Chekhov's Garden and Vegetable Plot with Artichokes Recreated at Melikhovo

At Melikhovo, the Chekhov museum-reserve outside Moscow, the writer's garden and kitchen garden have been recreated. Anton Pavlovich adored farming, read horticultural and market-gardening journals and pamphlets without cease, and was proud of his agricultural achievements. In the kitchen garden right beneath the windows of Chekhov's study, which he called the French one, the artichoke is thriving: a crop rare in modern vegetable plots, but familiar to the pre-revolutionary Russian country estate. A member of the aster family, the artichoke looks much like the common thistle, in both its leaves and its lilac-blue flower heads. In the Melikhovo garden the artichokes have been planted where they grew in Chekhov's day, the planting plan having been restored from the recollections of his sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova. Yes, artichokes flourish not only in the Mediterranean but also in the Moscow region; one simply has to take some trouble. Where a single plant can bear fruit for 7 to 9 years, in our conditions the bushes must be covered for the winter. Even so, this year the artichokes at Melikhovo froze, so the new bushes will begin to fruit a month or two later