, I had a mysterious broccoli disappearance. It was during my blogging hiatus, but here were the pictures of the row when one plant went missing. Note the shaded area where the four three broccoli plants are.

And a closeup of where the plant once was:

Without a trace.

So one day I go to visit the plot and my beautiful artichoke plant has been nommed to death, the roots chewed up and the whole plant wrecked. AND HE DIDN'T EVEN EAT THE ARTICHOKES.

Needless to say, I'm heartbroken.

Plot 24 at dusk...

I usually go to my plot right after at work. The garden is officially supposed to be off limits a half hour after sunset. Thankfully our days are getting longer, so I always make it there before dark now. 

This is the latest and greatest photo of the plot. I got it at a pretty good angle, but it definitely needed the flash:

We can see (in order from left to right) the black kale, romaine, white onion, pak choi, sugar snap pea, broccoli, and in the top of the photo, artichoke. That bag next to the 'choke is a bag of compost I bought last weekend. When I planted the 3 new rows I put a little compost in the trenches first and also sprinkled some around the already planted dudes. I have tons of compost left but I plan to incorporate it into the rest of the plot so that soil can be nutrient rich by the time I start planting more goodies.

Speaking of the good old artichoke, look how fabulous he looks! (With comparison shot from his first day in the ground.)

Quite the improvement if you ask me...nice and spiky!

New veggies

I went to Home Improvement Center on Saturday intending to get a good plastic container to start making my worm composting bin. Turns out, they didn't really have any good ones that had a tight seal. I decided to take a gander at their veggies and see if anything looked worth buying and planting.

I bought a 6 pack of Pak Choi (aka Bok Choy) that looked really healthy and strong. I also got a 4 pack of broccoli. I'm a little worried about the broccoli because even though it looks healthy, everyone else's broccoli is several feet high right now and bearing florets. These dudes are 4 inches high! Oh well...

I decided to put the pak choi and broccoli in rows next to the onions. There is still so much room in the plot, so I'm able to still give each plant a lot of room. Always keeping in mind that I need to make space for the hula hoe to get in between each plant.

Here is a closeup of the pak choi:

And the row from afar:

And my small but mighty broccoli:

And the little row of four:

Before I planted the kale, sugar snap, pak choi and broccoli, I went over the whole plot with a hula hoe. The soil was obviously very moist from the rains and it was easy to work through. There were lots of little weeds sprouting up but they are easy to loosen and pull out with the soil wet.

Lookin' good, Plot 24. Lookin' good.