I am in a moist climate. I could understand that they might be better behaved in NMexico or Colorado. I have posted elsewhere that I have inadvertently produced bags and bags of them. More than half will be wasted. They need cold weather for storage, and things are heating up fast. If you put them in any soil, you will get tubers. The yield increases according to the quality of soil, sun, and water, of course. I got good results from grow bags filled with unfinished compost, chicken manure, sand, some wood ash, and well, sawdust and grass. Kind of mixed up.. Just... whatever... really. I got fair results from builder's sand with a cup of compost per plant. If you like watching things grow, they are great entertainment. They are good raw. Their texture is water chestnut or jicama-ish. Cooking is a little tricky. I recommend pressure cookers for use with them. Use them as you might rutabagas, or carrots?, or potatoes. Half and half mashed with potatoes is good. Curries with them are better than stews with them. Finding recipes is more difficult than growing them. In northern Asia, they are pickled, which seems to me to be a great thing to do with them. They would be awesome in a sweet pickle brine. The stalks they produce are also awesome. I have grown them to three meters. The stalks are about as hard as okra stalks. After you grow a stand of JA, you have enough supports for your spring peas, no problem. I have used them for kindling too.

I prefer a strategy using targeted applications, as such I have been sprinkling granular ferts in with seeds for years, works fine. I also do it when planting garlic cloves and bulbils, onion plants, and onion, multiplier onion, and shallot sets. The catch of course is not to overapply. I learned by experimentation and now I have a set amount figured per vegetable type per ten feet of row. When starting anew, on the first row I measure out ten feet and apply the set amount of fertilizer in that ten feet so that I can recalibrate myself, and I eyeball it from then on. My foolproof method has been to have the set amount of fertilizer for the length of row, sprinkle it in lightly on the first pass, and then use the remaining up on the way back. It all sounds complicated but it does not really take up much time or thought once you are used to doing it. The only time I overapplied and killed anything was when I was first learning how much to apply, and it has never happened since. That might be luck but I always prefer to err on the side of caution - always better to underapply than overapply. I also combine granular fert with compost and use that mix in the holes when planting seed potatoes and veggie starter plants. If you want to see wonderful improvements, it also works very well to hoe deep trenches (say four inches or so) then backfill with a granular fert/compost/soil mix to the proper seed planting depth, and then sow the seeds on top of that mix. Cover the seeds as usual with the existing soil. I think that this is a better, safer way to use granular ferts with seeds, but this method takes more effort. The advantage is that the mix is going exactly and only where it is needed. Do whatever you want, but I strongly urge folks not to rely solely on chemical ferts in their gardens - it is a shortcut that works in the short term, but you will pay for it eventually. Get that compost in the soil.

What I use is not completely composted but it is dry. It is a mix of manure and (straw, sawdust and wood chips). It comes from the barns and arenas at the fair They make a huge mountain of this stuff and start at the oldest end and turn it daily. When they fill my truck I can see steam coming from it. I get it in the early fall and top off my 16 inch high beds and let it sit until spring. I can see pieces of dry manure in it. My 1st year I added worms but they did not stay. I do not see any worms in the beds when I plant. But the plants love it. I do sow seeds directly in the beds for some vegetables and they grow. The compost tends to dissolve in water and leaves wood chips on top and that acts as a mulch which is a good thing. The wood breaks down slower. I use wooden tongue depressors to mark my rows and the part in the soil decompose in one season. I am happy with the results.

Glad to see new interest in globe artichokes. I posted a lengthy write-up about my own globe artichokes on here about two months ago. I still have the seven plants. The two in the ground seem to be receiving too much sun, even though I have them partially shaded with plastic lawn chairs and water them almost every day. They are starting to look like they are 'wishing they were in cooler weather' if you can picture that. The five that I have in large containers are still growing quite nicely because they are in diffused sunlight. I am still praying that they produce buds soon. An article I read in 'Mother Earth News' claims that if you vernalize the seed, in other words, refrigerate the seed for up to three weeks, it will force the plants to produce artichokes in as little as ninety days, even in very warm climates. Well, it hasn't worked for me in our very warm Florida climate. I planted the seeds in pots after vernalizing them for three or so weeks last October. That's a lot more than ninety days ago! I would like to post pics of my plants on this site and I hope someone can give me info on how to do it. Thanks! P.S. I had some success with artichokes producing about 7 years ago and figure if I did it once, I can do it again. My article and photo were posted in the local newspaper. Sheri