Have a Heart... Yeah, Baby! Have a Heart!

"Vous au moins, vous ne risquez pas d'être un légume, puisque même un artichaut a du cœur. (You couldn't even be a vegetable — even artichokes have a heart.)"
--Amélie Poulain

One of the things we at Myrtle’s place find fascinating about people who ask us gardening advice is the idea that there is a legitimate calendar which can be followed for exactly when certain plants should be put in the ground.  Newsflash:  if such a calendar had ever been valid in the past, it most definitely is no longer valid, thanks to global warming.

One of the concomitant truths of which we find people (on a more or less regular basis) ignorant in some degree or other is the notion that gardening in the Brazos Valley is a year round event.  In some measure, this means that during each season of the year, there is some crop that can be grown. 

However, there is another sense in which gardening here is year round – there are a wide variety of perennial plants which do well here, and in the world of comestibles, this is not limited to just herbs and fruit trees and vines.

We recently visited some friends of Myrtle who have a smashingly successful crop of asparagus growing in a pile of chicken-enhanced compost, and while for most folk, asparagus is considered a “northern” crop… it is possible, with care and attention (particularly during our blisteringly hot summers) to keep it going.  We wait with bated breath (and hovering forks) for the results of our friends’ efforts.

Meanwhile, we have decided to get into the perennial vegetable game ourselves this year, with a new raised bed which we will dedicate to the growing of artichokes.  A friend of ours from Turkey (a botanist, no less) gifted us with a packet of seeds, and it would be the height of rudeness not to take up the challenge.

Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus otherwise known as the “globe artichoke” is grown commercially in the part of California where so many other Mediterranean delicacies seem to be localized; in fact, Castroville, CA, is the “Artichoke Capital” of the United States, and there are no challengers to their claim.  The long and the short of it is, even there, artichokes require protection from frost in winter, making consistent production a challenge in most of the U.S.

For a climate to be considered truly “Mediterranean” there are strict limits on both annual temperature extremes, though in the case of artichokes, the more important limit is the winter lows; technically, they can be grown as far north as U.S.D.A. hardiness zone 7, though for most of the U.S., that hardiness zone gets cold enough that they may only be grown as an annual.  It is possible to get a limited crop in one growing season from the artichoke…. but the vast majority of the harvest from commercial production is from plants that are at least a year old.

So, what are we going to do about that here in College Station, Texas, where just this past winter we had at least one stretch of thirty-six consecutive hours at or below freezing?

We’re going to do for our artichokes what we have been meaning to do for a couple of years now for our tomatoes:  we’re going to “hoop house” them.  A full-blown greenhouse would be too much, and between the chicken coop and our proposed new tool shed, we are pushing the limits of the city ordinances on permanent structures anyway.  Temporary coverings draped over a PVC frame, however, would be just the thing.

Assuming we can work out the logistics, we can probably even heat the interior of our artichoke frame with, say, Christmas lights, or maybe a heat lamp designed for chickens (delightful irony, given that we never use such a thing in the chicken coop, it never getting that cold in there).

And if it works well enough on the artichokes, it’s a dead certainty we’ll do the same thing with our tomatoes – which, after all, are also naturally perennial in their home habitats.  Provided they never encounter a frost, and they can manage to survive the heat of July and August, tomatoes can provide fruit for multiple years as well. 

Meanwhile, as a hedge to our betting against Mother Nature, we will not just be planting artichokes (much as we love them).  We will also be planting the hardier relative (and probably ancestor) of the artichoke we know and love.  Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is really just “an artichoke that doesn’t have the cool head/fruit”. 

Cardoon is native to drier portions of the Mediterranean, though notably it is an invasive species in the Pampas of Argentina, an area where, let’s face it, it requires a particularly tough and hardy character for a plant to survive.  In the culinary world, cardoon is a little more difficult to utilize, as only the stems are typically eaten, but if treated much like asparagus, the same artichokey flavor comes through.

And while technically perennial as well, it usually dies off after just one season when grown in more extreme climates than in its native Mediterranean home.  However, the advantage of cardoon is that it reseeds heavily when allowed to do so; the result is a more or less perennial patch – much like clover or alfalfa hayfields.

We are not yet ready to plant – we have, however, finished building three new raised beds, and will be doing all the soil treatment necessary for our new perennial food crops.  And next fall, we’ll be putting in the hoop frames.  New projects, same old story – lots and lots of energy investment upfront; if you want a project to “take care of itself”, you’ve got to put in all the effort up front.

We’ll keep you posted.

Happy farming!