I’ve never been much of a gardener, but Stevie had gotten a plot in our local community garden and was having such fun—and success—with it that I decided to give it a shot, too. So I signed up for my little 3 x 20 foot plot and got to work. They say that in order to garden in the hot, dry Sonoran Desert, you must first forget everything you ever knew about gardening elsewhere. That was the easy part for me.

But I learned a lot; the master gardeners there were generous with their knowledge. It turns out that if you amend the soil properly, irrigate, and protect your tender, emerging seedlings from the voracious little rabbits and quail, you can actually produce quite a bumper crop. My garden was flourishing. Every time I went, I found my plants (most of them anyway) were thriving—often twice the size they were on a previous visit. I was particularly proud of my artichoke, which was producing even better than the fellow at the nursery said it would. Every week I was harvesting artichokes to take home and savor. My daughter and I even created quite an elaborate artichoke ritual, involving a heavenly lemony mayonnaise sauce and precise cuts to extricate the heart at the appropriate time. Many a satisfying summer dinner featured little more than artichokes…

But then, I went out of town for a couple of weeks. When I next visited the garden, I was distraught to discover that my beautiful artichokes had bloomed (who knew they even did that??) Bright purple “spikes” were jutting out of the tops; they were clearly inedible. [Read more...]