Artie Choke

Last year I bought an artichoke plant in a 4-inch pot; this section of the garden also had 3 tomato plants, 2 tomatillo plants, and a Japanese eggplant. I harvested 2 tiny (and woody) artichokes and figured, oh well. Since my style of gardening is, "Leave it alone and see what it does; even if we don't want it there let's not rip it out until something else is ready to go in," we left this plant alone. No fertilizer. Very little water. And it grew and grew...and grew. Here's someone to give some context for just how large this artichoke plant is--and observe how very happy she is to be participating in the 0h-so-fun photo shoot: I went over to check it out for the first time in a while (even though it's 8 feet from my back door!!!), and lo and behold: Three artichokes!!! (Can you tell from the exclamation points that I'm very excited by this?!! I still get a thrill EVERY time a seed germinates or a rose blooms.) And a gratuitous close-up:
Just lovely, no? Fingers crossed that it tastes as good as it looks...