Artichauts

The artichokes are doing their thing: producing flower buds. In theory, these are edible. We tried once, but the chokes were small and tough and not really worth the effort. Since then, we let them flower and enjoy their color. The bees also like the artichoke flowers, so that's a good thing.

Artichokes, four for a euro. The biggest one is about the size of my fist.

Yesterday I mixed up a diluted solution of garden lime and watered the tomato plants with it to help prevent blossom-end rot when the fruit forms. I did this last year in mid-season when I was frustrated by the condition. Every tomato that formed in my garden was rotten on the end. I searched the internet for remedies and learned that the rot is caused, most likely, by a calcium deficiency in the soil.

You can find just about everything on the internet and the proposed remedies were varied (including grinding up antacid tablets and adding them to the soil). The common theme among the remedies was getting calcium carbonate into the soil. I found the lime at a local garden center and tried it. Almost immediately I noticed that new tomatoes weren't rotting (there's no remedy to fix an already rotting tomato) and I was encouraged. So now I've added the calcium solution at the beginning of the season in hopes that the rot will not happen at all this year. I'll keep you posted.