Awful Gardener

Dear Caretakers,

First off let me tell you I don’t fully have a grasp on chill hours and if you’d like to correct me, I look forward to reading the comments.

I wanted to grow artichokes this year but the problem was that artichokes need so many chill hours/ frost time to germinate and blossom. Last year after missing the right time to plant I forced one to start developing in my fridge… which was great until I moved it outside and forgot about it during summer vacation.

This year I decided to try again with leftover seeds…. Bought a 20 gallon grow bag and planted them long before the last frost date in February and just let them be. Again successful germination and I got true leaves!!!

I started a daily watering in April when it started to get really warm and the rain was not as plentiful. Hitting a few 80 days I was surprised when the weather suddenly dropped. I first thought I was seeing mold on the leaves as I was watering but then the crystals washed away…. In the back of my head I was thinking this was awesome, more frost ment the likelihood of blossoms more likely!! This was going to be great for my giant globed artichokes…..

The next day and the days following you could see the damage of the frost bitten leaves! They all died except one. warming up the leaves to quickly cause black scorch marks that caused the baby plants to wither up and die apparently after a frost you should wait a day or two for your plants to warm up before water. Rip artichoke plants.