Waiting...

We've had artichoke plants in our garden for a number of years now. They grow as perennials here. Even though the harsh summer heat of August may make them die back to the ground, they'll sprout again as soon as the winter rains begin to replenish the thirsty soil. I've even seen artichokes growing wild on the hills around town, and they go through the same cycle that my own have done year after year.

It wasn't until I had artichokes plants of my own, that I discovered what an artichoke bloom looks like. If an artichoke isn't harvested to eat, it eventually blooms with a soft feathery center of electric blue. The bloom lasts a long time (several weeks in fact) before it turns white and downy so the seed can take flight in the wind.

Unfortunately, like many perennials, our artichoke plants got older and weren't producing the same quality produce as they had when we first planted them. I've waited and waited, putting off the day when I'd have to take them out. I let them bloom one last time this summer before I dug down into the dirt to pull out the massive roots to make way for a raised garden bed that I will be installing in that location.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll end up planting a new artichoke in that raised bed once I have it installed. Because for some reason, I find the prehistoric leaves framing the electric blue blossoms quite beautiful.
I've thought about the symbolism in an artichoke applied to life. Sometimes I think that I have to have something according to my own time line--a time line I've somehow figured out is the best timing for whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish. I have to "harvest" according to what I think the optimum time is to "harvest". But I've found that very often if I slow down a bit, apply some patience (very hard for me to do, by the way), and wait past when I think the "harvest" should be, I'm rewarded with a serendipitous outcome that is even more wonderful than I had envisioned when I was pushing for a self-imposed and self-constructed time line. Sure, I could have gotten a perfectly satisfactory result if I'd pushed for my original timing, just as a green artichoke freshly harvested is perfectly satisfactory. But the brilliance of the electric blue blossoms of life almost always require the patience to wait. And I've always found them to be worth the wait.

The Intrigue of Artichokes in the Harvest Basket

With records temperatures hovering at over 100 F (38 C), there isn't much I can do in the garden. The San Francisco Bay Area is under a health advisory because of the heat that is upon us. Even if I could stand working in the heat, it would be extremely unhealthy to do so right now.

I ventured out this afternoon despite the oppressive heat, to top off the pond with water so that all the critters that use it as a water source have a plentiful supply of cool water to drink. Since I had to wait for the water to finish, I decided to fill the harvest basket with this year's harvest of artichokes.

I don't know why I think artichokes are so visually intriguing. I wrote about them last summer in my post "The Beauty of Artichokes". With this year's harvest in my basket, I had to take the time to photograph them again and try to capture all the things that make them such a fascinating form to my artistic mind.

In the past, I have photographed the artichokes while still growing on their thick silvery blue-green stalks. I haven't ever harvested the artichokes all at once. Instead, I usually ask Hubby if he feels like having artichokes for dinner (he's the only one that likes them) and then I go out and harvest the biggest and nicest one or two. Usually, the artichokes are staggered in size because the start at different times and don't grow all at the same pace. But this year, they are all coming to their peak at the same time, coincidentally, right before we are going to see friends and family tomorrow that might also appreciate some artichokes.

That's why I had a full harvest basket of artichokes to photograph. And I'm so glad I did because I'm finding their forms even more intriguing en masse. I hope you all will agree. I think the way the light highlights and shadows the petals and layers of each artichoke is captivating. As I mentioned in my previous post about artichokes, who was the first person to discover that these odd looking blossoms were edible. That person must have been extremely hungry! To me, the artichoke looks more like a succulent cactus than a vegetable. But for artichoke lovers like my Hubby, they are a delicacy not to be missed.

Now the harvest is soaking in covered bowls of cold water in the kitchen sink. Since I'm an organic gardener, there are quite a few critters that hide in all those nooks and crannies of the intriguing artichokes--mostly earwigs and ants. After a good soak out of sight of Hubby (who gets a bit squeamish), this harvest will be ready to be steamed or given away to friends and family tomorrow. In the meantime, I can enjoy them in the way I love best--photographing them.

The Beauty of Artichokes

Why do I find artichokes so fascinatingly beautiful?

Is it their prehistoric quality that seems to come from a different time and place in the world's history?

The leaves are a beautiful green with a tinge of blue and silver. The jagged edges catch the light in amazing ways and cast such interesting shadows.

The buds seem so "prickly" and untouchable. Who was the first person to figure out that they were edible? Who was brave enough to try it first? Was he the brother of a kid named Mikey? "He won't eat it... he hates everything!"

When I cut off a thick stem to harvest an artichoke, it oozes a sticky clear liquid that was probably used as the first glue in some ancient kindergarten class to glue pictures of buffalo to the classroom walls.

If I leave the thick stems to dry naturally, they are so strong that I can't break them over my knee or cut them with my garden shears. Who knew that the strongest building material in the world was the artichoke stem? I wonder if Home Depot knows this.

Then that same mysterious edible bud with its thick waxy petals if left on the stem long enough becomes an electric display of soft purple-blue so soft to the touch I can't believe it came from this plant. The petals of the bud even change from a green to a soft faded aubergine color as if to be in harmony with the center that is such an explosion of electric blue my logical mind tells me the color just couldn't occur in nature. But it does.

Yet it still looks a slight bit untouchable.