artichokes

one item you don't see very often, if at all, at farmers markets in lancaster county, is artichokes. and there is good reason for this...they are very difficult to grow in this region.

artichokes are perennials, but only in warmer regions. so in this region, it would be an annual, right? well...yes, except that the plants only start producing artichokes during their second season. so this poses a challenge, however not an impossibility. there are ways to trick the plants into thinking they are older than they actually are.

i started the seeds inside in february for these plants. once they were eight weeks old, it was time to give them a cold treatment, to make them think they were going through a winter. the cold treatment is 10-14 days of temperatures between 35-50 degrees. this is hard to do in march and april. it can get too cold at night and inside is too warm. we thought about putting them in the fridge, but without a light, they wouldn't grow. after several other thoughts, we decided to put them in the garage. they would be protected from frost, but would be as cool as we could get them. some nights, we had to bring them inside and some days were warmer than 50 degrees. the plants looked fairly healthy, but i didn't have high hopes that they would produce artichokes.

we planted them outside towards the end of april. i don't remember when, but one day walking through the field, i noticed something in the center of a couple of plants.....an artichoke! not every plant has produced, but most have. and while the artichokes are not the size of those from california, i still think it is a pretty big deal to have them at all. i get questioned a lot at market about whether they are locally grown. yes, they are. would you like to know how we grew them?!

now that we have them, we need to educate people on what to do with them so they sell better. i think people just aren't expecting to see them at market so they aren't mentally prepared to purchase them.

let's hope production goes just as well next year, if not better.