The Quads

My neighbor has a compost heap that he maintains regularly, being far more eco-conscious than I am.  One of the side effects of tossing your produce scraps and fruit falls into rich soil is the occasional sprout.

Last year, he missed an artichoke and it bloomed, so he chucked the flower in with everything else.  As you can guess by now, many of the seeds sprouted.  He offered me a couple.  Since Junior died by getting smothered by a pumpkin, I accepted.

He came by with four pots of very hearty artichoke seedlings.  They almost look like second-year sprouts.  My thrill of getting one more for free turned into "where am I going to put these?".  Artichokes are a 5 to 8 year commitment.  You might as well be planting a tree.

One replaced Junior, because that's still the best place I have for an artichoke.  Another replaced Sunshine Blueberry, who I've finally admitted died a couple of months ago.  I need to find Misty a new friend.  Then I dug a couple of fresh holes, one in the back yard and one in the front.  We'll see if any of these take.  At least they were free.

One thing I forgot while taking them out of the pots was that compost has a lot of worms in it.  There was screaming, and I almost killed the first one getting it out of the pot.  Sheesh, I was wearing gloves.  After that, things went better, and maybe the worm transplant will do good things for the areas where I planted.

As for everything else, despite the pond filling a couple of inches deep during the massive rainstorm, everything seems to be thriving.  The watercress are about ready to start picking.  The basil has self-seeded once again, so I cut out anything that didn't seem to be coming back.  The only thing that isn't doing well is my indoor seed cups, which I started so they would be ready once the stuff outside bolted.  Can't win them all.