The artichoke harvest this year proved surprisingly good. Only four plants but close to a dozen artichokes. Well, there would have been if not for the Great Artichoke Flower Experiment. I let one of the plants go to flower just to see what it looks like, and what it looks like is a sci-fi powder puff of near-neon violet, a haze of crystalline tendrils so dense with pollen, they sparkle in the sun.

I really like the artichoke flowers but the bees love them. They dive in head-first and don't come out for hours, just bumble around in there, high as kites on whatever mysterious compounds artichokes emit. By the time a bee finally finishes, she's coated in white, barely able to fly, veering crazily through the sunflower stalks and dreaming of Dial-a-Ride.